October 17, 2023

"In 2020, Mr. Milei, a self-identifying Catholic, called Pope Francis an 'imbecile' and 'the representative of the Evil One on earth' because he defends 'social justice.'"

"Last year, Mr. Milei said the pope 'always stands on the side of evil' because he supports taxes. And last month, in an interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Mr. Milei said the pope 'has an affinity for murderous communists' and is violating the Ten Commandments. Those are bold words for a man trying to become president in Argentina...."

41 comments:

tim maguire said...

"Is the Pope Catholic" used to be the punchline of a joke. Under Francis' Papacy, it's a legitimate question. Still, it would be a sad day for the traditional West if South America, one of the last remaining bastions of Catholicism, abandoned the church.

The Crack Emcee said...

"In 2020, Mr. Milei, a self-identifying Catholic, called Pope Francis an 'imbecile' and 'the representative of the Evil One on earth'

This is not what I thought adulthood would be like.

n.n said...

Social justice anywhere is injustice everywhere.

Kate said...

You can't self-identify as a Catholic. Either you were confirmed, or you weren't.

Enigma said...

Many popes would/are rolling over in their graves regarding Pope Francis. Shall we now relitigate the medieval Catholic stance: "Kill them all. God will know his own."

Narr said...

But Whoopi thinks he's groovy, so there is that.

Dave Begley said...

I'm a self-identified Catholic. What does that make me? An Enemy of the State?

And anti-Catholic prejudice is still strong in this country. Sen. DiFi to Justice ACB, "The dogma is strong in you." DDB to DiFi, "Why did you employ a Chinese spy as a driver?"

And Knights of Columbus membership was used against Judge Brian Buscher during his Senate confirmation hearing.

The facts are that Pope Francis has been a failure and a huge disappointment. I had high hopes for him because he is a Jesuit, but I should have known better. He grew up in a socialist country.

His latest missive on CAGW was idiotic. The Pope needs to stay in his lane.

The Pope should have focused entirely on reconverting Europe. What's Church attendance like in Italy, Ireland, Spain, France etc?

I made a trip to St. Ignatius Loyola's hometown. At a bus stop, I asked the locals about Ignatius of Loyola. They never heard of him and the town was about 30-50 miles away.

Leland said...

I’m no fan of Pope Francis but pump the brakes on calling him satan.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

He's more correct than not. "Is the Pope Catholic?" is not just a rhetorical phrase now. There is a real question about it based on what he has said recently.

Bob Boyd said...

What's the principle? Popeing ain't easy.

traditionalguy said...

Argentinians are tired of lies. That is bad news for the Pope worshipping branch of Christianity that requires belief in all that stuff Luther pointed out.

Sebastian said...

"He Called the Pope a 'Filthy Leftist.'"

He's not wrong, is he?

Narr said...

Maybe Catholic Joe Biden could pick up the Pope on his way to the Holy Land, and help the Jews and Muslims resolve their differences like Christians.

Shouting Thomas said...

I’m not seeing any doctrinal changes on a parish level, so I’m assuming this is much ado about nothing. The flurry of articles about potential softening on gay marriage was BS clickbait, intended to put political pressure on the Church. Nothing came of it.

There have always been good and bad popes. Given the extent to which sexual devil worship is overtaking the world, and the coming wave of persecution of the Church in the U.S. for opposing it, I suspect that a worthy successor to John Paul II exists and will come forward.

Francis is 86. He won’t be pope much longer. My prediction is that the next pope will be African. The African church doesn’t have any sympathy with the queer agenda.

Robert Cook said...

If Jesus Christ was not an emphatic advocate of "social justice," no one was (or is). It is refreshing to see a Pope follow in the shadow of Jesus, rather than serving the interests of the wealthy and powerful, (or striving to become wealthy and powerful), which was long the norm.

CJinPA said...

Whoopie Goldberg just praised the pope as "progressive." Whoopie and Milei are talking about the same traits, just differently.

EH said...

Kate, I would replace "confirmed" with "baptized" in your comment.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

When the church married the Roman Empire it kind of took a wrong fork in the historical road. Since then some Popes have corrected that path and some have diverged again. It mirror's the personal struggle with faith all Christians have, whether they are Catholic or not. Oh well. No one is perfect.

Drago said...

"In 2020, Mr. Milei, a self-identifying Catholic, called Pope Francis an 'imbecile' and 'the representative of the Evil One on earth"

The Crack Emcee: "This is not what I thought adulthood would be like."

Perhaps spend a little more time reading up on the role radical marxist "priests" served in the central american and south american revolutions and how they used the cover of the church to advance astonishingly anti-human/anti-Catholic doctrines and how that is reflected in our current marxist pope.

guitar joe said...

"Kate, I would replace "confirmed" with "baptized" in your comment."

My wife was baptized in a protestant church, and when she converted to Catholicism did not have to be baptized again. She did have to go through confirmation. So, Kate is correct.

hombre said...

Francis is the Pope Satan has been waiting for. Most Catholics likely know this.

tim in vermont said...

It’s the definition of “justice” that is the question, Robert.

“Under capitalism, one man exploits the other, under communism, it’s the other way around.” - Old Soviet joke.

Farmer said...

The Church, at least in America, is headed for schism. We're ten years out, at most. It'll probably happen sooner.

Post-Vatican II, the church in America became, as Bishop Barron has put it, "beige." What that really means is it became more Protestant. From architecture to music to, if not theology, at least the focus of the theology (social justice over abortion, for instance, rather than social justice and abortion). It sucked. It had no life. It lost its sense of awe and wonder. But as bad as it was, there was never anything like a serious attempt to split. Liberals who were too liberal for the Church simply left. With the exception of a handful of mental cases, they didn't start new churches.

Then came the overcorrection. People bemoaning the reception of communion in the hand (approved by the Church and from all accounts, the standard in the early Church), suspicion of anything smacking of social justice (Madison Catholics will remember Bishop Morlino deciding to cut costs by defunding the Catholic Multicultural Center) (and then disingenuously acting delighted when private donors kept its doors open), and diving into the culture wars head first, as if that battle hadn't already been fought and lost. The fire breathing, over-the-top obsession with abortion and the disturbing fixation on gay people being the two most egregious examples. Priests publicly claiming that you can't be Catholic if you vote for Democrats. Just wackos running around acting nuttier than squirrel turds at every opportunity. The kind of people who would be just as crazy if they were left-wing, or apolitical. The kind of people most of us have the common sense to ignore, or, at most, patronize in hopes they'll tire themselves out and find another cause to scream about.

Catholics who for decades chided their liberal brothers and sisters to be obedient to the Pope were suddenly calling Pope Francis evil (I've heard many accuse him, Martin Luther-style, of being the Antichrist). Darling of the right Fr. James Altman, who inexplicably hasn't been defrocked, recently called for a New Testament style murder of Pope Francis by tying a millstone around his neck and throwing him in the sea.

And up until - and probably after - the schism, the Church's leaders will still be trying to reason with these lunatics. They don't realize you can't let extremists run amok and then suddenly try to throw a leash on them when they go too far. That's not how extremism works. They don't seem to understand that while a return to orthodox theology and a sense of gravitas in the mass is a good thing, it's not the same thing as turning the Church into a feckless wing of the Republican Party. Actually, the Republican Party is way too left-wing for these nuts. They won't be happy till we're living in a theocracy. There is nothing any priest, bishop or Pope can do to stop it at this point. They opened the doors to the cuckoos and now it's too late to close them. They're already publicly threatening schism.

Very soon there will be multiple "Catholic" Churches in America. You'll be able to choose one based on your political affiliation, just like the Protestants. When the liberal one you like gets a little too liberal for your taste, you can just get a group of people together to split off again, like is happening right now with the ELCA.

I don't believe the gates of hell will prevail, but, at least here in America, the Church is about to be plunged into chaos. It's going to take decades, if not centuries, to repair the damage the anti-Francis forces are doing to Christ's Church. There is no other word for it than evil.

Critter said...

ALERT! NYT hit piece. This is just a puff piece about social justice movement within the Catholic Church which is Marxism dressed up in priestly robes. The people rejected the Catholic Social Justice movement long ago and if they elect this politician it will be an exclamation point. Clearly presented, voters turn down Marxism time and again.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

If Jesus Christ was not an emphatic advocate of "social justice," no one was (or is).

Nope. Jesus was an emphatic enforcer of justice as defined by God not man. "Social Justice" is not the same as justice without the modern modifier. When you slap "Social" in front of a word it changes the meaning from the original one to one based on social standing as defined by leftists. It is not only not Biblical in form or function (how can it be since God's wisdom gives Him the ability to judge justice?) it is 100% un-American because it explicitly rejects "equal justice under the law." If we don't strive to reach that ideal of Justice -- "equal before the law" -- then we are doing injustice. Thus "social justice" is just a long way of saying you favor injustice.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

The very notion of a Pope as some kind of "vicar of Christ" is an absurdity. Never more so than today. You certainly won't find many American Catholics who give a shit what the Pope thinks. Don't assume that Argentinian Catholics are any less cynical.

Kate said...

I went back and forth. However, the counterpoint to "self-identifying" is someone who has fully received the sacraments.

Misinforminimalism said...

He "said the pope 'always stands on the side of evil' because he supports taxes"??? That's some creative use of quotation marks! His beef with Francis is that he's a socialist who pals around with thugs and dictators and calls for political action that is disastrous for the people, not that there are taxes.

The article tries to insinuate that Milei said these things in the past and is now distancing himself from them in an effort to get elected, but to the contrary, he's sticking to his guns. He made these exact points very, very explicitluy in his interview with Tucker last month.

Yancey Ward said...

The Pope is a filthy leftist.

Jupiter said...

The Pope is a filthy leftist. Obviously. Every time he opens his filthy leftist mouth, filthy leftism comes out.

rcocean said...

well consider the source. Per the Times of Israel:

In an interview with Spain’s El Pais last month, Milei said he is considering conversion. to Judaism. One of the obstacles getting in the way: observing Shabbat.

“If I’m president and it’s Shabbat, what do I do? Am I going to disconnect from the country from Friday to Saturday? There are some issues that would make [the religion] incompatible. The rabbi who helps me study says that I should read the Torah from the point of view of economic analysis,” he said.


Of course, I can understand Pope Francis driving Catholics to Judaism.

JAORE said...

"If Jesus Christ was not an emphatic advocate of "social justice," no one was (or is)."

Am I my brother's keeper? Nah, let the bureaucracy handle it. They'll just borrow a bit more.

Anthony said...

This pope essentially lost me as a Catholic. A few years ago there was yet another sex scandal (Pennsylvania, I believe it was) that had been covered up. The Babylon Bee wrote up a satirical story about the Vatican releasing a statement saying (to the effect) "This is bad, but we're doing more important things, like climate change and social justice."

Which was fine, until the actual Vatican released a statement that was nearly identical.

(That wasn't the only thing that lost me, but it was the final nail)

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

"Thus "social justice" is just a long way of saying you favor injustice."

Social justice is just a euphemism for socialism.

The City of St. Paul just created a Reparations Commission. The woman hired to lead the committee had to step down almost immediately. Why? Because she's Hmong and Black folk complained because they said the leader should be a Black person. In my thinking a Black person should not lead the committee as that creates a clear conflict of interest.

"How a member of a hiring panel landed — and quickly lost — a job on the St. Paul City Council’s reparations commission"

https://www.twincities.com/2023/10/15/how-a-member-of-a-hiring-panel-landed-and-quickly-lost-a-job-on-the-st-paul-city-councils-reparations-commission/

EH said...

guitar joe - I guess we'll just have to disagree about who can identify as catholic then. Are you going to tell all the children in catholic families that they aren't catholic until they've been confirmed? Google baptism, it's admission to the church. I suppose you can argue that's broader than being catholic, but the word catholic basically means universal. I think any Christian can call themselves catholic if they want to. Now, that doesn't mean they should partake of the eucharist, etc. if they haven't followed the process the Catholic Church requires (first holy communion, etc.).

Ampersand said...

For those who perceive Jesus as a social justice advocate, I wonder how they reconcile that with the fact that neither he, nor his apostles or Paul, ever spoke out about the evil of slavery? It was endemic in that part of the Roman Empire, and I seem to recall an epistle in which Paul instructed slaves to obey their masters.

Jesus seemed to think that justice was something coming way on the back end, once some of us made it to his father's house.

But if you went to Harvard Divinity, you know Jesus as a gay trans rights social justice warrior, who definitely was not God.

Ampersand said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bobby said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bobby said...

Go read at https://www.barnhardt.biz/ . You'll see that quite a few millions of trad Catholics hate this current pope.

narciso said...

the current pontiff is at best ignorant, at worst in grave heresy

Thomas said...

Wow...incendiary politician makes incendiary comments. Who would've thunk it.