Special to WorldTribune.com
Pope Francis recently delivered a veiled attack on President Trump. The Holy Father strongly dislikes not just the president, but his “America First” agenda.
Trump faces fierce opposition from multiple fronts — the Democrats, the liberal media, unions and establishment Republicans. He can add the Vatican to the list.
In a fiery address, the Pope (incredibly) claimed that Islamic terrorism does not exist. That’s right: Muslims who blow themselves up or slaughter countless innocent lives — in the name of Islam — are not driven by their religious faith.
“Christian terrorism does not exist, Jewish terrorism does not exist, and Muslim terrorism does not exist. They do not exist,” Francis said in a speech to a world forum of populist movements. “No people is criminal or drug-trafficking or violent.”
Which begs the question: What then is the primary impetus for terrorism? According to the Holy See, it is economic inequality and Third World poverty.
“The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence yet, without equal opportunities, the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for growth and will eventually explode,” he said.
Yet, what the Pope does not — and cannot — address is the prevalence of terrorist violence and Jihadism across the Muslim world, and not in Christian or Jewish societies.
Take Venezuela. Due to state socialism, the Latin American country has been reduced to an economic basket case. Destitution and starvation are rampant. Inflation is over 2,200 percent. The middle-class has been wiped out. Due to chronic food shortages, average Venezuelans have lost 19 pounds in weight over the past year alone.
By the Pope’s logic, Caracas should be a hotbed of Jihadist suicide bombings. It isn’t. The reason is obvious: Venezuela is a Catholic country, which means there is no social-theological architecture that justifies the senseless slaughter of infidels (non-believers).
Islam, however, is a different story. From its inception, the Muslim faith has sought to create a global Islamic caliphate based on imperial expansion and religious subjugation. Its founder, Muhammad — in stark contrast to Jesus — openly celebrated military conquest and Holy War.
Muhammad led an army of fanatical fighters, who eventually imposed Islamic civilization across Arabia through the sword. Muhammad had slaves and multiple wives (including child brides). He specifically sanctioned beheadings, mass murder and the oppression of Christians and Jews.
In one battle alone, the Prophet personally ordered the slaughter of over 800 Qurayza Jews — men and boys who had surrendered to Muhammad’s rampaging forces. Contrary to liberal myth, violence is at the core of the Islamist faith.
But in his speech the Pope insisted — ad nauseam — that Islam is a “religion of peace.”
Francis is not just wrong. He is recklessly naïve, pushing a false narrative in the service of political correctness and utopian multiculturalism. The disgraceful irony is that, while the Holy Father is soft on Islamic butchers, he is ferocious in his denunciation of nationalists and populists.
Francis singled out “nationalism” in Europe and America as posing a mortal danger to civilized humanity. He lashed out at the populist right for demanding an end to Muslim refugees being resettled across the West, blasting leaders who champion “walls” and tighter border controls.
The Pope’s target was obvious: Trump. When pressed about it from some in the Italian media, the Holy Father denied he was singling out the president.
Several days later, however, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, let the cat out of the bag. Asked if Francis was specifically referring to Trump when the Vatican warned about the “spread of nationalism and populism,” Parolin told the Italian state-owned RAI network, “I think so, I think so. Certainly these closings are not a good sign” since the desire to erect border walls “are born of fear, which is not a good counselor.”
The Pope should be ashamed.
For centuries, the Vatican stood as the bulwark of the West and Christendom against the invading Ottoman Turks. Countless popes staunchly defended the faith and Christianity in the face of successive Islamic invasions of Europe — military campaigns that saw Muslim armies conquer Spain, the Balkans, large swathes of France, southern Italy, and almost reaching the gates of Vienna.
Instead of resisting, Francis is openly encouraging militant Muslims to pour into Europe and America. The result will be the demographic and cultural transformation of the West.
What took the Church nearly 1,000 years to achieve — the expulsion of Islamic colonialism from Christendom’s European heartland — the Pope is now willing to fritter away in one generation. The West desperately needs moral clarity and intellectual courage. Instead, the Holy Father offers only moral confusion and intellectual cowardice.
Ultimately, Francis is the Obama of the Church: An open borders left-wing globalist, who espouses appeasement of radical Islam and civilizational surrender. Unlike Obama, the Pope doesn’t want to “fundamentally transform” America; rather, his goal is even more ambitious: to transform the Catholic faith itself into an arm of modern multicultural liberalism.
No wonder he is at odds with Trump. The two are polar opposites. Trump is a populist and a patriot, who understands that Islamists seek not only to murder countless civilians but they are using immigration Jihad to eventually swamp and subjugate the West. His call to build a wall along the southern border is more than just an attempt to stem the flow of illegal aliens. He seeks to restore our national sovereignty and distinct American identity.
Radical Islam cannot — and will not — peacefully coexist with the Judeo-Christian West.
On this seminal issue, Trump is right; Francis is wrong. And as a devout Catholic, whose Croatian ancestors shed rivers of blood to defend the Church and the faith, I am forced to ask the question: Is it time for the Holy Father, with all due respect, to follow his predecessor’s example and retire? He simply may not be up for the job.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at WorldTribune.com and the host of “The Kuhner Report” weekdays 12-3 pm EST on WRKO AM-680 in Boston.
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