Pope Francis's Economics: Indeed, He Swings Left

When Cardinal Bergoglio was first chosen as Pope, my immediate reaction was that, although he would probably not tamper with the Church’s views on sexual issues, he would likely move it to the left in terms of economic rhetoric. I based that to some small degree on his choice of name: Saint Francis is something of a favorite of progressives in the Church due to his vow of poverty and his love of animals. But even more important to me was the intellectual milieu out of which he came: Argentine populism, and his own public statements as a cardinal in support of those themes.