I love Pope Francis as much as the next nice Jewish girl. But I get frustrated when people who identify as cultural or secular Jews praise Pope Francis's every ambiguous, possibly-poorly-translated offhand comment to the heavens. I get frustrated when progressives with roots in Judaism spend more time litigating whether attention to poverty is a "Christian value" as important as preserving the 20th-century family than they do considering whether they really want progressive "Christian values," or something else.
I get frustrated when people label the parts of religion they find ill-fitting or antiquated as "religion," and the parts of religion they're comfortable with — the economic moralizing or commitment to family — as "values." I get frustrated when people think of Judaism only as what's in the mental attic, rather than what's in their hearts.
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