Pope Francis Questions Trump’s Christianity; ‘The Donald’ Fires Back
By BBC. The Pope has questioned US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Christianity over his call to build a border wall with Mexico.
Pope Francis said “a person who thinks only about building walls… and not of building bridges, is not Christian”.
The New York businessman supports deporting nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants . . .
Pope Francis made the comments at the end of a six-day trip to Mexico.
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel,” he said. (Read more from “Pope Francis Questions Trump’s Christianity, Causing ‘The Donald’ to Fire Back” HERE)
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Donald Trump Fires Back at Sharp Rebuke by Pope Francis
By Patrick Healy. In his most audacious attack yet on a revered public figure, Donald J. Trump veered into risky political territory on Thursday as he denounced Pope Francis, seeking to galvanize Republicans who worry about border security and appeal to evangelical voters who regard Francis as too liberal.
After the pontiff’s remarkable contention that Mr. Trump “is not Christian” in proposing deportations and a wall with Mexico, the candidate said Francis’ criticisms were “disgraceful” and “unbelievable,” and he contended that the Mexican government had hoodwinked the pope into criticizing him.
Politicians rarely rebuke the Vatican so forcefully for fear of alienating Catholic voters, but Mr. Trump has been increasingly aggressive ahead of Saturday’s primary in South Carolina, where polls show a tightening race and the popular Republican governor, Nikki R. Haley, just endorsed Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
Mr. Trump’s attack on Francis reflected a political calculation that criticizing the pope would not hurt him with conservatives and might even improve his standing in South Carolina and in the Southern-dominated Super Tuesday contests on March 1. Some evangelical denominations in the South and elsewhere take a dim view of the Catholic Church, and many other social conservatives have been critical of Francis over his relatively measured statements about gays, birth control and divorce. (Read more from “Donald Trump Fires Back at Sharp Rebuke by Pope Francis” HERE)
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