Monday, May 29, 2017

Trump and Pope Francis and Their Ideologically Fatal Smile


Trump and Pope Francis and Their Ideologically Fatal Smile

Would Progressive Martin Luther King Have Smiled?

By Julio Severo
The U.S. liberal mainstream media began pushing a narrative that President Donald Trump and Pope Francis had a “strained” meeting at the Vatican, because in one picture Trump was smiling and the pope not.
Picture produced by Brazilian “conservative” Catholics
In Brazil, the misinterpretation was worse. Radical Catholic “conservatives” suggested that Trump’s smile was confirmation that he is a conservative, and a lack of pope’s smile was a confirmation that he is a communist! In fact, they used (and misused) several pictures of Francis.
Pro-life Bill Donohue, who is president of the conservative organization Catholic League, said that this narrative is false.
He issued the following sharp rebuke of the media:
The first news report I heard this morning on the meeting between the president and the pope was on radio: WCBS said reporters were taking note of the fact that President Trump smiled but Pope Francis did not. That must mean something, of course. But it does not—it means nothing. As even the New York Times and the Washington Post acknowledged, the two were beaming when they shook hands. So what?
When I met the pope, he had a winning grin when we shook hands, but looked serious for a group shot. That’s the way he is. Imagine if the president wasn’t smiling and the pope was. Would that mean Trump had just been put in his place? What if neither was smiling? Would that mean they hate each other?
By Donohue’s experience, the pope might be seen smiling and not smiling in the pictures in the same meeting, and everything would depend on the photographer’s choice, who could choose a picture with Trump smiling and the pope not. He could also choose a picture with the pope smiling and Trump not.
Donohue said,
President Trump and Pope Francis disagree on climate change and immigration, but they have more in common on abortion, gay “marriage,” gender ideology and religious liberty than what divides them. The real difference was between President Obama and Pope Francis—on these issues and others—though the media failed to report it.
Yet, Donohue was generous about the disagreement between Trump and Francis by limiting it only to climate change and immigration, because actually Trump has not been opposed to gay “marriage” as he has been opposed to abortion. In this respect, Francis’s stance seems to be more conservative than Trump’s stance, which has kept Obama’s homosexual imperialism.
The pope also disagrees with Trump’s new warmongering attitudes, which Trump himself had condemned in his campaign. Today’s warmongering (which is essentially neocon) Trump was condemned by the campaign’s Trump. So the pope is not alone: the campaign’s Trump would not be pleased with the current warmongering Trump too.
By the way, if I were the president of the United States, I would bring a special gift to the pope: a collection of books on President Ronald Reagan or another conservative American leader. Trump could have easily done it.
Yet, he gave Francis a case of first-edition books by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and said, “I think you will enjoy them.”
Moment Trump gives Martin Luther King collection to Francis
King was a famous progressive leader. He was an adherent of the Social Gospel, the U.S. Protestant version of the Marxist Liberation Theology. He was also a serial adulterer.
Was Trump trying to show the pope that he has also a place for the progressive ideology in his soul?
Trump has no conservative history. And his progressive gift to Francis is consistent with his history. Does His gift shows that, as far as the progressive ideology is concerned, Trump has affinity with Francis?
If the liberal media were honest, it would use his progressive gift to show that President Donald Trump and Pope Francis had a friendly meeting.
If the pope had given a Martin Luther King’s collection to Trump, the liberal media and Brazilian Catholic conservatives would be saying, “It is confirmed. Francis is progressive!” But it was Trump who gave it. What then is confirmed?
Francis reciprocated Trump’s gift with a large medal crafted by a Roman artist — an image of an olive tree, a symbol of peace.
“It is my desire that you become an olive tree to construct peace. I signed it personally for you,” Francis told him.
“Ooh,” Trump said. “That’s so beautiful.”
A beautiful and necessary message. Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that he is worried about the “arms race” after Trump signed a massive military deal (US$ 110 billion sale of military equipment, representing the “largest single arms deal in U.S. history”) with Saudi Arabia, the main sponsor of the global Islamic terror.
Actually, Trump has accelerated the arms race by arming the most dangerous people in the world: Sunni Muslims. You just cannot preach peace and have a speech against Islamic terror by arming the terrorists themselves. And Trump did it.
Neocons love wars. During his campaign, Trump had been opposed to them and their warmongering greed. Perhaps the pope’s gift may help Trump remember that neocons are a threat.
It is not possible to smile when neocons control the U.S. government to wage unnecessary wars around the world only to produce jobs in the U.S. military industrial complex.
The U.S. military industrial complex smiles to neocons, who did not smile to the last year’s Trump, but who are smiling to the current Trump. The pope is not smiling, and I am with him.
Progressives smile about Martin Luther King. If Trump was smiling when giving a King’s collection to the pope, why did the liberal media and Brazilian Catholic conservatives choose to use a picture of the pope not smiling?
Certainly, I would not be smiling at receiving progressive books and at meeting the man who is heavily arming the Islamic dictatorship of Saudi Arabia. But I would smile upon the opportunity to pray for him, including for God to bury the current Trump’s warmongering greed and raise again the campaign’s Trump, who was against neocons. Does the pope understand what is to take the advantage of such opportunities for Jesus?
With information from Charisma magazine, DailyMail and Haaretz.
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