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Every cable news station now looks like the Christian Broadcasting Network. And every talking head has now seemingly converted to Catholicism.
To be honest I am completely Poped out.
However I did find this portion interesting during his remarks at the White House earlier today:
Mr. President, I find it encouraging that you are proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution. Accepting the urgency, it seems clear to me also that climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to a future generation. When it comes to the care of our “common home”, we are living at a critical moment of history. We still have time to make the changes needed to bring about “a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change” (Laudato Si’, 13). Such change demands on our part a serious and responsible recognition not only of the kind of world we may be leaving to our children, but also to the millions of people living under a system which has overlooked them. Our common home has been part of this group of the excluded which cries out to heaven and which today powerfully strikes our homes, our cities and our societies. To use a telling phrase of the Reverend Martin Luther King, we can say that we have defaulted on a promissory note and now is the time to honor it.
Now that is really wonderful, not only did Pope Francis discuss the most important challenge of our time, climate change, but he also commended President Obama for working to resolve the problem.
That is really wonderful and should make both Catholics and everyday Americans feel great about their Pope and their President.
Yeah right!
Here is how Fox News host Stuart Varney responded to the speech:
“I’ve got to repeat, I was shocked at how much time the pope spent on climate change! And how he walked right into the politics of climate change!”
“We have just sat though the president of the United States greeting Pope Francis to the White House and then the pope then launched into a 15 minute speech, in which it was largely about climate change and how we’ve all got to get on board with efforts to combat climate change,” Varney continued. “I think he stepped right into policy… I’m astonished by this!”
“This is pure politics, that’s what it is,” Varney insisted. “You raise the price of energy, what does that do to poor people in Africa, parts of Asia, Latin America, it impoverishes them. And the pope is now advocating precisely those policies.
“Where’s the statement about saving my soul?” he asked. “The holy father is in the United States of America, a minister to my soul, the soul of all Catholics, all Christians. Come on!”
Well good luck getting into heaven with THAT attitude.
Varney is far from the only conservative who is rending his garments over this visit.
Mike Huckabee is not expressing so much anger at the Pope as he is angry with the President for his “classless decision to transform Pope Francis’ visit to the White House into a politicized cattle call for gay and pro-abortion activists.”
Other Republican presidential candidates are also irritated at the Pope for his "divisive" message.(Meaning one that too closely resembles the one attributed to that carpenter from Galilee.)
Yeah like I said I am pretty done paying too much attention to the Pope's visit at this point, but I do have to say that just the fact that he freaks the conservatives out this much makes him probably one of my favorite Pope's thus far.
Though to be honest that's a pretty short list.