VATICAN CITY, THE VATICAN — The war of words between two of the world’s leading Catholics was taken up a notch over the weekend. 2016 Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum started the feud with Pope Francis over the Pope’s decision to make climate change a major focus of his papacy, going so far as to include it in his new encyclical which will be released later this year. Santorum touched-off the feud when he said that Francis and Catholics in general would be “better off leaving science to the scientists and focusing on what we’re really good at, which is theology and morality,” and then on Fox News over the weekend, Santorum said, “there are more pressing problems confronting the earth than climate change” as he was defending his swipe at the head of the Catholic Church.
Fox Host Chris Wallace pointed out that Santorum, at one time a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania is not a scientist and asked the socially conservative Republican “if [the Pope] shouldn’t talk about it, should you?” Santorum’s reply was to draw a distinction between politicians and pontiffs. Santorum told Wallace that essentially politicians and religious leaders serve two totally different roles, and that’s why Santorum’s apparent hypocrisy is a non-issue.
Santorum said that politicians “make decisions with respect to our public policy that affect American workers,” and that someone who wants to “make sure we have a revitalization in manufacturing and energy production, things to create jobs and opportunities” won’t be focused on climate change at all. It was just a matter of hours before the Vatican responded with a statement written by Pope Francis himself.
“I think that we probably are better off leaving Christianity to the people who actually want to follow Christ’s teachings,” Pope Francis’ statement began, “and Dick Santorum should leave Christianity to the Christians. He can focus on what he’s really good at, hate mongering for campaign contributions.” The letter, which was hand-written and featured a small doodle of an outstretched hand raising only its middle finger and an arrow leading from the raised finger to a crude drawing of a stick figure in a sweater-vest with the words “Dicky S.” scrawled above it, went on to castigate Santorum for “being more concerned about making rich people richer — a distinctly un-Christian thing to do — than he was about helping the poor” and that “God told us in the Bible to be good stewards of this gift he has given us, so people like Dicky boy are ignoring yet another admonishment from the Big Cheese.”
Pope Francis pointedly suggested to Santorum that he “do himself a favor and re-read his Bible over again, but to skip the parts he tends to focus on — like Leviticus — and focus on all the stuff Jesus Christ was saying about loving his fellow man and such.” The Pope also pointed out that Jesus “told everyone heavenly access isn’t granted with earthly riches” and that Santorum and his fellow Republicans “are making Jesus roll over in his empty tomb” because of “how much they focus on butt sex and harming the poor.”
“I’d suggest that until Dick Santorum is ready, willing, and able to actually wash the feet of the poor, he is no Christian,” Pope Francis wrote. “I would suggest that no true Christian would advocate any economic policy that pretends as if the rich can’t afford another few pennies on their dollar, but that expects the working poor to shoulder even more of the burden of keeping society going. No true Christian would support policies that destroy the one planet our Heavenly Father has given us for nothing more than money,” the letter went on to add.
In closing his letter, Pope Francis said, “I of course would like to extend an olive branch to Dick Santorum, because one of the things we learn from God is grace. So I would like to extend an open invitation to Dick. He can stay with me for awhile, and I’ll take him to orphanages and government benefit offices in his own country. He can tell all those poor people why he believes the words of a man who was ostensibly sent here to die for everyone’s sins, and to tell us all to stop worshiping material goods should be translated into him taking away what little help they have in feeding, sheltering and clothing their children.”
And then I’ll explain why the Vatican can’t simply just sell a few dozen or so of its own earthly treasures — works of art and historical artifacts — to help the poor and why we must horde them all to ourselves…and why that’s not hypocrisy.”
