Odd comment by the Pope

[TUMe]

I'm very much against Mr. Trump, but the Pope says he is not a Christian. Perhaps, he should have said that is values are all wrong, or that is a bit over the top. But one does not actually have to be a Christian to be president, in fact, this is a country that prides it's self on religious freedom. Bernie Sanders is a non practicing Jew. Thomas Jefferson seemed to have a hard time deciding whether he was religious or not. There are quotes both ways.

Most of us expressed no opinion who the College of Cardinals should pick for the Pope. I think he should have let us pick our Electorial College.

Maybe Trump should sue the Pope.

This has to be the craziest election of all time.

 

[astonmartin708]

I believe he (Da Pontiff) was trying to point out the cant (look it up) nature of Trump's political professions. The Pope did so of course, because a large portion of the population that Trump is talking about booting, are Catholic. Trump has been disingenuous from day one as he tried to pander to the conservatives. He will say anything and everything that will get him more votes. But, when he claims to fight for 'Christian Values' as he and so many other candidates on the right do; the head of the church that originated the religion is going, "Hey! Hold on one second here! Don't use our name of our theology to advance your policies, when your very policies are hurting those who are true followers"

Honestly, I can't believe Trump would take shots at the Pope. When the F'ing Pope calls you specifically out for being a bad person, maybe it's time to step back and reevaluate the ideas you're distributing to the general populous of the world through your position of power.

 

[TUMe]

I share your opinion of Trump, except that I do not believe Trump is a mainline conservative. He is an anger salesman. I can understand the Pope not liking Trumps values. But saying Trump is not a Christian, my response is "so what" and the Pope has no right to say who is a Christian or not. He can say who is apart of his sphere.

Sanders isn't a Christian, Bloomberg...should he decide to run...isn't a Christian. There are plenty of examples everyday why Trump should not be the President of the United States. It's easy to say what another country should do, but there isn't a refugee camp in St. Peter's Square. I would feel the same way if Queen Elizabeth said the same thing. Elizabeth is the nominal head of the Anglican Church. The Dali Lama is smart enough, so far to stay out of our politics.

One of my main reasons for complaining is that it will make Trump supporters dig their heels in and have talking point.

Forget Trump it's going to be Rubio and Kasich.

 

[lawpoke87]

If Trump is a conservative he's only been one for the last 9 months.

 

[astonmartin708]

I share your opinion of Trump, except that I do not believe Trump is a mainline conservative. He is an anger salesman. I can understand the Pope not liking Trumps values. But saying Trump is not a Christian, my response is "so what" and the Pope has no right to say who is a Christian or not. He can say who is apart of his sphere.

Sanders isn't a Christian, Bloomberg...should he decide to run...isn't a Christian. There are plenty of examples everyday why Trump should not be the President of the United States. It's easy to say what another country should do, but there isn't a refugee camp in St. Peter's Square. I would feel the same way if Queen Elizabeth said the same thing. Elizabeth is the nominal head of the Anglican Church. The Dali Lama is smart enough, so far to stay out of our politics.

One of my main reasons for complaining is that it will make Trump supporters dig their heels in and have talking point.

Forget Trump it's going to be Rubio and Kasich.

You're correct that your religion doesn't matter for the presidency. But, I would put a qualifier on that statement. It doesn't matte *unless* you've run your campaign saying you intend to defend a certain set of religious values (as compared to another set).

If you run saying you're going to promote Buddhist values, and then the Dalai Lama comes out and says what you're telling people isn't a true reflection of the Buddhist belief system... then you have a character issue. (not that anyone with half a brain wouldn't know a cutthroat billionaire that wants to play commander-in-chief will have some character issues)

 

[URedskin54]

Makes perfect sense for him to take shots at the pope. Won't hurt him with the SC electorate and he'll dominate the news cycle the day before the primary.

Also, Trump is the worst. I feel obligated to say that after saying he's doing something smart.

I will say though, the pope is not the emperor of Christianity. To a Protestant, nothing he says is of any more importance than anyone else. I think he's a good decent man(unlike Trump), but I hold no special regard for what he has to say.

 

[lawpoke87]

A little ironic that a guy who lives in the Vatican would say the "Christians don't build walls".

 

[aTUfan]

It ironic. He blames us for being inhumane for wanting to protect our border.

We treat ILLEGALS better than almost any other country

 

[TUBballJunkie]

I'm glad he said it and I agree.

I think Donald Trump is a truly vile person.

I can understand some demographics being in his corner but not Christian Conservatives.

 

[TUMe]

I'm glad he said it and I agree.

I think Donald Trump is a truly vile person.

I can understand some demographics being in his corner but not Christian Conservatives.

He is a vile person. I hope Truump goes down soon before he does more harm.

But the Pope is the head of the world's largest religion and should not be involved in American politics. Maybe Trump is a Christian, just a bad one. Maybe you don't have to be a Christian to be president. I'm not a Bernie fan, but as an inactive Jew he can still be president.

It was the idea of a wall that he commented on and he lives behind a tall wall.

 

[TUBballJunkie]

The Pope is the head of a sovereign entity, not just a religion.

I have zero problem with him commenting international politics. He is international politics too.

 

[TUMe]

I agree the pope is the head of the sovereign entity , in fact I think it makes it more unappropriate for him to comment in the middle of a election process . Markel or other world leaders are not commenting . Should Prime Minister net and Yahoo of Israel say that he is not a Jew ?

 

[TUBballJunkie]

I don't get why non-Catholics get so riled up over what the Pope talks about.

I might injure myself rolling my eyes over Falwell Jr's gushing all over Trump, but I don't really give a crap what he has to say.

 

[TUBballJunkie]

And I wouldn't care what Netanyahu had to say either. It has zero effect on me.

Jewish believers may be interested though and that's their prerogative.

 

[astonmartin708]

He is a vile person. I hope Truump goes down soon before he does more harm.

But the Pope is the head of the world's largest religion and should not be involved in American politics. Maybe Trump is a Christian, just a bad one. Maybe you don't have to be a Christian to be president. I'm not a Bernie fan, but as an inactive Jew he can still be president.

It was the idea of a wall that he commented on and he lives behind a tall wall.

He didn't build any of those walls. They've been there for centuries. Also, it was clearly a metaphor. "Building a wall" isn't simply physical in the context the Pope was declaring.

 

[rabidTU]

The history of the Catholic Church and its political leanings is pretty embarrassing and should be taken with a grain of salt. Neither Mussolini nor Hitler for instance could have gained power if the Vatican hadn't turned a blind eye to the Holocaust. Where were they then?

I despise Trump, but the Pope needs to stay out of our politics and having the Vicar of Christ taking sides will hurt the church.

What happens if Trump actually wins - heaven forbid!

 

[astonmartin708]

The history of the Catholic Church and its political leanings is pretty embarrassing and should be taken with a grain of salt. Neither Mussolini nor Hitler for instance could have gained power if the Vatican hadn't turned a blind eye to the Holocaust. Where were they then?

I despise Trump, but the Pope needs to stay out of our politics and having the Vicar of Christ taking sides will hurt the church.

What happens if Trump actually wins - heaven forbid!

You argue that the church turning a blind eye to the holocaust was bad, but then when there's a pope that actually stands up for his fellow man (and the doctrine that is supported by his religion) it's not okay anymore? Which one do you want?

Personally, I'd rather have the church (and the Pope) speaking out against inhumanity.

 

[TUMe]

The last group to come out of the closet is non-religious people. I'm not an atheist, I am not against religion, bow my head when there is a prayer, say bless you when you sneeze and put up a Christmas tree. But I don't think saying a person isn't a Christian, like there is something wrong with that, belongs in a political conversation.

Why does what the Pope say get attention from non-Catholics? It's certainly not because I am anti-Catholic. Rubio has been my first choice before Trump even came in. So let me answer why what the Pope says matters by giving an example. More people read an editorial in the New York Times than one in the Sand Springs Leader. I don't have to be from New York to be aware of what they say. And I wouldn't expect the BBC to endorse a US candidate.

"But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

 

[TUBballJunkie]

JP2 was also quite significant in the fall of the Soviet Empire. As much as you can be when you aren't a military power, really.

 

[TUBballJunkie]

If the BBC endorsed a candidate, I would not care. Zero effect on me. I pick and choose which opinions are valid for my own leanings and beliefs and moral compass and I tune out the others.

If you are not religious (and specifically Catholic really), then the bottom line is that the Pope is not talking to you.

This Pope gets significantly more flack than his predecessors because his compassion and human rights commentary is mistakenly characterized as liberal and "radical".

 

[TUMe]

I don't know if an "unaffiliated" is allowed to have a "Favorite Pope." If so John Paul II was my favorite Pope. The Dalai Lama is my favorite religious figure just because he is a cool dude.

 

[TUMe]

If the BBC endorsed a candidate, I would not care. Zero effect on me. I pick and choose which opinions are valid for my own leanings and beliefs and moral compass and I tune out the others.

If you are not religious (and specifically Catholic really), then the bottom line is that the Pope is not talking to you.

".

That's how I pick mine also. Most "non affiliated" people in this country still operate with Judeo Christian values. By 2014 22.8 percent of the American population call themselves us affiliated. Who knows whether that mean "non believers," "non denominationals," or "none of the census's business."

Now, whatever a persons religious beliefs are, this is an election year and every news network ran headlines saying "Pope says Trump is not a Christian." Do you really expect a person not to take notice? Bernie Sanders isn't talking to me because I am not a Democrat, but I watched the debates of both parties.

Most people can't tell you who the Vice President is, and I don't know Joe's religion. I looked up Kasich and he was raised Catholic and is now Anglican. I don't care either.

 

[URedskin54]

Hard to blame the Catholic Church for anything under Hitler. The Vatican came to an agreement with him to protect churches in Germany shortly after he came to power, and at that point it made sense. Things hadn't gotten bad yet. Hitler broke that agreement and persecuted churches and clergy anyway. It's true there could have been more resistance, but Catholic priests did some of the most heroic work and many were sent to concentration camps themselves.

 

[TUBballJunkie]

JP2 has a significant place in history but he wasn't perfect. He spent an inordinate amount of time and words on certain topics and his interpretation of church teachings. Anyone who's been through Catholic premarital sessions or studied Theology of the Body might be familiar with it.

 

[aTUfan]

What doesn't he condem, Democrats, that support abortion?

 

[TUMe]

JP2 has a significant place in history but he wasn't perfect. He spent an inordinate amount of time and words on certain topics and his interpretation of church teachings. Anyone who's been through Catholic premarital sessions or studied Theology of the Body might be familiar with it.

I used to think that JP2 was more popular with Protestants than some Catholics. It was easier to like him because he was anti-Communist, but Protestants weren't effected by the subjects you mentioned.

 

[TUBballJunkie]

Are Christians supporting pro-abortion Democrats in droves?

Democrats don't usually try to play the religion card. So it's kind of a given.

 

[TUBballJunkie]

I used to think that JP2 was more popular with Protestants than some Catholics. It was easier to like him because he was anti-Communist, but Protestants weren't effected by the subjects you mentioned.

Yep, I'd say that's exactly it!

 

[TUBballJunkie]

I really don't think most Christians need a candidate up their yammering explicitly about their faith. Or that we have to have the exact same faith. I know I don't need that.

It's how someone's political ideologies and character match up with a person's faith, specifically a person who characterizes his faith as a primary tenet in his life. Some of the people who act the most like a Christian in everyday life very well may not believe at all.

I cannot reconcile how Catholics who show up to every pro-life rally they can don't mind Trump. (Of course Hillary is their antichrist.) People very close to me.

 

[astonmartin708]

Hard to blame the Catholic Church for anything under Hitler. The Vatican came to an agreement with him to protect churches in Germany shortly after he came to power, and at that point it made sense. Things hadn't gotten bad yet. Hitler broke that agreement and persecuted churches and clergy anyway. It's true there could have been more resistance, but Catholic priests did some of the most heroic work and many were sent to concentration camps themselves.

My mom was engaged for a long period of time to a German (immigrant) man who lived through the Holocaust. His mother was Jewish and his father was Catholic (the father played soccer for the German national team in the Olympics). They were betrayed to the gestapo by his uncle, and the family was subsequently broken up. He was placed in hiding with a group of Catholic priests along with a host of other children, his sister was placed with another family member. The mother went to Dachau, the father went to a labor camp. There was little food where the boy (my mom's longtime fiance) was being hidden, and he watched a little girl die in his arms from starvation.

Magically, the whole family survived. They were reunited, and they were transported to the US by a GI whom his father had helped. Eventually, the boy grew up, went to Penn University on a tennis scholarship, and decided after college to join the army where he joined the counter intelligence corps (CIC) and became a nazi hunter. After the army, he became an executive for a chemical company in their European operations since he was multi-lingual. That's where he met my mom.

He was the nicest, kindest, most interesting man I've ever met. I thank the Catholic priests that saved him.

 

[TUBballJunkie]

This is a month old but resonated with me a lot. My non catholic friends are the ones who repost his blogs most.

http://www.theblaze.com/contributio...for-a-godless-man-you-are-asking-for-tyranny/

 

[Gmoney4WW]

This is a month old but resonated with me a lot. My non catholic friends are the ones who repost his blogs most.

http://www.theblaze.com/contributio...for-a-godless-man-you-are-asking-for-tyranny/

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

[TUMe]

What an awful article.

First, there are many reasons not to be for Trump totally aside from religion.

Second, a non believer does not value himself above God, he simply doesn't believe that any religion has answers and that if there is a God he is not described by any religion that we have...at least, not proven so. The non believer can't be threatened with Hell because he doesn't believe it exists.

Third, Emmanuel Kant with his Formalism was able to develop the same values that religion has developed. He also comes up with the same hard choices. For instance on bearing false withness. Both religion based and non religion based morals can ask the question whether it is wrong to lie to the Gestapo about Jews in your attic. And both make the same exception.

The use of the word Pagan to describe someone who doesn't believe can be rebutted with the fact that non believers do not in general worship craven images.

Most religions have little patience for someone with different beliefs but do a bit better with those who are close but wrong on a few things. It used to be illegal to dance in Henrietta, Oklahoma.

Can there not be a moral person who is not religious. Clearly the article feels that way. Ghandi had some strange religion in a strange country. Was Ghandi a moral man?

I never liked the ideal that a common decent Joe goes to Hell because he isn't religious but a life long pedifphile can punch his ticket at the last minute.

Whether Trump is a Christian or not and whether he is going to Hell or not is none of my business. Just as long as he doesn't go to the White House.

I judge people by what they do and how they act, not by what they profess to be. I believe that most people, religious and non religious are good but there are a few rotten apples in both groups. Long time Tulsans will remember Reverend Billy Jean Hargass and he is Cristian College here. He was have sex with students of both sexs. He got out of prison a few years ago and tried to jump start his ministry.

 

[Gmoney4WW]

JP2 has a significant place in history but he wasn't perfect. He spent an inordinate amount of time and words on certain topics and his interpretation of church teachings. Anyone who's been through Catholic premarital sessions or studied Theology of the Body might be familiar with it.

Blasphemer!

I say this humorously and uncritically. Many non Catholics would not get the joke.(and a few Catholics for that matter) Meaning that they often do not realize the difference between the Pope's imperfection as a man, and the infallibility of the Pope.

 

[TUMe]

Oh, and John Adams said one thing, Jefferson said another. Jefferson bought half the country at the time, sent Lewis and Clark on the greatest ecological and geographic study of the time, and founded the Navy to fight the Libyan pirates. Adams was not re-elected. They were friends, then enemies, then friends. Adams asked Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence. Except for Adams, most of the founding fathers were somewhere between Unitarians and Deists.

 

[TUBballJunkie]

Like the Pope, Matt Walsh is talking to a very specific set of people.

Trump is his own God. That doesn't matter to a lot of people and it makes sense for them but there are also people who it should matter to if they are who they profess to be.

 

[Gmoney4WW]

What an awful article.

First, there are many reasons not to be for Trump totally aside from religion.

Second, a non believer does not value himself above God, he simply doesn't believe that any religion has answers and that if there is a God he is not described by any religion that we have...at least, not proven so. The non believer can't be threatened with Hell because he doesn't believe it exists.

Third, Emmanuel Kant with his Formalism was able to develop the same values that religion has developed. He also comes up with the same hard choices. For instance on bearing false withness. Both religion based and non religion based morals can ask the question whether it is wrong to lie to the Gestapo about Jews in your attic. And both make the same exception.

The use of the word Pagan to describe someone who doesn't believe can be rebutted with the fact that non believers do not in general worship craven images.

Most religions have little patience for someone with different beliefs but do a bit better with those who are close but wrong on a few things. It used to be illegal to dance in Henrietta, Oklahoma.

Can there not be a moral person who is not religious. Clearly the article feels that way. Ghandi had some strange religion in a strange country. Was Ghandi a moral man?

I never liked the ideal that a common decent Joe goes to Hell because he isn't religious but a life long pedifphile can punch his ticket at the last minute.

Whether Trump is a Christian or not and whether he is going to Hell or not is none of my business. Just as long as he doesn't go to the White House.

I judge people by what they do and how they act, not by what they profess to be. I believe that most people, religious and non religious are good but there are a few rotten apples in both groups. Long time Tulsans will remember Reverend Billy Jean Hargass and he is Cristian College here. He was have sex with students of both sexs. He got out of prison a few years ago and tried to jump start his ministry.[

Acts have equal value to words,. It is when they conflict with each other, and some of those same words are being used to gain ground in something so important as the "leader of the free world", that I have no problem with the Pope pointing out those disparities. Trump should not be allowed to use those words falsely without it being made known publicly.

 

[TUMe]

Like the Pope, Matt Walsh is talking to a very specific set of people.

I'm shocked. The Pope is a Christian leader talking about what a Christian is. That is at least understandable. Matt Walsh is saying that a person cannot be a moral person unless his values are derived from religion and most likely from a religion that he agrees with. That allows one group of people to say that anyone outside of that group of people is evil and most likely a potential tyrant. That far exceeds saying Trump is should not be president. That is a very intolerant "specific group of people."

 

[Gmoney4WW]

I'm shocked. The Pope is a Christian leader talking about what a Christian is. That is at least understandable. Matt Walsh is saying that a person cannot be a moral person unless his values are derived from religion and most likely from a religion that he agrees with. That allows one group of people to say that anyone outside of that group of people is evil and most likely a potential tyrant. That far exceeds saying Trump is should not be president. That is a very intolerant "specific group of people."

I find it more as a possible forewarning of what could come. But that may be me reading into it my own feelings.

 

[TUBballJunkie]

I could not agree less with that interpretation of Walsh's blog.

But if it's intolerant to not want to support a candidate who worships money, power and self over all else than I accept that label.