The tea baggers pay attention to the his holiness?
Good call! Here’s the rest of the quote from the link:
[quote=“Jorge Mario Bergoglio”]
“Thank God he said I was a politician, because Aristotle defined the human person as ‘animal politicus.’ So at least I am a human person. As to whether I am a pawn – well, maybe, I don’t know. I’ll leave that up to your judgment and that of the people.”
“And then, a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the gospel. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt.”[/quote]
I think it is a bad thing when the Catholic Church has a good Pope. I would prefer the cult to die out, and this guy’s integrity and political acumen is interfering with its demise, damnit.
Now now, it’s not a cult. There are a lot of misconceptions about Catholics, and their dogma is at least half way rational. And their charities are some of the largest private ones in the world.
So, Trump didn’t immediately respond by dissing the Pope? Could it be he is capable of some measure of restraint? Or is it just a matter of a little more time? I’m betting on the latter.
pfft what would that guy know about being a christian? Besides, doesn’t he live in a country surrounded by a, you know, wall?
I would say that others have said it very plainly but being Pope gives one a bully pulpit, even if the Pope who occupies it is using it to respond to bullies rather than act like one.
That’s a pretty sick burn. I’m no Trump fan but it would have been an epic comeback.
Well, it’s not like Francis is the one who ordered it to be built. If anything he’s been dismantling some of the excesses of his predecessors.
That’s part of why people find him more likable: he’s basically the High Sparrow from Game of Thrones but without all the holy purges and walks of shame and whatnot.
Sorry team. I’m still looking for my [sarcasm] tags. I left them around here somewhere … where the fuck are they?
It is a little amazing. Trump has so far judged that there is no one he can’t call stupid, no one he can’t attack and he has so far been correct (at least correct enough) based on the polls and the votes. But maybe explicitly insulting the pope in a typical Trump manner is something that he thought even his supporters would think was too far. I mean, the response seems pretty condescending. He is trying to paint Francis a naive, and I think a lot of the kind of religious people who support Trump (the kind of Christian who favours foreign wars) might agree with that.
Poe’s Law, baby. “The Pope is a hypocrite because there’s a wall around Vatican City” is already a popular retort from Trump supporters across the InterScape.
Cult is a relative term, and since my own religious beliefs are both older and more rational than Catholicism, it’s a cult to me. Big old religions get to call little newer religions cults, it’s a snobbery thing (and it’s not like Catholics don’t do it themselves, so sauce for the goose!).
But hey, some of my best friends are cultists, you know. 
And I’d be proud to call this Pope a friend, which is the whole problem I have with him.
Not as effective as it would be on any other Pope. This one refuses to live in the sumptuous Papal quarters and instead lives in a minimally furnished apartment as close to being outside the Vatican walls as possible, right next to a flimsy, mostly token gate.
And we all know how awesome this pope is at building symbolic bridges (between the Russians and the Vatican, that is) and building walls (between the church and homosexuals).
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/pope-francis-and-head-of-russian-orthodox-church-use-historic-meeting-to-condemn-same-sex-marriage/
It’s always weird to me the left-wing purity tests trotted out in threads like this to somehow prove that the Pope is still a Bad Dude (maybe even bad enough to rescue the president).
Let me be a lefty who says: The Pope’s right and Trump should feel shame and opprobrium and accusing him of naivete is itself a display of gobsmacking ignorance.
Just because I think the Pope’s probably wrong on some very important fundamental issues doesn’t mean I can’t shake his hand and buy him a scone on this thing for being a good person. Credit where it is due.
When he says something I disagree with, I’ll sigh and shake my head, too. But on this, I smile and nod along with him, and have some hope that he’ll influence others to put down the haterade.
One might argue that in a metaphorical sense he is trying to rescue the president right now.
So…Donald was ready to don the Swiss Guard’s Uniform & take on ISIS with a halberd?
I’d almost vote for him to see that.
I’m a lefty who thinks this pope is generally awesome. He’s embraced being The People’s Pope, driving a secondhand car, living in a cheap room, touring around in an open-air car, and supposedly sneaking out at night to give alms to the poor in disguise. He’s rejecting the “new”, rich Vatican, and going back to the way he sees the Church – humble and simple, looking at its original laws, being a humanitarian.
Unfortunately, being a “church originalist” also means that while he’ll embrace a gay man, he rejects any concrete progress made on church doctrine. And that’s disappointing.
I realize that Team Pope is currently on a Latin American PR tour; but I am pretty sure that even my limited theological expertise can detect one or two issues that rank above ‘enthusiasm for border control’ on the ‘challenges to Trump’s adequacy as a Christian’ list.
(On the subject, Team Pope might want to divest himself of that little walled nation state where citizenship is contingent on your continued employment and can be revoked at pleasure… The remaining papal territory is economically insignificant enough that it’s hardly a migrant hotspot; but he’s still nominally the ruler of a state that treats citizenship roughly the way we treat H1-Bs…)
You can’t really expect progressive social policy; but it is great fun to watch the amount of freakout that gets generated when somebody has the temerity to espouse utterly orthodox Catholic positions RE: the pursuit of wealth and squishing inconvenient poor people. If anything, he really soft-pedals(Yes, kids, it may be the foundation of global capital markets; but ‘usury’ is still on the ‘mortal sin’ list…) and people still freak out.
