My Left-wing Cartoons and Francisco

Pope Francis died in the wee hours of Easter Monday after having greeted Vice President Shady Vance and the throngs who came to celebrate the Resurrection with him the previous morning. I didn't get invited to the funeral at the Vatican today, so instead, I've got a look back over his papacy for this week's Graphical History Tour.

March, 2013

I caught a little bit of flack for this initial response to Cardinal Bergoglio’s election to the papacy in 2013, but I thought it was a light, whimsical cartoon to celebrate Catholicism’s first Latin American Pope. Besides, I happened to be discovering the music of Astor Piazolla just then. 

for Q Syndicate, August, 2013

Taking his papal name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, Bergoglio quickly showed himself to be a very, very different pope than Benedict XVI. The archconservative B-16, breaking with longstanding tradition, had resigned the papacy rather than linger in the position while cruel age slowly robbed him of mind and body. (As critical as I was of Pope Benedict, I credit him with a selfless decision many aging politicians would have done well to emulate.)

for Q Syndicate, September, 2013

Conservative Catholics in America, who had weaponized their faith to impose their beliefs on pro-choice and LGBTQ+ fellow citizens, came to be extremely disappointed in the new pontiff... 

for Q Syndicate January, 2014

...and eagerly searched for another.

Here I suggested that Minnesota Archbishop John Nienstedt, Catholic League professional umbrage taker Bill Donahue, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, anti-marriage troublemaker Maggie Gallagher, and Senator Rick Santorum would be happy to invest Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson with the scepter of St. Peter.

for Q Syndicate, October, 2015

Rowan County Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, who worked her refusal to issue to issue same-sex couples marriage licenses into national fame, subsequently boasted of having a private audience with the Pope. It eventually came to light that her private audience was shared with dozens of other Vatican visitors, and was private only in the sense that she hadn't brought the right-wing media along.

for Q Syndicate, October, 2020

Pope Francis gave his blessing to "civil unions" rather than marriage equality for same-sex couples in the fall of 2020 (although some conservative Catholics disputed the translation in English-speaking media of the papal Latin "convivenia civil"). A majority of the Catholic majority on the McConnell Supreme Court have been itching to overturn the 2014 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling favoring marriage equality in this country.

for Q Syndicate, March, 2021

Franciscan liberality notwithstanding, Catholic orthodoxy continues to condemn homosexuality as "intrinsically disordered."

As with the Anglican, Methodist, fundamentalist, and other denominations, antigay animus is especially dominant among Catholic clergy in much of Africa. Pope Francis's dialogue in this next cartoon is a direct quote, somewhat edited between panels two and three:

February, 2024

Ninety bishops and cardinals published a letter strenuously objecting to that papal pronouncement. They will be speaking up loudly as their conclave meets to elect a successor to this modern-day Pope. 

Don't be surprised to see someone more in the mold of Benedict XVI... if not Innocent IV.

✍

When I scour newspapers and magazines from 100 years ago for these Graphical History Tours, I never come across Pope Pius XI in U.S. editorial cartoons. I suppose that Protestant cartoonists didn't pay much attention to what Pius XI had to say about anything, and any Catholic cartoonists never presumed to differ with him. He did issue encyclicals criticizing capitalistic greed and warning against socialism and communism.

After initially supporting fascism in his native Italy and in Germany, Pius XI would issue an encyclical in 1937, smuggled in to Nazi Germany, lashing out against violations of a concordat between the Nazi state and the Holy See. In Mit brennender Sorge, Pius condemned "pantheistic confusion," "neopaganism," and "the so-called myth of race and blood," which he called a form of idolatry.

I bring that up in regard to modern-day cartoonists such as Michael Ramirez, who apparently believe that papal pronouncements on current politics are something new with Pope Francis.

"You'll Have to Leave That Behind" by Michael Ramirez for Las Vegas Review Journal, April 21, 2025

Pius XI never stood up to Benito Mussolini, although he was scheduled to deliver an address on February 11, 1939 in which he was expected to denounce il Duce's laws aping Nazi Arianism. The Pope died on February 10, however, and Mussolini tried to have all 300 copies of the address destroyed.

Under the next Pope, Pius XII, the Roman Catholic Church turned a blind eye to the atrocities of Mussolini and Hitler. 

Today's Republican Party and its Amen Corner cartoonists, teledemagogues, and duck dynasts would most certainly have approved.

Q Toon: Through the Eye of the Needle

I take a risk any time I draw a cartoon like this one on the weekend before a presidential primary or caucus, knowing it won't be published until after the votes are counted and their entrails analyzed beyond recognition.

It's too bad I didn't draw it a week earlier. I have been at a loss to understand the fulsome praise heaped upon Donald "Two Corinthians" Trump by Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr. (I didn't realize they had a history together.). Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas has also come as close as he can get to officially endorsing Trump without risking his megachurch's tax-exempt status (and I guess those two have no history together to explain what Jeffress sees in The Donald). An NBC News/Survey Monkey poll taken before the Iowa caucuses led one to believe that evangelicals were "flocking to Trump."

Among white evangelical Republican voters nationally, Trump earned the support of 37 percent, while Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose father is a pastor and has played a key role in recruiting faith leaders to support his son, is at 20 percent. In the same survey conducted the previous week, Cruz registered 9 percentage points higher. Below the top two contenders, Ben Carson earned 11 percent among evangelicals, and Marco Rubio took 10 percent.

What do these people who think President Obama is the Antichrist see in the guy often described as a thrice-married casino mogul? It can't be his powers of insightful exegesis:

Trump was raised Presbyterian and has often fumbled in his attempts to appeal to Christian and Evangelical voters. He declined to discuss his favorite Bible verse in August, after claiming the Bible was his all-time favorite book. He later tried to recite a verse that didn't actually occur in the Bible. He has also said he never asks God for forgiveness, and when asked which book of the Bible was his favorite, he said he likes the Old and New Testament equally.

On the other hand, they probably appreciated his promise to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn the current Court's rulings for marriage equality. The Muslim-bashing didn't hurt his standing with them, either.

But the evangelicals could get that stuff from nearly every one of the candidates in the Republican party. They bought it from Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum before -- two Iowa caucus victors who are now stranded in the wilderness wondering how they let some Richie Rich from Noo Yoark Sitty swipe their schtick.

Q Toon: Running on Empty

My cartoons, although posted on Thursdays, are drawn on Sunday, so mine is one of only two or three cartoons on the AAEC site today that are not about the assassinations at Charlie Hebdo.

The word cloud on the AAEC site this morning

So, soldiering bravely on:

Q Syndicate✒Jan 8, 2015

I've already explained in This Week's Sneak Peek the difficulty in determining what to draw about when all the newspapers, web sites and blogs I scour for inspiration are reminiscing about the year that is Old News. This time, I leaped right over the New Year and into the next one.

But with an awful lot of Old Baggage.

Q Toon: Regnum Anatium

One could argue that highlighting Duck Dynast Phil Robertson's antigay comments in GQ Magazine only serves the purposes of Sarah Palin, talk radio, and all the Foxsters out there complaining that A&E is trampling his right of free speech. Not that they ever came to the defense of free speech rights for, say, Martin Bashir, Alec Baldwin, or Keith Olberman.

His opinions regarding African-Americans are the more ridiculous and worthy of censure. But I draw for the LGBT media through Q Syndicate, so I'm afraid I must leave to others his claim that Blacks were happier before civil rights and antipoverty programs ("No one was singing the blues"). I would, however, like to assuage Mr. Robertson's fears that anatomy poses an insurmountable difficulty to gays' and lesbians' ability to have and to enjoy sex. We really are not bothered by it anywhere near as much as he is.

Meanwhile, this Greek chorus of conservative American Catholics makes its second appearance in my cartoons this week. (Here's their first appearance, in September.)

Q Toon: Small Minds Rule!

This cartoon could have been one big mess of labels.

I had initially thought that the reporter talking to Pope Francis (I shouldn't need to label him, should I?) ought to have the name of the magazine in which the "small-minded rules" interview appeared. But the magazine's name is American, and having that as the label would be confusing in its own way.

But how to label the cabal in the larger panel of the cartoon? "American Catholic Conservatives"? Admittedly, I have enough room in the panel's pan-handle for that, but it's awfully clunky. It would be clunkier still to label them each individually, although I really can't expect any reader to be able to identify all of them. Two of them have never appeared in my cartoons before.

Here are the answers to the American Catholic Conservative Quiz.

From left to right: Minnesota Archbishop John Nienstedt. Nienstedt has required Catholic students in his diocese to attend lectures expounding the evils of marriage equality, has issued orders to priests that if they disagree with his antigay stands they should shut the hell up about it, and has declared that condoms are the work of the devil.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Is there any need to explain his virulent antigay streak?

House Speaker John Boehner. He "can't imagine" ever supporting gay marriage. And then there's the allegation by former Congressman Bob Ney that on an overseas junket, Boehner said of a staffer, "Yeah, he's a good guy. I think he's a fag." I needed a Catholic politician currently in office (other than Scalia), and Boehner seemed like the most recognizable of the lot -- enough so that I could put him in the back of the crowd.

Former Senator, 2012 presidential candidate, and frothy mixture Rick Santorum, who famously equated same-sex marriage with "man-on-dog" bestiality.

National Organization for Marriage harridan Maggie Gallagher. I've drawn her often enough now that my caricature of her is actually my caricature of my caricature of her. If she hasn't been in your state lately to man the battlements against marriage equality, her face might not be familiar to you; I've been criticized before for not identifying her.

Catholic League blowhard Bill Donohue. This is my first try at his face, which should be familiar to prime-time cable crosstalk-fests and South Park devotées. Whenever anyone slights the Catholic Church in any way, no matter how justified the slight may be, Bill Donohue is on TV quicker than Gloria Allred to defend its integrity to the death.

Statehood for Puerto Rico

The other day, Rick Santorum told an interviewer for Puerto Rico's El Vocero that their commonwealth would be welcome as the 51st state -- as long as they made English their official language. He later tried to backtrack the remark by claiming that he was just stating what's in federal law -- except that, despite Republicans' best efforts, it isn't federal law. At least not yet. And English -- along with Spanish -- is already an official language on the island.

This reminded me of a cartoon I drew back in 1998 when the topic of Puerto Rican statehood conditional upon their forsaking their native tongue came up. Now, a lot of cartoonists would have simply redrawn the old idea with Rick Santorum in it.

But I'm even lazier. I'm just posting the old cartoon.

Q Toon: Stocks Make a Comeback

This week's cartoon would have had more oomph if Rick Santorum hadn't managed to fritter away his lead in the Michigan polls with a lousy debate performance and those truly goofy remarks about President Kennedy and the snobbishness of a college education. And then there was his open appeal for Democratic crossover votes; with all the talk in the media about how Romney needed a convincing win in Michigan or it would show how weak his candidacy is, I wonder why I never heard anything about how anything less than an overwhelming Santorum win there would mean that he had only won due to crossover mischief.

You do have to wonder why Santorum thought that criticizing JFK was a good idea. That kind of talk just might sell in the Bible Belt -- maybe -- but a lot of Catholic voters up north still revere the assassinated president. Even if they're rock-ribbed pro-life Republicans today. And saying that college education is for snobs? Even voters who haven't been to college themselves are likely to aspire to sending their children there.

Well, anyway, here's a cartoon about returning America to the 1650's, when everybody lived according to Christian morals whether they liked it or not, and folks didn't send their kids to snobby colleges, and JFK couldn't have been elected president. But I think the guy in the stocks on the right might have a difference of opinion about the 1950's not having been so bad.

Whither Steven Colbert?

Like many Comedy Central viewers and the folks who lined up to see last night's Colbert Report, I was surprised to find Wednesday night's episode cancelled. Comedy Central and Viacom are not saying why Stephen Colbert has been indefinitely suspended, but the fact that Tuesday night's episode is not available on the Comedy Central web site indicates to me that it's an issue of something he said or did on that show, rather than some personal or health issue.

The prime suspect would have to be the segment titled "Contraceptive Crusade," satirizing the dispute between the Obama administration on one side and the Catholic Church and Republicans opposed to "Obamacare" on the other.

Colbert described the Catholic church's stand on sex as being strictly for procreation, involving the sperm from a male husband, the egg from a female wife, and a soul from God in a  "divine and ineffably beautiful three-way." In a joke that somehow got past CBS censors, Colbert further explained Catholic teaching that contraception of any kind is anathema, because, "when you use contraception, you are not only sinning, you're cock-blocking the Almighty!"

Continuing, if you didn't get the joke that Rick Santorum's opinion that the administration's contraceptive insurance mandate puts our rights on a slippery "or lubricated" slope, well you haven't googled the ex-Senator in a long time. But you couldn't have possibly missed the phallic imagery of Colbert sliding a condom over a banana, then standing behind it as, at crotch height, he cut it in half with a miniature guillotine.

Rick "Dastardly" Santorum

Earlier this week, I mentioned that after having inked Rick Santorum riding his dog in this week's Q Syndicate cartoon, it hit me that I could have cast them as Dick Dastardly and Muttley.

Returning to that thought:

With apologies to Messrs. Hanna and Barbera.

Q Toon: Santorum Out of the Gate

Just in time for contrary results out of New Hampshire, here's this week's cartoon for Q Syndicate:

After having already inked Mr. Santorum and his dog, it occurred to me that I could have drawn them as Dick Dastardly and Muttley from the Wacky Races, a Saturday morning cartoon from the 1970s. I wonder if anyone would have recognized them. (As it is, I'm hoping the caricature of Santorum is recognizable enough, since I opted not to label him.)

This Week's Sneak Peek

Last week's cartoon was about Ron Paul, who was surging in the Iowa polls when I drew it. Then Rick Santorum essentially tied for first in the Iowa caucuses

Drawing this week's cartoon about Rick Santorum when he's not particularly likely to repeat that performance in New Hampshire tomorrow may have been kind of foolish. But on the other hand, why save this cartoon for later when the history of polling this year suggests that second place is followed very quickly by oblivion?

Q Toon: The Ron Paul Report

Oh, Iowa! You send Ron Paul to the top of the Anti-Romney heap in the week before your caucuses (cauci?), so I go to work to churn out this cartoon about Ron Paul and his lovely little newsletters, cramping my hand creating all the teeny tiny type, and what do you do? At the last minute, you decide to make Rick Santorum the story, after stubbornly ignoring him for an entire year!

How do you expect anybody to pay any attention to you in the future if you can't be serious about the selection of a presidential candidate? 

The rest of us (well, outside of New Hampshire) don't get to meet candidates strolling into our breakfast nooks and hardware stores. If we see them at all, it's from the back of a crowd, catching Mr./Mrs. I Want Your Vote as he/she sweeps through the state on the way to some other state a thousand miles away -- that is, if we feel like standing around in the cold starting at 6:00 a.m. for a campaign visit that is scheduled for 11:30 but that includes an hour and a half of pep talk from local politicos and activists and a couple of pastors before the Candidate actually strolls onto the stage.

At least we think that's him/her. It could be that comedian from Saturday Night Live. The Candidate's plane is snowed in at Buffalo. Or Boise.

And if we're not able to lose a whole day at work for the stump speech the press corps can recite in its sleep, what are we left to do to decide who ought to lead the free world? 

We can always Google the guy. 

Oh, Iowa...

This Week's Cartoon: Rick S_nt_r_m

Hmmm... if you google "Frothy Mix," is the first link the official web site of Rick Santorum?

Santorum, in case you didn't know it had anything to do with a real person, is the former Senator and soon-to-be former presidential candidate from Pennsylvania, famous for equating marriage rights with man-on-dog sex.

And while you're googling, look up schadenfreude.

This Week's Sneak Peek

All the other editorial cartoonists are going to draw stuff about the debt ceiling this week. (Although some of them will draw about the federal deficit as if it were the same thing.) I'm taking on a totally different subject, however. Would it be going out on a limb and suggesting the possibility that Rick Santorum is not going to be the next president of the United States?

Q Toon: GOP Line-up

Unless the Republicans end up going for Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, or Rick Santorum, this could well be my first cartoon about next year's GOP nominee for President.

Santorum, for anyone struggling to figure out who is who in the cartoon, is the one barely in the frame. When I draw smut, I try to be tasteful about it.