While listening to Rush Limbaugh’s recent comments on Pope Francis I gasped when he said, “I thought he was going a little overboard on the common man touch.”
I thought, “Did he just say that?”
It seems ironic coming from him, no?
Limbaugh continued: “But nonetheless, I was willing to cut him some slack.”
Yes, he really said he is willing to “cut” the Pope “some slack.”
Who does he think he is?
His arrogance is unbelievable.
Yes, the Pope talked about poverty and charity and he used the words “unfettered capitalism.”
Most of us capitalists want some laws. You know, so we have things like safe working conditions and so we don’t have child labor.
I don’t know how much of this is ignorance of Catholicism and how much is propaganda, but he is asserting that the Pope speaking on Catholic social teaching is somehow him saying anything different than what has always been there in Catholicism.
Is the problem what some people think of the Catholic Church — its stance on abortion and other social conservative positions — is different than the Church that has fed the poor, housed the homeless and cared for orphans? Does he not know of the Church that has been the home to countless priests and nuns and others who hid Jews from Nazis, marched for the civil rights of African-Americans and opposed the Vietnam War? Is he unaware that the Church not only opposes abortion, but also the death penalty?
The Church is not left-wing or right-wing. It is Catholic.
The Pope is not left-wing or right-wing. He is Catholic.
To be clear, the real Church and not the image of it some people have is not on the same page as those who think like Limbaugh. It is, also, not on the same page as those who think like Gloria Steinem.
Ideologues on both ends of the political spectrum should be as discomforted by the Church as Limbaugh is presenting himself to be.
And, while his views on Pope Francis may be considered by some “controversial,” the truth is that what the Church teaches and what Limbaugh (and Steinem and others) tell his (or their) followers are worlds apart.
At least he is honest about it.
D.E. Cantor 