by John Kirkwood
From guns to climate change, to yakking it up with Castro, to lecturing congress about open borders and wealth redistribution, Pope Francis doesn’t seem interested in leading the Catholic Church as much he does fronting as a Community Organizer for ACORN.
At one of the most critical periods in the modern geo-political hegemony, this Pope doesn’t miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity to speak on behalf of God, Christ, the Bible, and Christians. Instead, Francis sides with Gaia worshipers on climate change, Nimrod on borders, Hamas and Hezbollah on the Palestinian State, the Mullah’s and Obama on a Nuclear Iran, and Michael Moore on the right to keep and bear arms.
In June of this year, Pope Francis attacked weapons manufacturers: “It makes me think of … people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit a distrust, doesn’t it?” Speaking to thousands of teens in Turin, he went on to say that even those that invest in companies that manufacture weapons are unfaithful – “duplicity is the currency of today … they say one thing and do another.”
Ironically, in the same speech, the puzzled pontiff lauded the righteous use of violence when speaking of the “tragedy of the Shoah” – “The great powers had the pictures of the railway lines that brought the trains to the concentration camps like Auschwitz to kill Jews, Christians, homosexuals, everybody. Why didn’t they bomb (the railway lines)?”
Well, I only have a public school education but I’m pretty sure that the bombs the allies should have used to bomb the railroads would have at some point been manufactured by weapons manufacturers that may or may not have utilized investors who may or may not have been Christians and possibly even Catholics.
Pope Francis went on to discuss “the great tragedy of Armenia,” the massacre of nearly a million and a half Armenian Christians from 1915-1917. Although, he was careful not to mention who did the massacring, (apparently like our president, the pope has an aversion to mentioning radical Muslims) Turkey recalled their ambassador to the Vatican anyway.
Now, just a thought, don’t you think the Armenians, the Jews, the Cambodians, and the Tutsis would have been in a better position to prevent their own genocide if they had the means to protect themselves? You know, beyond a mere machete? As Uncle Ted would say, “It’s so stupid, even a guitar player can understand it.” Sorry, friends, pacifism is not a Christian virtue. As a matter of fact, it’s contrary to both faith and reason, but then again, I’m not speaking from the chair.
“I remember the good ole’ days when we had an American president and a Catholic pope,” wrote journalist William J. Kelly in a caption of a picture of himself meeting Pope John Paul II. And it’s true, what a contrast Barack Obama and Pope Francis make with Ronald Reagan and John Paul II.
To be fair, Kelly isn’t the only devout Catholic with reservations about this Pope. I’ve seen many thoughtful and respectful dissensions made by others. The Reverend Robert Sirico and the Acton Institute have been “correcting” Pope Francis in his misunderstanding of the Free Market and climate change for months, and the Catholic organization TFP: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property have shared again their wonderful work, What The Popes Have To Say About Socialism. Needless to say, the vast majority of Francis’ predecessors not only disagree with him, but they condemn his position as antithetical to Church tradition and Biblical precepts.
Now, I’ve seen criticism from Catholics, Jews, and Evangelicals about the pontiff’s speech to congress and that the he didn’t mention abortion more directly, nor the assault on the institution of marriage. And some are saying that he shouldn’t have sounded so much like Obama on climate change, immigration, and the Marxist redistribution of wealth, and again, to that I say, “Amen!”
While most of these criticisms are right and true, they nearly all miss the main point: Jesus Christ. There, I said it. And I’ve said it one more time than Pope Francis did in his whole speech to Congress.
That’s right. The real tragedy of the speech is that the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church did not mention “Jesus.” Not once. Neither was there mention of “Christ,” “cross,” “salvation,” “redemption,” or “sin.” If you missed the speech, just imagine an amalgamation of Al Gore, Yasser Arafat, Ghandi, Trotsky, and Cesar Chavez.
The word “gospel” was mentioned once, but it was in the context of praising, not our Lord and his sacrifice, but a journalist who turned into a rabid socialist and founded the Catholic Worker movement.
Life is a fundamental issue! Much more so eternal life. Marriage too, is a divine institution worthy of a mention. Much more so the divine relationship that it represents – the love of Christ for his church.
Is “Global Warming” more important for a “vicar of Christ” than the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ and his free offer of salvation? Because I can guarantee both Catholic and Protestant, that the things the Pope droned on about will rust, perish, and pass away and, quite simply, are not a remedy for the malady of a sin-cursed, Hell-deserving world. And if you think things are getting warmer now, just wait until you pass from time into eternity expecting your carbon credits and your objection to the death penalty to buy your way into the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Do you think that Franklin Graham would have gone before a joint session of congress and not mentioned the genocide of Christians in the Middle East and North Africa by ISIS? Do you think that Graham or Ravi Zacharias would have wasted an opportunity to speak to the whole world and forsake the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the salvation found in his cross work?
Maybe we set the bar too high. We expected an oak planted next to a river and all we got was tumbleweed. But should we expect anything out of a Jesuit who cut his teeth in the midst of the South American social justice milieu? The Marxist influence on the Catholic Church in that region is the worst kept secret in Catholicism, yet no one wants to lift the skirt on Francis and see if his diaper is red?
After all, both Breitbart and the Catholic News Agency have reported the startling news that the highest ranking Cold War defector, Ion Mihai Pacepa, has admitted that the KGB invented Catholic Liberation Theology.
Whenever a prominent Muslim says something radical, there is a call for others within the faith to rebuke that voice and a cry goes up when there’s nothing but silence in return. A conservative Catholic friend of mine told me off the record, “This Pope is to my church what Barack Obama has been to my country.”
But I can count on one hand my Catholic friends who have had the courage to speak up about the foolish words of their current Pope. Most are either hiding in silent complicity or looking for ways to justify words that they find hard to swallow. Some of them sound just like the Obama apologists in their starry-eyed defense of their Messiah. When did “spin” become a fruit of the spirit?
But there are a few, the happy few, those who don’t tie their integrity to fallible, mortal individuals and they agree with Paul the Apostle who wrote, “May God be true, and every man a liar.”
With no disrespect to my Catholic brethren, this Pope is a disgrace, as disgraceful as Joel Osteen and the prosperity gospel pimps are to evangelical Christianity. And apparently, with the same indifference to the cross of Christ.
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