It was easy to miss amid all of the political braying that is October in an election year, but the Catholic Church did something seismic today.

It acknowledged reality.

Forgive the misquote, but I’m pretty sure this is on the scale of the loaves and fishes. Because it was a hard reality for the religious: Gay people exist. And God’s cool with it.

Pope Francis, who is becoming Catholics’ Rebel Without a Pause, broke the news Wednesday to those whose faith mandates bigotry.

“Homosexuals have a right to be part of the family,” the pontiff said in Francesco, a documentary about his life. “They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.

“What we have to create is a civil union law,” he added. “That way, they are legally covered.”

First off: Hell yeah! The pope granted an interview? To a documentary film crew?? All Fran needs now are a pack of smokes, some Chuck Taylors and a skateboard, and I’m converting.

The comment also underscored an inescapable truth that’s perhaps just as uncomfortable for the religious and conservative: History always drifts to the political left. It can’t help it.

Take any U.S. political or societal issue over the decades: women’s rights, minority rights, gay rights, animal rights, guns, weed, porn, language, ad nauseum; we are more liberal on that issue than we were a generation ago. I cannot find an exception.

You can’t unlearn enlightenment. You can only choose to ignore it.

Which is what The Catholic Times has apparently done. After learning of Pope Kickass’ comments, I checked out the popular publication, dedicated to Roman Catholics worldwide, to see their take it all.

I discovered that the CT is a weekly newspaper, so I could forgive it not having a piece on Francis’ bombshell. But I found something more disturbing. This picture and promotion:

Surely, I thought, this was simply click bait. The headline “Is it sinful to vote for Joe Biden?” had to be an editorial ruse.

But no: this from Paprocki’s column, which pointedly cites the Biden-Harris pro-choice stance: “In order to justify voting for a proponent of abortion, one would need a proportionately grave reason that outweighs the killing of 860,000 babies per year.”

He continued: “Note also that I am not saying that you must vote to re-elect President Donald Trump.”

Uh, yeah you are. This is the sort of semantic soft shoe that allows religion to skirt modern-age questions with Iron Age answers. Instead of telling readers to come up with a reason “proportionately grave” to the killing of 860,000 babies, how about just being honest with people? Your religion mandates that abortion is an atrocity, and your political interests must align with Republicans, even if it means Trump. We can at least be honest on that level, can’t we?

Interesting, too, that he did not bother to ask what seems a basic Catholic question — or implore his readers to ask it themselves: Which candidate is the better Christian?

But I’m not a theist, so what do I know? So we’ll turn it over to someone who is. Bruce Morrill, the Chair in Roman Catholic Studies at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University, said Wednesday’s papal wokeness is “not surprising coming from Pope Francis because of the trail of individual statements he has made here and there over his papacy.”

Morrill, a Jesuit priest, added that one of Francis’ characteristics was “that he likes to speak and act on the principle of mercy.”

Amen.