Fatima Perspectives #1210
Only one day after he denounced selective abortion and declared that the only true family is one founded on the union between a man and a woman (on June 16), it was back to business as usual for Pope Francis.
In yet another rambling interview with yet another news agency (in this case Reuters) on June 17, just published yesterday, Francis dropped another payload of bombs on weary Catholics. Herewith a summary:
Francis told his interviewer that he condemns the separation of children from parents who drag them across the Mexican desert and into the United States illegally. He calls this “immoral” without any distinction based on the facts or the law, including the commission of felonies by adults using children as shields for unlawful repeated attempts to enter the US outside of ports of entry.
“It’s not easy,” Francis opined, “but populism is not the solution.” What does Francis mean by “populism”? Apparently, any attempt to stop the flow of illegal immigration. According to him, Europe needs a massive influx of Muslims because there is in Europe “a great demographic winter” and Europe “will become empty” without mass Muslim immigration. How about encouraging Catholics to stop using contraception and accept the children God wants to send them? Instead, we await the results of Francis’ not-so-secret commission on a “re-reading” of Humanae Vitae’s absolute prohibition of contraception.
The Pope who refuses to get involved in national politics whenever it comes to abortion and gay marriage, even in his home country of Argentina, has all kinds of political advice for President Trump on other matters. As Reuters reports:
“Francis said he was saddened by Trump’s decision last year to implement new restrictions on American travel and trade with Cuba. The move rolled back his predecessor President Barack Obama’s opening to the island nation. That deal, which the Vatican helped broker, ‘was a good step forward’, the pope said.
“He also said Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris agreement to curb climate change caused him ‘a bit of pain because the future of humanity is at stake’. The pope said he hoped Trump would re-think his position.”
Plenty of unsolicited advice as well for Italy’s new interior minister, Matteo Salvini. Quoth Francis: “I believe that you cannot reject people who arrive. You have to receive them, help them, look after them, accompany them and then see where to put them, but throughout all of Europe… [C]reating psychosis is not the cure. Populism does not resolve things. What resolves things is acceptance, study, prudence.”
This from the ruler of Vatican City, which has the most stringent immigration restrictions in all of Europe and is surrounded by centuries-old, 40-foot-high walls built in part precisely in order to repel Muslim invasions. Defenders of the Pope’s kibitzing in the immigration policies of other countries claim the Vatican’s “front door” is open, meaning Saint Peter’s Square, but anyone who knows anything about the layout of Vatican City knows that not even a lone visitor may advance beyond the Square into the City’s interior without special permission, much less crowds of Muslim “refugees,” and that any attempt to do so will be met by armed force. Are the inhabitants of the heavily protected Vatican enclave guilty of “psychosis”? Here yet again we see the really quite unacceptable tendency of this Pope to attribute some form of mental illness to those who do not share his opinions.
Francis also told Reuters that he prays “for conservatives who sometimes said ‘nasty things’ about him.” What about those dubia submitted by the four cardinals more than a year-and-a-half ago, concerning his attempt to create exceptions to application of the Sixth Commandment for the divorced and “remarried”? According to Reuters, Francis said he learned of the dubia “from the newspapers … a way of doing things that is, let’s say, not ecclesial, but we all make mistakes.” Just how far is our credulity expected to stretch? As Life Site News demonstrates, that claim seems well beyond the breaking point.
Asked about rumors of his intention to retire from the papacy, he replied: “Right now, I am not even thinking about it.” One might respectfully suggest that he return — urgently — to that very subject, which may have more to do with the good of the Church and the world than his views on immigration and climate change.
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photo credit: Catholic Church (England and Wales) Pope Francis via photopin (license)