Donald Trump supporters in South Carolina on Friday were unmoved by Pope Francis’s comments the day before that were widely interpreted as a criticism of the Republican front-runner’s Christian values.
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” the pope told journalists asking his opinion on Trump’s controversial plan to stop illegal immigration at the Mexican border.
At a time when politics and corruption have become synonymous, how refreshing and impressive would it be to see, as the central platform of presidential candidates, a strategy towards healthy and integrative goals that allow our nation to “become glorious in spiritual degrees even as it has aspired to material degrees?”
Of course, the values Bahá’ís hold during their own elections – honesty, integrity, and considering one’s neighbor as oneself — are really universal values.
Francis is right. The spirit of religion is about healing and nurturing and bringing together. And he puts the question into the politically charged air once again: Walls or bridges? What’s it going to be?
Do we open ourselves to the spirit that wants to give us new hearts? Or do we choose to have hearts as cold as a stone wall?
1. Harper Lee, Author of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ Dies at 89
2. Pope Francis and Donald Trump: Bridges or Walls?
“Donald Trump has never met a wall he doesn't love. He believes in border walls, in gated communities, in structures and policies that separate ‘us’ from ‘them’ — especially when "them" can be defined as immigrants or people of color or the poor.”
3. Facebook and Twitter Join Apple in Encryption Fight with FBI
Heads of Google, Whatsapp, Twitter, and more have expressed support for Apple CEO Tim Cook’s recent statement rejecting a court’s direction to help the FBI hack into a San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone.
As "America's foremost Catholic," Stephen Colbert feels uniquely positioned to "broker a peace" between the two. He laid out his rationale on his late show.
“Mr. Trump, Mr. Pope (I believe that’s his formal name) is it possible that you’re fighting because you have so much in common?" said Colbert.
When people disagree with their church about current issues, some choose to speak with their elders, some look for another church, and others may leave altogether but this Michigan pastor is protesting his denomination by braving the cold and sleeping outside.
Rev. Michael Tupper of Parchment United Methodist Church has been sleeping in a tent in the Michigan winter since Nov. 30 and plans to keep sleeping outside for another 175 nights in protest of stances on sane-sex marriage in the Methodist church.
Whether you’re intimately involved in this struggle or just getting started, there is a place for you. Rise up and put your faith into action to end violence against women. Here are 7 ways to join the revolution.
I think the component of introducing a non-believer takes [away] the curse of trying to get it right for everybody, because he’s a non-believer. So let’s see how this works out. But we’re not portraying Christ head-on. We’re coming at them at such an angle that it’s easier to absorb and not be either threatened or challenged or for a lot of people that might not be what it is in Scripture, or their portrayal or their image of Christ or that moment it might not be what the filmmakers have done. … It’s a gentle way in, because you could find him an awful, destructive, murderous Roman soldier. You don’t have to like him; he’s not set up to be liked. … I just think that angle stops it being too head-on for people and then it grows out of that. Just getting a glimpse of Jesus makes us want to get there again and see it again. It’s kind of like in our lives … it’s kind of like faith is strong one day and it’s weak the next.
The social mission of the Catholic Church can be reduced to the following: God became poor in Jesus Christ to save humanity, and we must do likewise. The social mission of the Catholic Church is about becoming poor for the poor. It communicates who God is, who Jesus is, who we’re called to be. For politics, it reverses things. It turns the world upside down.
Speaking to reporters on February 18 on the way back from Mexico, Pope Francis weighed in on the outbreak of Zika virus in Latin America.
When asked whether birth control or abortion could be considered a "lesser evil" in the face of the virus, Francis condemned abortion as evil, but offered a more ambiguous response about birth control.