No, I assure you the title to this post is not a typo. Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the U.S. last week caught the attention of many people domestically and abroad. One of those was former Cuban president Fidel Castro; in an article published on Sunday, Castro praised the pope’s speeches as “the antithesis of the politics of brutality and force” carried out by the U.S. government. Castro added:
Although it is not easy to decipher the Vatican’s thinking on the thorny issues approached in a world where the president of the United States and his rich and developed allies have imposed a bloody war on the culture and religion of more than one billion persons in the name of the fight against terrorism, and where torture, pillage and conquest by force of hydrocarbons and raw materials reigns supreme, what the Pope stated is the antithesis of the policy of brutality and force applied by the singer of Happy Birthday.
While Castro praised the pope’s message, former Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo blasted his holiness. According to an article in The Denver Post:
Tancredo, a Littleton Republican, accused the pope of welcoming illegal immigrants to the U.S. in order to build membership in the church…
"I suspect the pope's immigration comments may have less to do with spreading the gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the church," Tancredo said. "This isn't preaching; it is faith-based marketing."
(Hat tip on the Tancredo bit: Guanabee).
Image- International Herald Tribune
Sources- The Denver Post, The Latin Americanist, Guanabee, Reuters, Granma, AGI
No comments:
Post a Comment