Pope Francis — first of his name; ruler of guys who still wear gold chains and most of anywhere soccer is called “football;” defender of faith-based incense — just wrapped up a very successful tour of the U.S.

The Holy See went and holy saw Washington, D.C., New York City and even slummed it up (for only an afternoon) in Philadelphia. And everywhere he went, he urged us to be the kind of people we like to think we are: to take care of the poor and maybe stop arming so many dillholes. He even convinced House Speaker John Boehner to quit his job and spend more time at home with his bronzer.

All-in-all, U.S. liberals got to sleep easy knowing that the foreign leader of a faith that mostly doesn’t apply to us is one of us. Hey, we might even start going to church again!

Fortunately for all parties, Pope Frank gave us all an easy out by visiting current liberal boogey-person (because “boogeyman” is cis-clusionary), Kim Davis. 

The Pope’s visit to Kim Davis is instructive in a number of ways about politics and religion in the U.S., and why mixing the two — as we’ve always done — means that we can’t rationally practice either.

The left lost its collective mind trying to reconcile their impression of a liberal pope that goes after unrestrained capitalism but also doesn’t tow the party line on gay marriage and following orders they agree with. Maybe he went to scold her? Maybe this was all a misunderstanding?

What we can’t seem to admit is that, maybe, he’s a lifelong member and now leader of a church that doesn’t believe in gay marriage, but also does a lot for the poor.

We politicize everything

The national pastime might have once been baseball, but the national sport of the United States is and always has been politics. We politicize everything, from which brand of fried chicken best represents our ethical interests (if not our nutritional interests) to which color hats we wear to Nationals games. We even politicize things that aren’t American, like brown mustard and the source of our current confusion, Pope Francis.

So, it might come as a shock to people entrenched in U.S. politics that what’s considered liberal and conservative in other countries might not exactly align with our current battle lines. For instance, in the U.K., the conservative side of the spectrum probably more closely looks like what we consider mainstream Democratic, while their liberal side is the roving gang of socialist zombies that Fox News warns us about in this country.

Then there’s the extra rub of politicizing a religious figure. Liberals hate it when conservatives (selectively) quote the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because, hey, he’s our guy! Meanwhile, the left celebrates Bishop Desmond Tutu, who probably has some beliefs about homosexuality that would curl our eyebrows. Both sides claim Mother Teresa, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and others as their inspiration for completely rival political systems.

But, there are only, like, three major religions in the world for everybody (sorry, Zoroastrians), so obviously there’s gonna be some political overlap in each one. Yes, Catholics want to ban the death penalty (liberal), but they also want to stop abortion (conservative). And just because this pope recognizes LGBT people as human beings and not human firewood (… liberal?) doesn’t mean he’ll conduct or approve of letting them marry each other (conservative).

So, yes, Pope Francis can support a lot of liberal causes and people while also supporting people like Kim Davis. This shouldn’t be a problem for liberals or conservatives, except …

We all submit each other to political purity tests

The Internet is a minefield of opinions, and every opinion you express publicly allows others to judge it and you. Vegans judge vegetarians; vegetarians judge lacto-, ovo-, and pescatarians; those bug-eaters judge meat-eaters and everyone judges Guy Fieri.

Conservatives are famous for submitting their candidates to taking purity tests and oaths, swearing to never vote to raise taxes or for gun control. And when somebody in their sphere takes a contrary opinion, they’re labelled RINOs, Republicans in Name Only, until they make amends or disappear.

Liberals in this country don’t have oaths for Democratic candidates. We just boycott anyone who fails to meet each of our own particular set of political standards. We support someone until we find out they don’t agree with us on one of our many pet causes. And then we lobby to get them off the air until they apologize for offending us (for instance, #bancolbert).

It’s worth noting that this is partly why Democrats have such low voter turnout. Each of our personal standards for candidates are so high that most of us never show up to the polls or throw away votes on the one third party candidate who happens to be in favor of every single one of our peccadilloes.

That’s a purity test. And Pope Francis, who almost got us to go back to church (but, ha, not really) just failed it. And thank god he did, because …

We’re the worst at religion, anyway

Can you imagine if all the fair-weather Catholics started going back to church? Priests could never deal with the kind of baggage we’d all bring to confession. And they’re already having enough trouble as it is dealing with charismatic faith practitioners taking over. For the uninitiated, those are the people who roll in the aisles and speak in tongues every time the holy spirit enters them. That’s mostly an American thing.

Nearly every religion that is distinctly American is distinctly weird. Scientology, Mormonism, Pentecostalism, the prosperity gospel branch of the Baptists and even Pastafarianism — which isn’t an actual religion, but manages the same amount of smug judginess — they’re all based on some quirkier corner of the American Dream quilt, be it the desire for fame, fortune, multiple wives, looking like a badass or being Richard Dawkins’ girlfriend.

We created new religions and adapted others to more closely match our priorities. Much like we politicized the Pope, we also politicized our faith to wield it as a righteous weapon when we can’t agree and to bring out the vote when we’re behind at the polls.

So, perhaps we should give Pope Frank a break. We’re not exactly in the position to throw the first stone, no matter how much we hate Kim Davis right now.