Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to step down triggered a plethora of commentary by liberal media types who proceeded to lecture the Catholic Church about the need, you know, to get with the modern world and stop all that fussing about abortion, contraception and women priests. As they do with Supreme Court judges, the liberal punditocracy treats the pope as a political entity in which the goal is to encourage support for an agenda that corresponds with its own.

So we hear that the next pope has to get with the modern world. This, of course, doesn’t mean giving up opposition to the death penalty, rethinking concepts of social justice or stop being such sticklers about just wars. No, no keep all that. It is time to stop being reactionary about women and married priests, abortion and conception. Change all that and become models of progressive thought like liberal pundits!