Trouble in the Pope’s native South America:
Brazil‘s president, Jair Bolsonaro, blasted Pope Francis for his plea to protect the Amazon from climate change.
The ultra-conservative leader, who is Catholic himself, criticized the left-leaning Latin American pope as the former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, an opponent of Bolsonaro, met and received a blessing from Francis.
“Pope Francis said yesterday the Amazon is his, the world’s, everyone’s. Well, the pope may be Argentinian, but God is Brazilian,” Bolsonaro said Thursday, appealing to his nation’s sovereignty.
Go here to read the rest. Bolsonaro, called the Trump of South America, is far from a model Catholic, as his three marriages attest, and I am unaware of a Brazilian passport for the Almighty, but when a Pope is as political as Pope Francis, he should expect to get political push-back.
The difference between “Pope” Francis, Trump and Bolsonaro is that Trump is a Catholic in spirit, Bolsonaro a Catholic in belief, while Francis is hardly a Catholic at all, but rather a would be Communist politician.