A Pope and a President . . . any degrees of separation?

“America has a genius for great and unselfish deeds…Into the hands of America God has placed the destiny of an afflicted mankind.”
—Pope Pius XII Pope from 1939 to 1958

Will Francis do for the Catholic Church what Obama has done for America?

I have remarked before how eerily similar in various respects Pope Francis is to Barack Obama. This is a phenomenon so profound, it seems to me, that I have to wonder if anyone out there can tell me if there has been, in modern times, a Pope who has been as much in sync ideologically with a major world political figure as Francis is with Barack Obama…a political figure who has a record of denying religious freedom and implementing and promoting policies which are in direct conflict with basic tenets of Catholicism ?

In terms of political ideology, both leaders wasted little time after coming to power in their respective spheres to give full-throated endorsement of redistributive economics.

Both projected an image of deep and eloquent concern for the poor and the world’s downtrodden. Neither indicated an affection for America as it is nor as it was founded. The two leaders early on in their reigns expressed a profound disdain for capitalism.

Any who raised some concerns about the backgrounds of either man or about their frequent and not-so-well-concealed comments reflecting negatively on America’s role in the world, were dismissed, usually with ridicule by the liberal American and world press.

Obama’s spiritual mentor, the Reverend Wright, was, even before Obama’s election, revealed as an America-hater (“God damn America”). Obama, however, though he sat and listened to the reverend for some 20 years and called him his “spiritual mentor” seemed to not know that the Reverend felt that way. Reverend Wright is an adherent to “black liberation theology”…a religion with roots in Marxism.

In Pope Francis’s case, there was muted concern by some that the former Bishop Bergoglio might be influenced by the Marxist “liberation theology” of his native Argentina which prevailed in Latin America throughout his formative ministerial experience in the church. A January article in the Federalist is pretty blunt in describing Francis’s leftist impulses.

In both instances, Obama’s and Francis’s, supporters decried attempts to criticize these men with “guilt by association”.

As Obama nears his eighth year of his two terms in office and Pope Francis begins his third year as head of the Roman Catholic church, their philosophies, views of the world, and notions of the “corrections” needed to solve the world’s problems are becoming remarkably very near identical. And, as each of these leaders will not have to face “reelection”, they are, in effect, “letting it all hang out”.

Obama has always had some difficulty hiding his arrogance and his devotion to collectivism and unchallenged rule…now he doesn’t attempt to. Pope Francis has always been somewhat unsuccessful in hiding his own unique style of sarcasm, judgmentalism, and devotion to socialist solutions to economic issues.

But both leaders have their corps of adoring followers “interpreting” their more controversial remarks and striving mightily to bolster their images of “humility” and idealism. For President Obama, and Pope Francis alike, the leftist media around the world is only too anxious to serve that effort.

But most recently the mask has slipped from the faces of both.

At the “poverty conversation” at Georgetown Univ. last week, Obama very bluntly observed that religious institutions should cut out their preoccupation with such incidental issues as abortion and instead concentrate on “doing more” for the poor.

Remarkably, his comments are not too much different from Pope Francis’s declaration early in his reign that Catholics should not “overly obsess” so much over abortion but should focus greater attention on the needs of the world’s poor.

In April Pope Francis came out in favor of “gender equality” and against “unequal pay for women”. Sometimes it is very difficult to distinguish between the Pontiff’s pronouncements and the often false, inaccurate, and misleading assertions found in the Democratic Party rhetoric.

Both are aggressive in promoting the “Climate Change” doctrine. Neither acknowledges it as a movement with a true aim of a near total upheaval in the distribution of the world’s wealth, resources, and dominate political environment. Something they both have rather openly endorsed. Both rely on the United Nation’s dubious justification for drastic economic action to alleviate the effects on the world’s “poorest” from the so-called “climate change”.

The Pope’s forthcoming encyclical on “climate change”, so breathlessly awaited by radical environmentalists can reasonably be expected to threaten “deniers” with eternal damnation, given the Pontiff’s recent comment on the “powerful’ unwilling to share the world’s food bounty with the poor, “We must do what we can so that everyone has something to eat, but we must also remind the powerful of the Earth that God will call them to judgment one day and there it will be revealed if they really tried to provide food for Him in every person and if they did what they could to preserve the environment so that it could produce this food.”

Maybe the only question remaining is, will Francis wear the Anti-fracking T-shirt he happily accepted from a couple of radical environmental propagandists when he recently welcomed them to the Vatican.

On various other highly charged and controversial matters of great global concern, the president and the pope definitely appear to be on the same page…each helping the other to advance his agenda.

Obama’s poorly concealed enmity toward Israel and his open disdain for its elected leader, Benyamin Netanyahu would have been seen as scandalous in any other time in American history since that nation was founded in 1948.

Pope Francis seems to want it known where he stands with respect to Israel and Mr. Netanyahu…and that is right alongside Barack Obama. Francis just did what Obama himself has not yet managed to pull off…grant full diplomatic recognition to a “Palestinian state”! Pope Francis went a step further. Whether he actually called the Palestinian leader, Abbas, an “Angel of Peace” or, as some of Francis’ troop of “scoopers” who follow his parade around and try to clean up his statements for more popular consumption, “hopefully an Angel of Peace”, he clearly sees Israel as the villain in the Middle East.

Both leaders have been hailed by leftists around the world for their literal embrace of the Castro boys and the communist Cuban regime.

His “Holiness” seems, as Mr. Obama does, very capable of ignoring Raul and Fidel Castro’s blood drenched hands as he warmly welcomes the communist revolutionary to the Vatican.

And while Francis hails some of the globe’s most tyrannical regimes, he limits his analysis of Russia’s conquest of large parts of Ukraine as a “civil war”. He will occasionally comment critically on the murder of thousands of Christians in the Middle East by Islamic radicals but clearly that pesky “climate change” is what occupies his spiritual and secular outlook.

It’s also a question of whether, the Pope has consulted with Obama on a mid-East strategy since neither, as busy as they’ve been, seem to have one…unless, again, successfully maintaining an unchanging global climate is their solution.

As he prepares to travel to the United States to deliver his encyclical on climate change and no doubt reiterate to the member nations of the UN his deep concern for the poor and on those troubling aspects of “unfettered” capitalism, and maybe include a plea for a $15 minimum wage, one must wonder what additional elements of President Obama’s agenda the Vicar of Christ will add and promote as he tours this country…if there are any he has left unendorsed.

(The quote from Pope Pius XII which heads this piece, we felt was very pertinent to this column’s topic. Perhaps because it recalls a time and a people who saw the virtue in America and its vast, important contributions to a better world. We believe it stands in sharp contrast to the attitudes of the two world figures discussed. )      DLH

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(Ed Note: In preparing this piece, an associate asked me if I could cite any ways in which I saw Pope Francis and President Obama significantly different from one another, in terms of policies, style, behavior, etc.

I’ll admit I didn’t ponder this question very long because a most obvious one came to mind immediately…although it is probably not a difference of cosmic proportions.
It relates to possibly what one might label “character, image, style….”.

Immediately upon his election to the Papacy, Francis sought, successfully, to establish himself as an icon of humility…eschewing the traditional trappings of the Office. The media enthusiastically promoted this image, to the extent it seemed, that casual readers or viewers of news reports on the new Pope could be forgiven if they thought the former Bishop Bergoglio had chosen as his formal title that of “HUMBLE Pope Francis I”. It somehow became known that the new Pontiff , in his “humble” aspirations had chosen to live in a two room apartment at the Vatican rather than the regal quarters provided to Popes. Reports of examples of Francis’ “humble” attitude seemed to abound on a daily basis. I would not have been surprised to learn that His Holiness were not regularly seen tooling around Rome in his ’59 Chevy (with specially adapted pollution controls, of course).

Now President Obama on the other hand has never allowed himself to be portrayed as a regular guy…always promoting the notion that he is somewhat above mere mortal status. He and his lovely wife, Michele, have never met a “trapping of the Office” they would eschew.

Separate luxury vacations, golf and skiing weekends, Kobe beef dinners at the White House feting their ultra wealthy supporters and Hollywood buds.

In summary, i see this as the biggest, if perhaps only real difference between these two leaders. And, in my opinion, is only in the “optics”. Pope francis has carefully crafted an image of “man of the People’ and clearly enjoys basking in the adoration of “the masses”.

President Obama, on the other hand, cares not a whit about his “optics”. He feels ver confident that the image the press, the Democratic, party, and certainly the Obamas themselves, have crafted, that ANY opposition to his policies, any criticism of his actions exhibiting his contempt for traditional American values and institutions is due solely to the “racist impulses” of Americans who did not choose to vote for him.

It sets up kind of a race as to which will ultimately be canonized, the humble, saintly Francis, or the messiah who came down to save the Earth from all the catastrophes caused by climate change.)

DLH

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