Pope suggests Trump: not Christian

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Path_Finder said:
Also, some sicknesses have been brought up, strains of the flu that possibly were even deadly for some Americans, a little African American boy from Missouri, brought up from Central America by illegal aliens, another reason to be wary of a lack of security at the borders. We care for others but with due care. A leader is responsible for his own flock. If one individually wants to work with lepers for example, sure, go ahead; but maybe this should not be pinned on everyone in society.
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What a horrible stereotype about undocumented immigrants. I’d hope as Christians we could let this die here.

Are illegal immigrants bringing ‘tremendous’ disease across the border, as Trump says? Unlikely

Do Mexican Immigrants Bring Disease Into The US? Donald Trump Says There’s A Health Scare, But Statistics Say Otherwise
 
queenofheartscv said:
Let’s just say I trust Trump to build a wall that works. He has built great buildings.
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Umm. That’s bc he has no one to speak to. He says build this and It gets done. As president, you need to get approved by congress. It won’t come that easy.
 
Darryl1958 said:
Good fences make good neighbors. Walls are not prohibited in the Christian faith.
And neither is over-the-top rhetoric, and luckily so for all parties involved in this dispute.
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He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.”
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poetryfoundation.org/poem/173530
 
So, Trump later in the day softened his stance evidently after he heard what the Pope actually said.

I suppose we should feel good about that, because after President Trump drops a nuke out of raw emotional reaction, he will softened his stance then too.

Good to know.
 
I’d like to just again explain the context.
  1. Before the Pope’s visit to Mexico, Donald Trump took it upon himself to comment on it accusing the Holy Father of being a “pawn” of the Mexican government.
In a Feb. 11 interview with Fox Business Network, Trump criticized the Pope’s sympathy toward immigrants, as well as his decision to celebrate Mass at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I think the Pope is a very political person. I think he doesn’t understand the problems our country has,” Trump said.
Trump said the Pope doesn’t understand the “danger” of having an open border with Mexico and suggested that Mexico’s leaders “seduced” the Pope into the Mass in order to keep the border the way it is, “because they’re making a fortune, and we’re losing.”
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Read more: ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-person-who-thinks-only-about-building-walls-not-building-bridges-is-no/#ixzz40ccN3iOi
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Not sure why it was his place to comment to begin with. But this is where the kerfuffle starts.

Then on the plane there was the Press Conference. The question was asked to the Holy Father, by Phil Pulella, from Reuters:
Phil Pullella, Reuters: Today, you spoke very eloquently about the problems of immigration. On the other side of the border, there is a very tough electoral battle. One of the candidates for the White House, Republican, Donald Trump, in an interview recently said that you are a political man and he even said that you are a pawn, an instrument of the Mexican government for migration politics. Trump said that if he’s elected, he wants to build 2,500 kilometers of wall along the border. He wants to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, separating families, etcetera. I would like to ask you, what do you think of these accusations against you and if a North American Catholic can vote for a person like this?
Pope Francis: Thank God he said I was a politician because Aristotle defined the human person as “animal politicus.” At least I am a human person. As to whether I am a pawn, well, maybe, I don’t know. I’ll leave that up to your judgment and that of the people. And then, a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt.
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Read more: ncregister.com/daily-news/full-text-of-pope-francis-in-flight-interview-from-mexico-to-rome/#ixzz40cdH8Gj5
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So what does Trump do? (a man who has repeatedly claimed his superior negotiation skills) Instead of obtaining the exact quote, and reading it, and perhaps even concluding that the Holy Father might not be very familar with Trump and his politics, issues his press release basically saying, How dare the Pope?
DONALD J. TRUMP RESPONSE TO THE POPE
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If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened. ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians.
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The Mexican government and its leadership has made many disparaging remarks about me to the Pope, because they want to continue to rip off the United States, both on trade and at the border, and they understand I am totally wise to them. The Pope only heard one side of the story - he didn’t see the crime, the drug trafficking and the negative economic impact the current policies have on the United States. He doesn’t see how Mexican leadership is outsmarting President Obama and our leadership in every aspect of negotiation.
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For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian and as President I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike what is happening now, with our current President. No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith. They are using the Pope as a pawn and they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so, especially when so many lives are involved and when illegal immigration is so rampant.
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In my opinion, the above is an over reaction to what was actually said. And is a bit paranoid. Is there any indication that the Mexican government has mentioned Trump to the Pope at all?

And maybe Trump should have wondered what the Pope actually said at Juarez where he was critical of Mexico?

It is concerning to me that this is how Trump “diplomatically” reacts to the Pope.
 
irishpatrick said:
So, Trump later in the day softened his stance evidently after he heard what the Pope actually said.

I suppose we should feel good about that, because after President Trump drops a nuke out of raw emotional reaction, he will softened his stance then too.

Good to know.
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😦

I agree with you.
 
gracepoole said:
What a horrible stereotype about undocumented immigrants. I’d hope as Christians we could let this die here.

Are illegal immigrants bringing ‘tremendous’ disease across the border, as Trump says? Unlikely

Do Mexican Immigrants Bring Disease Into The US? Donald Trump Says There’s A Health Scare, But Statistics Say Otherwise
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The first article quotes the CDC as saying there IS an increased risk of communicable diseases posed by immigrants. Others quoted in the article dispute that. But the article is hardly definitive for the negative proposition.

Couldn’t get the second one to scroll, so perhaps I’ll read it later.

When talking about diseases brought into the U.S. by immigrants, we might not always be looking at the right thing. There has been, over the last couple of decades, an increase in antibiotic-resistant strains of common diseases. All kinds of things are blamed for that, including overprescription and use in animal feed.

But it has to be realized that the most powerful antibiotics imaginable are available over the counter in some countries, including Mexico. People self-diagnose and self-prescribe routinely. There is a body of opinion that some of the resistant strains, particularly tuberculosis, are spreading exactly because of overuse of antibiotics by immigrants who can purchase them over the counter in their own countries or who purchase them from sellers in this country who did.

So, a couple of statements by some medical people arguing against the CDC don’t really tell us this is an issue we can or should “put to bed”.

Maybe it’s worthy of considering closer medical scrutiny of immigrants, or maybe not, but it’s not just something one should wish away because one sympathizes with them.
 
On TV this morning, Father Jonathan Morris opined that, sooner or later, the Pope will apologize to Trump, notwithstanding that Fr. Morris also said the Pope’s statement has been widely misconstrued.

Kind of hard to picture the Pope apologizing, but stranger things have happened. 🤷
 
Trump missed a golden opportunity. He could have AGREED with Pope Francis and spun the conversation around to the importance of controlling immigration. I speak in political terms of course.
The reaction he gave says a lot about his character.
 
Ridgerunner said:
The first article quotes the CDC as saying there IS an increased risk of communicable diseases posed by immigrants. Others quoted in the article dispute that. But the article is hardly definitive for the negative proposition.
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That’s what the word “unlikely” in the headline refers to.

At the very least, we all should wary of generalizing about undocumented immigrants in this way. At most, we should recognize how much this kind of rhetoric smacks of previous instances in which people have been “othered” as those who will spread disease, steal jobs, rape women, commit other violent crimes, and destroy communities.

Or we could, without proper studies and evidence, simply suggest all of the above anyway.
 
queenofheartscv said:
Let’s just say I trust Trump to build a wall that works. He has built great buildings.
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Yes. One building in New York was built using undocumented Polish workers (allegedly)

nytimes.com/1998/06/14/nyregion/after-15-years-in-court-workers-lawsuit-against-trump-faces-yet-another-delay.html?pagewanted=all

This article is from 1998, so there is no political bias.
Eighteen years ago, Wojciech Kozak helped build Trump Tower, the skyscraper jewel in Donald J. Trump’s real-estate empire. Today, Mr. Kozak recalls that time with nightmare memories of backbreaking 12-hour shifts and of being cheated with 200 other undocumented Polish immigrants out of meager wages and fringe benefits.
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‘‘We worked in horrid, terrible conditions,’’ Mr. Kozak said of the six months he spent in 1980 wielding a sledgehammer and a blowtorch in demolishing the Bonwit Teller Building on Fifth Avenue to make way for Trump Tower. ‘‘We were frightened illegal immigrants and did not know enough about our rights.’’
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Mr. Kozak, like other laborers on that job, has no hope of collecting about $4,000 in back wages from a contracting company that began the demolition and later became insolvent. But after almost two decades, the demolition workers are still struggling to compel Mr. Trump and his business associates to compensate a union’s welfare funds and thus increase pension and medical benefits for some of the Polish workers.
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Ridgerunner said:
…But it has to be realized that the most powerful antibiotics imaginable are available over the counter in some countries, including Mexico. People self-diagnose and self-prescribe routinely. There is a body of opinion that some of the resistant strains, particularly tuberculosis, are spreading exactly because of overuse of antibiotics by immigrants who can purchase them over the counter in their own countries or who purchase them from sellers in this country who did.

So, a couple of statements by some medical people arguing against the CDC don’t really tell us this is an issue we can or should “put to bed”.
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The CDC is under no obligation to investigate and disprove every baseless speculation. First present a prima facie case for immigrants causing antibiotic resistant disease and then you might have a case for the CDC needing to reconsider their position.
 
gracepoole said:
What a horrible stereotype about undocumented immigrants. I’d hope as Christians we could let this die here.

Are illegal immigrants bringing ‘tremendous’ disease across the border, as Trump says? Unlikely

Do Mexican Immigrants Bring Disease Into The US? Donald Trump Says There’s A Health Scare, But Statistics Say Otherwise
Click to expand...
Got the second one to scroll. It focuses on viral diseases for which vaccinations are available, including measles, etc, and for which many in Mexico and Central America are vaccinated in their home countries.

But that’s not the whole story, and immigration-friendly articles sometimes focus too narrowly. There is no vaccination against tuberculosis and many of the bacterial diseases, and especially the ones for which antibiotic resistance is growing. There is no vaccination, for example, to MRSA, which is one of the most concerning resistant bacterial infections. There is none against C-diff.

And, of course, when one is cautioned not to drink the water in some country or other, it’s a fair indicator that some diseases to which we are not accustomed, are endemic there.
 
IMHO, I believe that many Catholics feel alienated by this Pope.

He only talks about the poor, 24/7. He seems to have nothing to say to those middle class and affluent Catholics that support the Church and carry her forward, and we need to hear from him. He is an important voice, especially in these confusing and dangerous times, when middle class people are so financially and morally stressed out and feeling so shaky about the future of the West. He seems to be very one-dimensional, and unable to speak to the whole flock.

I believe if he was more balanced, comments like the one we are discussing here, wouldn’t become such a major issue…
 
LeafByNiggle said:
The CDC is under no obligation to investigate and disprove every baseless speculation. First present a prima facie case for immigrants causing antibiotic resistant disease and then you might have a case for the CDC needing to reconsider their position.
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I think you misunderstood what I said. The first cited article quotes the CDC as saying there IS an increased risk of infectious disease arising out of immigration, particularly from Mexico. From the article:

“The sheer number of people who live, work, and travel between the United States and Mexico has led to a sharing of culture and commerce, as well as the easy transportation of infectious diseases,” CDC writes on its website. “The large movement of people across the United States and Mexico border has led to an increase in health issues, particularly infectious diseases such as tuberculosis.”

For this reason, CDC and its Mexican counterpart have established a disease-surveillance infrastructure on the border.

CDC specifically cites the possibility of the cross-border movement of “HIV, measles, pertussis, rubella, rabies, hepatitis A, influenza, tuberculosis, shigellosis, syphilis, Mycobacterium bovis infection, brucellosis, and foodborne diseases, such as infections associated with raw cheese and produce,” though vaccination has helped reduce the risk."

I’ll grant that others in the article challenge that. But one has to assume the CDC didn’t just pull that out of nowhere. And directing me to prove or disprove that the CDC is right is a real stretch. If one wishes to dispute the CDC, it’s his/her obligation to show why the CDC is wrong. And a couple of statements by medical practitioners seems rather short of that to me. In the second article, there’s no authority given at all.
 
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