Pope Francis has put American conservatives on the spot because their political foundation is built upon traditional Christian values and capitalism. According to the pope, the two don't always mesh very well.
This has prompted the usual frothing among right-wing talking heads, some of whom have decided that Pope Francis is a Marxist.
The real problem, according to Rep. Paul Ryan, the House budget committee chairman and a conservative Catholic, is that the pope simply doesn't understand economics.
"The guy is from Argentina; they haven't had real capitalism in Argentina. They have crony capitalism in Argentina. They don't have a true free enterprise system," Mr. Ryan recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The pope is no Peronist nincompoop, however. He is informed not simply by Argentina's history, but by working for decades among the poor in slums within an arm's reach of opulence.
And while suggesting why the pope doesn't get it, Mr. Ryan has played a lead role in demonstrating how the pope does, indeed, get it. As he considered Pope Francis' worldview, Mr. Ryan orchestrated the budget deal that ended unemployment benefits for 1.3 million jobless Americans a few days after Christmas.
That policy is a fine example of the very contradiction cited by the pope, who simply is honest rather than a Marxist.