Piers Morgan — “The Pope’s right: America doesn’t have to be a country driven by gun-toting, blood-thirsty, planet-destroying bigots”

September 24, 2015 in Economy, Financial Crisis, News by RBN Staff


Daily Mail
 | PIERS MORGAN FOR MAILONLINE

I’m not surprised John Boehner sobbed like a baby in Congress today.

Aside from the fact that the esteemed Speaker of the House seems disconcertingly incapable of ever holding his tear-ducts together, he’d also had to listen to his Holy Father – like me, Boehner is a Catholic – giving his Republican party a damn good papal pasting.

Pope Francis is an extraordinary man; feisty, funny, highly opinionated, innovative, and seriously courageous.

It takes real guts to walk into someone’s house and tell them everything you hate about it. But that’s exactly what the Pope did today.

It takes real guts to walk into someone’s house and tell them everything you hate about it. But that’s exactly what the Pope did on Thursday when he addressed Congress

While Boehner wiped his tears, the muted reaction from the Republicans in the audience spoke volumes

In a blistering speech, he ripped into the GOP, not by name but by association to their avowed policies on everything from guns and immigration to the death penalty and climate change.

It was riveting stuff and frankly, whichever side of the political divide you sit, it needed to be said.

As the Republican presidential nominee race has accelerated, so too has the highly-charged inflammatory rhetoric of many of the candidates on hot-button issues.

Donald Trump’s whacked Mexicans, Ben Carson’s whacked Muslims, Mike Huckabee’s whacked gays, and Ted Cruz has whacked anyone he can think of.

What better time for a man of simple fairness and humility to enter the stage and calm everyone down?

No wonder Boehner was crying. The fellow Catholic had just listened to a blistering speech from the Holy Father that ripped almost all the GOP's stances 

Since Nelson Mandela died, the world has been crying out for a unifying voice. Someone of global stature who can preach a message of tolerance and peace amid an increasingly fractured, extremist and violent planet.

Pope Francis is that person.

After his predecessor Benedict, who inexplicably resigned, thus treating the Papacy as some kind of glorified bank job to be simply discarded when one gets a little tired of it, Francis has been a spectacular breath of fresh air in the Vatican.

Whether kissing the feet of AIDS patients, or instantly renouncing many of the trappings of papal life, he has shown a desire for change that stretches far beyond members of his own church.

He wants us all to be better people; to be less obsessed with money and consumption and killing fellow humans who don’t agree with us.

The pope fills a void  left by the death of unifying voice for the world Nelson Mandela 

The pope fills a void  left by the death of unifying voice for the world Nelson Mandela


And more inclined to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

There is a steely strength beneath the oratory.

Pope Francis is a tough man and he is not afraid to say things that may offend his hosts.

I once watched Mandela eviscerate George W. Bush and Tony Blair over the Iraq War during a speech in London.

They took it on their bruised chins because he was Mandela.

This Pope has the same ability to compel victims of his critiques to listen, and respond, with grudging respect.

It gives him an almost unique power and he wields it with great passion and expertise.

Take what he said about immigration:

‘We, the people of this continent, are not fearful of foreigners, because most of us were once foreigners. I say this to you as the son of immigrants, knowing many of you are also descended from immigrants.’

To those who would throw all undocumented immigrants out, he said: ‘We must view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. Let us remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do to you”.’

Has anyone articulated this side of the argument better than that?

Pope Francis wasn’t finished there. He was outraged by the very notion of homelessness, incensed by the multi-billion dollar gun trade, laid the blame for climate change firmly on humans, and reserved special withering indignation for America’s continued love for the death penalty: ‘I offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.’

The muted reaction from many Republicans sitting in the audience to all these zingers flying their way spoke volumes.

Pope Francis would make a fantastic President and it's sad he never will be

Pope Francis would make a fantastic President and it’s sad he never will be


They were getting a very public lecture from someone who knew exactly what he was doing, and exactly how to do it.

Pope Francis would make a fantastic President.

Sadly, he never will be.

But the Democrats who can should heed his blisteringly effective dismantling of the more unpalatable conservative views today and realise that’s the way to attack them.

Just as all decent Republicans, of which there are many, should pause and think hard about the way some of the debate in their party is headed.

America doesn’t have to be a country driven by gun-toting, blood-thirsty, planet-destroying bigots.

There is, as Pope Francis so eloquently espoused in Congress today , another way.

A way that actually far better represents the intrinsic values and virtues which made the United States the great country it is at its heart.

A way that puts fairness, tolerance, compassion and kindness above greed, ruthlessness, selfishness, war-mongering and personal ambition.

The best friends in life are often the most critical.

Pope Francis gave America a big wake-up call today and he did it as a friend and admirer, not an enemy.

His words couldn’t have come at a better time.