Pope Francis Confronts Right-Wing Media Vitriol

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This post first appeared at Wall Writings.

American right-wing media commentators are trying desperately to gang up on the head of the Catholic Church.

A video compilation of some of the venom and hatred which greeted Pope Francis on his first ever Papal trip to the United States are a series of false and ignorant hatred rants.

Pope Francis responded by turning the other cheek. Addressing the US Congress Thursday morning, the Pope:

“challenged Congress and by extension the mightiest nation in history on Thursday to break out of its cycle of polarization and paralysis to finally use its power to heal the “open wounds” of a planet torn by hatred, greed, poverty and pollution.”

Anticipating the Pope’s tone of healing, right-wing media fired salvo after salvo of venom at the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics before the Pope even spoke to Congress.

Put together by Media Matters for America, the right-wing clips directed at the Pope offer a series of examples of the racism, hatred and ignorance now pervading elements of our society.

How Right-Wing Media Are Welcoming Pope Francis To America

This is how right-wing media welcomed Pope Francis to America:

Posted by Media Matters for America on Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman provides a more upbeat report on the Pope’s visit.(View Goodman’s program.)

She cites one segment of the Pope’s address to the US Congress which highlighted the lives and works of four “great” Americans, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.

“In these times when social concerns are so important, I cannot fail to mention the Servant of God Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement,” the pope said. “Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the gospel, her faith and the example of the saints.”

He went on to say, “A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to “dream” of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton.” 

Right-wing media failed in its effort to persuade a necessary number of members of Congress to kill President Obama’s historic Iran nuclear deal.

It will fail again to defeat a humble man wearing the mantle of religious power, quietly displaying that spiritual power in the halls of the U.S. Congress.

Right-wing media commentators are no match for the Pope’s Four Horsemen of Lincoln, King, Day and Merton.

The video clips compilation above is from Facebook. Thus far, the posting has reached over 8 million readers. This post is republished here with the author’s permission.

James Wall
James M. Wall is currently a contributing editor of The Christian Century magazine, based in Chicago, Illinois. From 1972 through 1999, he was editor and publisher. Jim launched his personal blog, Wall Writings, in 2008.
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