Because I’m not Catholic, I’m just a Bible-believing Christian, I have to admit, I don’t pay much attention to the words coming out of the mouth of Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church …
In fact, I tried to completely ignore the socialist claptrap that he has been spouting all over the world, but now I need to call him out …
Why?
Because he is looked to as a leader and is commander-in-chief of the (arguably) world’s largest, most dedicated “army” that includes:
*** 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide
*** 78 million Americans in 17,600+ parishes
*** Backed by an “officer corps” of 200 cardinals
*** Over 5,000 bishops
*** 450,000+ priests and deacons
… all dedicated to carry out his commands or in some way follow his lead.
That’s not to mention that in America, the Catholic Church hold vast influence over America’s power elite:
*** 6 of the 9 in the Supreme Court are Catholics (including the chief justice).
*** 3 Catholics are in the direct constitutional line of succession if the president dies.
*** 24 of 100 Senators are Catholic.
*** 163 of the 435 members of the House of reps are Catholic.
When you contemplate that they all have Catholic spouses, children, parents and friends, and you can see that anything coming out of the mouth of Pope Francis is a serious issue.
WARNING: if you’re Catholic, you might be offended by what comes next.
Let’s Forget The Pope’s Socialist Remarks (For The Moment) …
To start, I won’t even address the Pope’s continuous comments attacking capitalism … blaming the “invisible hand” of the market and “trickle down economics” for the problems of the world … while begging for more “legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State” …
If you believe any of that, you’re simply ignorant of how standards of living have been increasing over the past century all over the world due to capitalism and how economics truly work. Period.
What I will address is the Pope’s recent anti-gun comments and circle back to how that makes him a hypocrite.
What Did Pope Francis Say?
The Media obviously likes to run sensational headlines, so I’ll try to be as accurate as possible. It’s my understanding that his speech was actually in Italian so that complicates things doesn’t it?
The Washington Examiner actually gave his comments a fair shake. So lemme do the copy/paste thing here and bold some important talking points …
Is Pope Francis Anti Gun?
In all honesty, you can’t tell from his words here whether he is for or against guns in the hands of us lowly civilians, but he most likely is anti-gun.
Why?
Because he’s a hypocrite (more on that in a moment) …
And because, as far as I can find, the Vatican is anti-gun. From The National Catholic Reporter:
“The Catholic Church’s position on gun control is not easy to find; there are dozens of speeches and talks and a few documents that call for much tighter regulation of the global arms trade, but what about private gun ownership?
The answer is resoundingly clear: Firearms in the hands of civilians should be strictly limited and eventually completely eliminated.
But you won’t find that statement in a headline or a document subheading. It’s almost hidden in a footnote in a document on crime by the U.S. bishops’ conference and it’s mentioned in passing in dozens of official Vatican texts on the global arms trade.
The most direct statement comes in the bishops’ “Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice” from November 2000.
“As bishops, we support measures that control the sale and use of firearms and make them safer — especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children or anyone other than the owner — and we reiterate our call for sensible regulation of handguns.”
That’s followed by a footnote that states: “However, we believe that in the long run and with few exceptions — i.e. police officers, military use — handguns should be eliminated from our society.”
So to think that Pope Francis, already on the record for dozens of socialist remarks and at a few points over the last year, describing the arms business as an “industry of death” and, correspondingly, those who produce weapons as “merchants of death” — I’d bet a communion cracker that he’s as anti gun as the best of them.
Well, anti gun for YOU.
Top 5 Reasons Why Pope Francis Is a Hypocrite:
“Being “two-faced” today is “normal,” Francis remarked, “saying something and doing something different.”
I think Pope Francis was talking about himself here …
Like all gun grabbers, the Pope is a hypocrite and here’s why …
1. The Pope is quoted as supporting “legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State”.
To put that in plain English …
Pope Francis supports “The State” to take your money via threat of violence with GUNS (taxation) and to then redistribute your money to whomever the The State thinks “needs it more than you” (welfare, etc).
Newsflash for Pope Francis: The State can’t take money from the people without guns. Therefore, you are not against guns … you are only against guns in the hands of innocent, law abiding civilians for their personal protection. You fully support arming The State.
2. He condemns weapon manufacturers, yet asks for them to provide bombs.
“There is an element of hypocrisy [for a Christian] to speak of peace and then manufacture weapons,” Francis said Sunday. And then in the same speech he embraces the need for weapon manufacturers because they “should” have bombed rail roads in WWII.
“The biggest powers had photographs of railway lines carrying trains headed for concentration camps like Auschwitz to murder the Jews, and the Christians, and the gypsies, and the homosexuals so they can be murdered there,” he said. “But tell me, why didn’t they bomb [the camps]?”
Newsflash for Pope Francis: you can’t bomb railways without bombs. And only weapons manufactures make bombs.
3. He supports guns for himself, but not for you.
Of course, like all anti-gun politicians, Pope Francis talks about how guns are evil, but he rides around with armed security:
To put that plainly for you. Like Bloomberg, President Obama, and all the rest: Guns are good when they protect the anti-gun politicians, but they’re bad when they protect you, the common man.
In other words, Pope Francis, while professing compassion for the common man, cares more about himself than billions of people walking this earth.
Newsflash for Pope Francis: you are a hypocrite if you allow weapons to be used to protect you, yet support the disarming of billions of civilians all over the world.
4. He thinks investing in weapons manufactures is wrong, but supports The State forcing you to invest in these same weapon manufacturers (by threat of deadly force).
Let’s break this down shall we?
The Pope condemned Christians for investing in weapons manufactures (presumingly defense stocks or firearms manufacturers)
Engaging in an imaginary conversation with a Christian who is involved in the weapons business, the pope said, “‘No, no Father, I do not manufacture weapons. No, no. I have only invested my savings in the weapons’ manufacturers.’ Ah! And why? ‘Because personal interests are highest.'”
So let me get this straight …
It’s OK morally for the Government/The State to take your money via the threat of force (using guns) and then give BILLIONS of your hard-earned and stolen money to these weapons manufacturers to build/buy more guns, bullets, bombs, tanks, ships, boats, etc …
But it’s somehow unethical for you to invest whatever money you manage to save in these same weapons manufacturers via the stock market or private investment — so that you can (hopefully) profit off of some of your own hard-earned tax dollars at work?
That’s hypocritical.
Newsflash for Pope Francis: You support increased taxation of any productive civilian by The State. In the United States, the wealthiest nation in the world, 53.71% of every discretionary budget tax dollar goes to the military (and billions goes into the pockets of weapons manufactures). Therefore, you support investing in weapons manufacturers.
5. Pope Francis says not to trust world leaders … but … to trust them with ALL the guns and to trust them to take MORE of your money and redistribute it wisely.
The pope says “If you trust only men, you have lost,” then goes on to condemn trusting in the leadership of men of nations who often want to bring their countries into wars …
But it was during a speech with world leaders at the U.N. “Agencies, Funds and Programmes” group where Francis called for “equitable economic and social progress” … which sounds great, but then then the Pope kept talking and said it could be achieved (among other ways) “… by the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State”
Newsflash for Pope Francis: It is hypocrisy to say not to trust the leaders of the State to keep you out of war, but to trust them to take more of your money and use it wisely. Further there is no “legitimate” redistribution of benefits by the State because there is no such thing as “legitimate” stealing/theft.
If history is any indication, every extra dollar The State takes will be used (among other bad uses of money) to wage more war.
And giving all the guns to only The State (i.e. i.e. police officers, military use) as your Vatican supports is a bad, bad idea.
Why?
Simply because nothing has killed more people in the 20th century than Democide (aka Government Murder of its own citizens) …
Democide is defined as “the murder of any person or people by their government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder”.
As the chart from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) below shows, nearly all cases of democide were made possibly by The State first implementing some form of Gun Control to make their population easier to murder:
The video below gives a good overview of how gun control historically leads to democide:
The best estimate of people killed by their own governments is 262,000,000 with the death toll climbing every day. Those types of numbers are really, really hard to visualize or even wrap your mind around because they’re so big.
To put it in perspective …
In the 20th century (so far) governments murdered more people than all deaths COMBINED due to traffic accidents, war, homicide, and alcohol.
If all these bodies were laid head to toe, with the average height being 5 feet, then they would circle the earth ten times.
Please, please understand that this has nothing to do with “soldiers killed in combat”. This is simply Governments — who typically disarm their populations first — murdering their own people. In fact, 6 times more people were murdered by their OWN governments than died in combat in all the foreign and internal wars of the 20th century.
In Conclusion …
If you are Catholic, I’m sorry, but please don’t listen to Pope Francis on practically anything but Catholic Christian/Church topics …
If you are Christian, like I am, please don’t be misled by Pope Francis and his socialist and anti-gun leanings. I don’t believe he’s any holier than any other Christian (nor qualified) to speak for God on these matters …
If you are of any other faith, or no faith, then hopefully this information was still helpful to you in figuring out where Pope Francis stands on these issues.