Pope Francis said Roman Catholics in the United States should shun polarization.
“Polarization is not Catholic,” Francis said. “A Catholic cannot think either-or and reduce everything to polarization. The essence of what is Catholic is both-and,” he said.
He warned that the involvement of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in politics risks “diminishing the authority” of local bishops, whose job he said is pastoral.
The spiritual leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, who turns 86 next month, made his comments in an exclusive interview in America magazine, a Jesuit publication based in New York City.