Catholicism is not WorldNetDaily’s bailiwick — it’s much more about right-wing evangelical Protestantism. So when it criticizes Catholics, it usually involves bashing Pope Francis for not being right-wing enough. When the pope drew an equivalence between Donald Trump anti-immigrant extremism and Kamala Harris’ support for abortion rights and that voters have to choose between the “lesser of two evils,” that didn’t go over well with WND columnists. Don Feder went the alarmist route to justify hating immigrants in his Sept. 23 column:
Pope Francis has constructed a bizarre moral equivalence between abortion and border security.
When asked about the U.S. presidential election, the pontiff said voters must “choose between the lesser evil.” Both candidates are “anti-life,” the pope declared. “Either the one who throws out migrants” – a popular euphemism for illegal immigrants – “or the one who kills babies.”
The comparison is absurd.
Unlike an aborted baby, a prospective immigrant who’s denied entry is still alive. He can go home and apply to come here legally, as millions have over the centuries since America’s founding, including my grandparents.
Even if border security is a sin, as the pope maintains, the Catholic Church recognizes degrees of sinfulness. Pope Benedict XVI, Francis’ predecessor, explained, “Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia.”
Like abortion, open borders kill. Thanks to Biden and Harris, the criminals and gang members who stream across our unguarded southern border kill thousands of Americans each year.
Feder groused that the pope isn’t acting like the good Republican he demands the pontiff to be:
Is the papacy trying to give Catholics cover to vote for Ms. Harris?
When he met with Pope Francis in 2021, President Joseph Biden said the pontiff told him that he’s “a good Catholic” despite his support for unlimited access to abortion. The Vatican never denied the claim.
When it comes to abortion, the pope talks a good fight. But when the chips are down, he says that he sees no moral difference between the candidate who “kills babies” and her opponent, who believes America has a right to defend its sovereignty.
It would be ironic if the leader of the Catholic Church, which has done so much over the years to protect life, helped elect the most pro-abortion presidential candidate in history.
James Zumwalt similarly complained in his Oct. 4 column:
The popular 1960s television program “Batman” became well-known for the many catchphrase lines used by the crime-fighter’s young partner, Robin. Frequently describing relevant objects appearing in the story line by using the adjective “Holy,” Robin injected droll humor into the episodes.
Thus, in similar fashion, Pope Francis’ recent response to a question asked while on a return flight from an international trip concerning the upcoming U.S. presidential election might well have had Robin uttering “Holy Hypocrisy!”
Press conferences are often held during papal flights, and CBS journalist Anna Matranga, who is based in Italy, took the opportunity to query the pontiff: “What advice would you give a Catholic voter faced with a candidate who supports ending a pregnancy and another who wants to deport 11 million migrants?”
The pope surprisingly responded that “both (candidates) are anti-life.” He did so by equating their positions on two different levels. He declared, “Either the one who throws out migrants or the one who kills babies. Both are against life. … But let me be clear, both sending migrants away and not giving migrants ability to work, not giving migrants [a] welcome [is a] sin … is serious. Migration is a right; it is a right that is in the Scripture. It [is] in the Old Testament.”
[…]Interestingly, in 2016, Francis suggested during the Republican primary that Trump was “not Christian” because of his promises to deport immigrants and to force Mexico to pay for a border wall. He rationalized this as follows, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.” Yet, at the same time, the pope had no qualms about giving communion to pro-abortion leaders in the Democratic Party.
Zumwalt then whined that the pope was being hypocritical because the Vatican restricts immigrants:
Why might a modern day Robin listen to the pope’s criticism of Trump’s position on immigration, then shake his head in disbelief and utter to Batman, “Holy Hypocrisy”?
There are two reasons.
First, an analysis as to which member states of the international community enforce the most difficult immigration laws, making it extremely difficult to take up residency there, reveals that among the top fourteen most restrictive is the Vatican.
Second, for over a thousand years, the Vatican has been partially surrounded by a massively tall, 39-foot wall that helps to limit access. Although the wall does not completely encircle the city to prevent entry against illegal immigrants, it is protected by Swiss Guards – armed with weapons of both older and modern centuries – to ensure the Vatican’s immigration laws are respected.
Today, we live in a world where leaders tend to speak authoritatively on issues about which they really fail to grasp all the factors. This leads listeners to believe such speakers promote two contrary standards by which to live life – one for them and another that is less beneficial for us. And, yes, even the pope, without really knowing it, naively promotes such hypocrisy.
Zumwalt didn’t mention that the Vatican is a tiny principality of only a few square miles that has no room to add new residents.
By contrast, when a rogue ex-priest spews hate at Harris, WND is totally on board. Bob Unruh cheered that hate in an Oct. 27 article:
If picking a despicable name for your political opponent were a competition, Democrats and other leftists across America may have thought they had the winner as, for years, they have called President Donald Trump a “Hitler.”
It was their attempt to find the most horrific, reprehensible descriptive for him.
But they lost, according to a controversial former Roman Catholic archbishop.
That church leader, Carlo Maria Vigano, who was the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2011 until 2016, described Kamala Harris as “an infernal monster who obeys Satan.”
The election this year is, in fact, described by many as a spiritual fight, what with the likelihood Harris would push harder for the Biden-Harris administration’s top agenda items of abortion for all and transgenderism, including body mutilations, for children, both industries opposed by most Christians.
That’s besides the inflation, open southern border and more that the administration has inflicted on Americans.
Vigano, in an open letter to Catholics, explained there’s no question that they should vote for Trump.
He said voters in just days must decide “between two radically opposed ways of conceiving the government of your Nation.”
Vigano, excommunicated this year, said, “The choice is between a conservative President, who is paying with his very life for his fight against the deep state, and an infernal monster who obeys Satan.
Unruh downplayed the reason Vigano was excommunicated from the church, stating only, “Vigano ran into trouble inside the politics of the Catholic community for his criticisms of Pope Francis, a liberal whose leftist pronouncements often have stunned the community, and the ‘modern’ reforms in the church.” In fact, Vigano was found guilty of schism, a refusal to recognize the authority of the pope. Unruh did acknowledge, however, that even the New York Post pointed out that Vigano’s “letter contains numerous references to numerous conspiracy theories, including references to the ‘deep state,’ calling the 2020 presidential election ‘the fraud of 2020’ and suggesting that the world governments engineered climate change to ‘to make the global warming fraud credible.'”
In other words, Vigano is a far-right crank — the kind WND loves — but he’s also not an American; we thought WND hated it when foreigners commented on American issues.
Unruh didn’t mention that his employer has similarly engaged in that “most horrific, reprehensible descriptive, ” with its repeated smearing of Barack Obama as Hitler and a Nazi.