Conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh and Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin have both made negative comments about the current Catholic pontiff, Pope Frances. To me, this is a good sign that the pope is doing something right. I am not a Catholic but I cannot help but like a pope who gets under the skin of two people I find to be entirely insufferably idiotic in everything they say.
Sarah Palin said in an interview with Jack Tapper on CNN about the pope, "He's had some statements that to me sound kind of liberal, has taken me aback, has kind of surprised me." She went on to add though, "unless I really dig deep into what his messaging is, and do my own homework, I’m not going to just trust what I hear in the media."
What Rush Limbaugh said was much more negative. Referring to comments, Pope Francis made concerning the "idolatry of money", and trickle-down economics, Limbaugh said,
"It's sad because this pope makes it very clear he doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to capitalism and socialism and so forth."
He went on to add, "This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the Pope."
Personally, Pope Francis shows to me the real persona of Jesus Christ and the ministry he led on this earth. Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin on the other hand, show to me what hypocrisy and the love of money represents. Jesus was about caring for the poor and needy and Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh are about their own self-interest and making money for themselves.
This current pope has also shown a desire to lead the Catholic Church in a different direction than it has gone in the past, where it emphasized the church's opposition to gay marriage and abortion. Instead, he has shown a nonjudgmental stand toward gays and a desire to bring equality to the poor, striking out against capitalism and the greed that it produces, which leaves so many in poverty while enriching the few. This to me is much more aligned with the New Testament and the ministry of Jesus.
Of course, the right-wing of this nation would find a problem with a pope who attacks their real god, which is money. Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin both have a difficult time understanding Pope Francis's desire to reach out to those who have been left out of the prosperity that both have enjoyed so immensely. It is their brand of politics that helps drive the wedge, which keeps so many living in poverty, in a nation that rewards the wealthy with more wealth while ignoring the stagnate mobility of those living in poverty.
Rush Limbaugh also attacked President Obama's embrace of something Pope Francis said. The president in a speech recently said,
"Across the developed world, inequality has increased. Some of you may have seen just last week, the pope himself spoke about this at eloquent length."
He quoted the pope, saying, "How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?"
Limbaugh criticized the president by remarking, “This is the president citing the pope, his new best friend, because the pope is ripping America, the pope [is] ripping capitalism, and Obama’s having an orgasm. Jeremiah Wright is beside himself. Jeremiah Wright thought he was Obama’s preacher, now [the] pope somehow has co-opted Obama.”
What this is all about is Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin just does not get it and President Obama does. Through his own personal experience, from seeing poverty in his own community, that has devastated so many families and lives; he knows how difficult it is to break out of that desperate place so many Americans, especially African-Americans, live in. President Obama relates to this pope, as do I and so many of us who have struggled to just put food on the table for our families and help our children to have a good education, unlike Rush and Sarah.
It is refreshing to have a pope and a president who is on the side of ordinary people, those who know what it is like to work hard for so little, as the minimum wage in this nation has stayed too low to provide a living for an average individual, let alone a family. It is high time that those living in poverty are lifted up, as both Pope Frances and President Obama has suggested in their words, and it is time for people like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh to please just shut up and kindly get out of the way.
This is a republish from my website: Fidlerten Place