Tucker Carlson has long railed against credit card interest rates, repeatedly invoking historical prohibitions on usury as reason to ban current lending practices. When he proposed to his latest podcast guest that the proper punishment for contemporary creditors is “prison,” he probably didn’t expect pushback from a Catholic bishop.

Though Carlson was right that the church historically banned loaning at interest in accordance with the great Greek philosophers, Bishop Robert Barron — America’s “most watched bishop,” according to the Atlantic — explained that the past was not prologue.

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“The transition that took place was once we kind of understand the dynamics of a market economy better, what [usury] tends to mean now is loaning at exorbitant interest or loaning in a way that’s deeply abusive toward others,” Barron said. “It doesn’t mean that in itself, it’s intrinsically evil.”

It’s hard to tell which faction is more mad at the bishop: the “Trad Caths” of X who are incensed over Barron’s impassioned defense of entrepreneurship “that allows even for a profit motive,” or the Catholic leftists who are livid that Barron doesn’t share their “Trump derangement syndrome.”

Just last year, the National Catholic Reporter called Barron “the Catholic bully” for allegedly requesting that his name be removed from a political axis aligned with President Donald Trump in an op-ed. Now, NCR is raving mad over Barron being, well, insufficiently distant to the president.

When the president appointed Barron to the interfaith Religious Liberty Commission, NCR accused Barron of “negligence.”

“While embracing the presidency of Trump, Barron has thus far said nothing on his vast and powerful Word on Fire media empire (nearly 2 million followers on YouTube) to address this administration’s wanton disregard for nearly every principle of Catholic social teaching,” wrote John Grosso at NCR. “Deportation of migrants? Crickets. Cuts to Medicaid and food security? File not found 404. Gutting of health care research? Cntrl alt delete.”

Here’s the thing about a 2,000-year-old faith guided by a text that was started at least 3,000 years ago: Christian social teaching does not fulfill your contemporary political interest. And as Barron has explained, it outright opposes socialism.

The Biden administration, when it wasn’t cracking down on overall religious liberty on college campuses and within its own government, tried to co-opt Christianity in the form of the federal government’s financial takeover of Catholic Charities to import millions of migrants, including illegal immigrants, into the country. NCR didn’t just smear congressional critics of Catholic Charities on the border, including Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), as a “right-wing Catholic fringe.” NCR’s repeated editorial position was that any obstruction to a fully open border, from former Vice President Kamala Harris’s mealy-mouthed warning that migrants “not come” to former President Joe Biden’s belated expansion of Title 42, was an assault on Catholicism itself.

Sure, Catholic leftists can cherry-pick from Exodus or pretend that the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats was about 10 million illegal immigrants who traversed thousands of miles across multiple countries to catch a bus to Manhattan. But what about Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, the Venezuelans who illegally crossed Biden’s open border last year and then allegedly raped and murdered a 12-year old girl? Jesus also declares it better that someone is dragged and drowned to death in the sea rather than hurt a child.

And what about Laken Riley? Both the New Testament and the Old Testament are very clear about murder! And the Apostle Paul is very clear that though a leader on Earth is still subservient to God, rulers on Earth should be a terror to evil.

Yes, Christian social teaching, both inside and outside of Catholicism, stands clearly against tyranny and firmly in favor of the Christian’s individual obligation to charity. Jesus seemed to encourage entrepreneurship and return on capital (see the Parable of the Talents) but frowned at exploitative business. The church wants us to give to the less fortunate without inviting unvetted rapists and murderers to prey on our most defenseless neighbors. But if you want to compare a progressive value-added tax to a flat income tax or contrast the virtues of carbon pricing with cap-and-trade, you’re looking in the wrong place.

BISHOP ROBERT BARRON ON THE GROWING SECULAR LEFTIST THREAT

The fact that Barron is rejecting the reflexive partisanship du jour is precisely why his interview with Carlson is going viral. And frankly, Christians across the denomination ought to celebrate it. Even the Deist Founding Fathers understood a religious populace to be a virtuous one and that a virtuous people were necessary to maintain a free society. The traditional Catholics and the Catholic leftists trying to contort Christianity to fulfill their political persuasions won’t just fail in their own interests — they’re obstructing the church’s ability to evangelize to those who need to find the good news the most.

Our heavily regulated credit cards are probably fine in the eyes of the Lord, and I would be surprised if Christ condemns enforcing a sovereign border and deporting the illegal immigrants convicted of a violent crime. But those who are adamant that they’re right really require God’s greatest gift of all: grace.