So the Pope doesn't live up to your fascist standards? I just got bored
with the distraction as there was much more going on in the world last week.
On 09/26/2015 11:54 AM, emptyb...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:
*Seven Ways Pope Francis Slapped Conservatives in the United States*
By Ben Shapiro <http://www.breitbart.com/author/ben-shapiro/>, 25 Sep 2015
*Many conservatives viewed the prospect of the Pope’s visit to the
United States with a mixture of hope and trepidation: hope, because
the Pope’s visit would force heavy media coverage of religious issues;
trepidation, because of Pope Francis’ mixed record on issues ranging
from climate change to illegal immigration.*
Conservatives were right to worry.
The Pope’s visit has been an unmitigated boon for the left.
Conservative defenders of the Pope will undoubtedly note that he has
referred, albeit obliquely, to same-sex marriage and abortion; they
will point out that the Pope visited the Little Sisters of the Poor
and made veiled reference to religious freedom. They will suggest that
the media has done the Pope wrong by focusing on the Pope’s support
for leftist causes to the exclusion of his traditionally religious
principles.
They’re right, naturally. But the Pope is hardly a political neophyte,
unaware of the nature of the media. For years now, we’ve heard that
the Pope’s words have been taken out of context, misinterpreted, even
mistranslated. During his visit to the United States, the Pope spoke
in English, before a joint session of Congress, with the president
before the media, at the United Nations, and in New York City and
Philadelphia. Over and over, he had the cameras on him. And over and
over, he failed to take advantage of the situation to speak truth to
power, instead catering to the hard left again and again.
Here are seven ways in which the Pope insulted conservatives during
his visit:
*The Staged Illegal Immigrant Child Photo-Op. *On Wednesday
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/23/pope-francis-sophie-cruz-letter-immigration>,
as the Popemobile moved down the National Mall, five-year-old Sophie
Cruz somehow eluded security and reached the Pope himself. The
security guards stopped young Sophie, but the Pope motioned her
forward. She then hugged the Pope, and handed the Pope a letter she
purportedly wrote, an eloquent plea to stay in the United States with
her two illegal immigrant parents. “I want to tell you that my heart
is sad,” Sophie told the media, having memorized her letter. “I would
like to ask you to speak with the president and the Congress in
legalizing my parents because every day I am scared that one day they
will take them away from me.” Her father stood next to her, wearing a
t-shirt that read “Papa Rescata DAPA!” – the Pope should rescue
President Obama’s executive amnesty.
The entire photo-op was a setup, naturally. Five-year-old children do
not memorize page-long letters or make it through security to the Pope
without help. As the /Daily Mail /(UK) reported
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3246811/Five-year-old-daughter-illegal-immigrants-gets-past-Washington-security-barricades-deliver-Pope-Francis-letter-pleading-help-family-stay-U-S.html>:
The stunt has been organized by immigration advocacy group Hermandad
Mexicana Transnacional, in Los Angeles. Alicia Flores, executive
director of La Hermandad, chose Sophie to approach the pope after a
young girl was able to approach the pope in Rome in a similar
incident, reported the *Washington*
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/09/23/meet-the-5-year-old-who-gave-the-pope-a-letter-because-she-doesnt-want-her-parents-deported/>* Post.
*She and her family were flown out to Washington as part of a group of
six children and 19 adults, with the hope of delivering their message
on immigration.
*Comparing Fighting Illegal Immigration to Human Rights Abuses Against
Native Americans.*The Pope dropped this egregious rhetorical dud in
the middle of his speech to Congress:
Tragically, the rights of those who were here long before us were not
always respected. For those peoples and their nations, from the heart
of American democracy, I wish to reaffirm my highest esteem and
appreciation. Those first contacts were often turbulent and violent,
but it is difficult to judge the past by the criteria of the present.
Nonetheless, when the stranger in our midst appeals to us, we must not
repeat the sins and the errors of the past. We must resolve now to
live as nobly and as justly as possible, as we educate new generations
not to turn their back on our “neighbors” and everything around us.
Building a nation calls us to recognize that we must constantly relate
to others, rejecting a mindset of hostility in order to adopt one of
reciprocal subsidiary, in a constant effort to do our best. I am
confident that we can do this.
In other words, the original immigrants mistreated Native Americans,
and today’s Americans must beware of doing the same to illegal
immigrants. This isn’t just insulting, it’s ridiculous. Americans sent
Cherokees along the Trail of Tears. Today’s Americans send illegal
immigrants along the trail of free education, emergency medical care,
and state-sponsored welfare programs.
*Allowing President Obama to Represent Himself as An Advocate of
Religious Liberty.*On Wednesday, while speaking at the White House,
President Obama said, “Here in the United States, we cherish religious
liberty….[The United States] stand[s] with you in defense of religious
freedom and interfaith dialogue, knowing that people everywhere must
be able to live out their faith free from fear and intimidation.”
Meanwhile, President Obama’s IRS cracks down on religious charities
and his Obamacare regime targets religious institutions; his
administration looks into persecuting religious Americans for failing
to participate in same-sex weddings. A well-timed comment from the
Pope could have been useful here. Instead, he stood by and said
nothing. Instead, he went to visit the Little Sisters of the Poor –
and the media ignored it. The Pope knows full well when the cameras
are on him. They were on him with Obama. They weren’t during his side
jaunt to visit those victimized by the President.
*Ripping Capitalism Before Congress.*Speaking before Congress, the
Pope spent an inordinate amount of time lecturing legislators on the
need to redistribute wealth in the name of the poor. He praised
Dorothy Day
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/09/24/the-pope-name-dropped-a-radical-catholic-activist-and-bernie-sanders-couldnt-be-happier/>_,_
a Catholic organizer who once wrote, “We need to overthrow, not the
government, as the authorities are always accusing the Communists ‘of
conspiring to teach [us] to do,’ but this rotten, decadent, putrid
industrial capitalist system which breeds such suffering in the whited
sepulcher of New York.” Senator
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
16^%
(Socialist-VT) was ecstatic.
And no socialist has come up with a better formulation
<http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/24/pope-francis-slams-capitalism-death-penalty-immigration-law-no-real-mention-abortion-gay-marriage/>
of the rhetorical slight-of-hand that equates individual liberty with
collectivism than the Pope did before Congress:
If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it
follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance. Politics
is, instead, an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in
order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community
which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice
and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life. I do not
underestimate the difficulty that this involves, but I encourage you
in this effort.
The Pope has long excoriated capitalism as a brutal system of
exploitation. To the celebration of leftists everywhere, the Pope has
repeatedly dismissed capitalism as immoral, saying there is no
evidence that capitalism brings about “greater justice and
inclusiveness in the world.” This is true if you know nothing about
world history or economics. The Pope’s excoriation of free markets in
the United States came as no surprise, but it came as an unwelcome
slap nonetheless.
*Pushing Environmental Extremism.*The Pope spent a significant amount
of time before Congress talking about climate change and encouraging
Congress to restrict American economic growth to fight that chimera.
But at the United Nations, he really let loose, suggesting that the
environment has “rights” – an argument unfamiliar to many readers of
the Bible. People may have obligations toward the environment, but the
environment has no freestanding “rights” from humanity; God does not
weep when a tree is used for lumber to house a poor family. This logic
leads to the Malthusian anti-humanism of the deep green left.
The Pope then tied his view of environmental rights to his desire for
global redistribution of income in the name of the poor, and suggested
that governments must guarantee “lodging, labour, and land” to the
poor. How? Presumably by taking resources away from some and handing
them to others. This reeks of Marxism, pure and simple. The Pope then
added that “the large-scale destruction of biodiversity can threaten
the very existence of the human species.” Now, I like whales as much
as the next fellow, but zero humans will die if the blue whale goes
extinct, unless the aliens come back to communicate with them (see
/Star Trek IV/ for more information on this possibility). The Pope
even suggested that war was bad because it was a “dramatic assault on
the environment.” War, human trafficking, exploitation, and
environmental degradation are bad /if they hurt human beings/. War is
not bad primarily because it harms trees and squirrels.
*Ignoring Abortion, Talking Death Penalty.*The Pope said nothing about
abortion before President Obama. Then, while speaking before Democrats
in Congress who support federal funding for abortion machine Planned
Parenthood, he said that all human life must be treated with respect –
and proceeded to glide right over the abortion issue entirely,
settling on the death penalty instead. As I noted yesterday, 35
murderers were executed in 2014 in the United States. One million
unborn children were killed. Some say the Pope didn’t have to get
explicit about abortion. Just why in the hell /wouldn’t he/
<http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/24/pope-francis-slams-capitalism-death-penalty-immigration-law-no-real-mention-abortion-gay-marriage/>?
He did mention the unborn at the United Nations with one word. Should
we celebrate such courage?
*Ignoring Same-Sex Marriage.*The Pope encouraged marriage in his
speech before Congress, and talked vaguely of the value of family. He
complained of threats to the family. But he said nothing about what
those threats were – with the very Supreme Court that declared itself
above God in terms of defining marriage /sitting in front of him/.
The Pope’s visit could have been an incredible opportunity to fight
against Godless immorality in the United States. Instead, the Pope
largely used the opportunity to push leftism slathered over with
paper-thin theology. That’s a tragic loss for both the world and for
the religious community fighting for survival against the onslaught of
an increasingly aggressive secular left – a secular left that cheered
the Pope but will be happy to either co-opt or crush his church at the
first available opportunity.
/Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and The New
York Times bestselling author, most recently, of the book, /The People
Vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against the Obama Administration:
Ben Shapiro: 9781476765136: Amazon.com: Books
<http://www.amazon.com/The-People-Barack-Obama-Administration/dp/1476765138/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401457899&sr=8-1&keywords=The+People+vs.+Barack+Obama>/:
The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration /
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The People Vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Cas...
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New York Times bestselling author Ben Shapiro presents a comprehensive
case against Barack Obama’s abuses of power during his time in
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