There’s an old saying that parents used to recite to whiny kids that went something like this: “I don’t care if the Pope said you could do it, you’re not doing it.” Those words are what came to mind seeing Obama and Pope Francis warmly smiling at each other, surrounded by grinning Vatican representatives.
Based on President Obama’s stance on social issues, Pope Francis should have acted like Pius XII during World War II who said conciliation with ”an untrustworthy scoundrel” was “out of the question,” but since he chose otherwise, during the 52-minute audience the discussion should have involved a firm rebuke by the pope for the brutality against the unborn that this pro-abortion president fully supports.
If the Pope didn’t harshly renounce Obama’s fondness for abortion, it’s likely the president came away from his Vatican meeting believing that Francis’s approachable demeanor implicitly granted the go-ahead to continue with his radical social agenda.
As for issues that the two men do agree on, what we know is that Obama is concerned about income inequality, which he calls “the defining challenge of our time,” and Francis is concerned with what he calls the “predicament of the underprivileged.”
As it always has, global poverty looms large, but in God’s economy it is birthright inequality that is truly the “defining challenge of our time.” And while poverty is cruel, abortion is much worse and more preventable than the difficulty of those even Jesus told us would always be with us.
Thus, the prospect of eliminating poverty is a pointless endeavor.
Many would argue that choosing between poverty and abortion is not an either-or, which is true. However, placing emphasis on the gap between the rich and the poor can obscure an issue more pressing than the need to level the playing field on a planet where the silent screams of aborted babies drown out the giggles of children at play.
As for the Bishop of Rome, the stain of sin upon a nation and a world that slaughters the unborn should always be more important than the economic standing of the living. What is a bit worrisome is that Francis has suggested that for him, the “plight of the poor” provides a way to prevent overemphasis on social issues like abortion and gay marriage.
All the same, it is alleged that the Pope did broach the topics of abortion, religious freedom, and birth control with Obama. And well he should have, but the grinning camaraderie after the meeting calls into question the severity of the Pope’s rebuke.
Irrespective of what Francis said or chose not to say, classic Obama would be for the morally-relativistic president to believe that socialist intentions lessen the offense of approving of and providing funding for the slaughter of the world’s unborn.
After all, Jorge Mario Bergoglio did offer sinners ‘indulgences’ and ‘time off in purgatory’ if on Youth Day they follow him on Twitter. So if Obama is hip to the ‘indulgence’ arrangement, there’s a good chance he could leave his one-on-one with the pontiff convinced that it’s possible to inch one’s way out of the sulfur pit by sharing the wealth.
And while there is no denying the tragedy of “At least 80% of humanity [living] on less than $10 a day” – as does Barack Obama’s Kenyan half-brother George – what’s sadder still is to deny life to a child who could be happy even if consigned to live life on less than $10 a day.
According to UNICEF, poverty is responsible for 22,000 children dying daily. Worse yet, worldwide, one child loses its life to abortion every two seconds, which totals 40-50 million dead babies a year. Since Roe v. Wade was instituted in 1973, 1.72 billion abortions have taken place globally.
And as Obama and Francis contemplated the plague of poverty’s injustice toward “the least of these,” ‘the least-est of the least,’ who were deprived a chance to fight their way out of the womb or live a life dedicated to eradicating what Francis calls the “predicament of the underprivileged,” were being incinerated to provide heat for UK hospitals.
Nonetheless, the world’s needy were the primary topic of the pope and the president’s talk, at least perhaps Francis got to address the dichotomy of Obama, who, while claiming to consider income inequality “the defining challenge of our time,” seemed fine with Michelle indulging in a multi-million dollar sightseeing tour of China and staying in an $8,400 per-night hotel suite in a country where people live in abject poverty and forced abortions are commonplace.
From one-child China it would have been a hop, skip, and a jump for the pontiff to ask the pro-abortion president, who claims he and Francis discussed the “role of empathy in public and private life,” where the empathy is in his wife lunching on yak soup and butter tea on behalf of Tibetan minorities in Zangxiang Teahouse in Chengdu, China, while in America the cries of aborted minority babies reach heavenward to God?
That’s why it looks as if God may have showed up at the Vatican to send Obama a not-so-subtle message of His own.
Ironically, after the pope and the president’s private audience, Barack gave Francis a handmade wooden chest full of fruit and vegetable seeds. The seeds, which are symbolic of life, came from the White House garden. Francis’s gift to Obama was a copy of Evangelii Gaudium, otherwise known as “The Joy of the Gospel,” which the president promised he would read, and we know how reliable Obama’s promises are.
Nonetheless, as the genial gift-giving portion of the visit was taking place, the seed chest, which was rather precariously balanced on metal stilts, toppled over.
Francis’s admirer claimed he was “incredibly moved” by his audience with “His Holiness,” but what is really incredibly moving is the message sent when the chest of seeds representing the gift of life Barack Obama denies the unborn came crashing to the ground.
