Pope Francis slammed Donald Trump and his policies without ever mentioning the U.S. president by name on Wednesday. According to the Associated Press, the pontiff was marking the feast day of St. Josephine Bakhita – a 19th century Sudanese refugee who immigrated to Europe and became a nun. “In the social and civil context as well, I appeal not to create walls but to build bridges,” Francis said. “To not respond to evil with evil. To defeat evil with good, the offense with forgiveness. A Christian would never say ‘you will pay for that.’ Never.” He continued, “That is not a Christian gesture. An offense you overcome with forgiveness. To live in peace with everyone.”
However, as it’s common practice with the President Donald Trump, he wasted no time in replying to the Pope’s indirect accusations. What used to be a seemingly respectful relationship between the two has obviously taken a turn for the worse, as the billionaire-turned-president held nothing back when discussing the pontiff in a Wednesday interview with Internet portal KnowMyRepublican.com. When told what the pontiff had said, Trump simply waved his hand in a dismissive manner and said, “Come on, you gotta have something better than that. I know you’ve got something better than that.”
After being reassured of the Pope’s words, the former reality TV star went on his usual rant. “Do you seriously expect me to get into an open conflict with the head of the Roman Catholic Church? You must be crazy, because that’s not going to happen. I don’t care what he says and I don’t care what he does – he can say and do whatever he wants, because he’s completely irrelevant to me and to this country. Sure, I do respect him because my position requires me to display a minimal amount of respect, but it ends there. I’ll tell you another thing, as well: I never take anything he says seriously, not by a long shot, and neither should Americans. The sooner we realize that as a country, the better,” Trump said.
He continued, “And here’s why you and everybody else would be wise to forget he even exists. We’re talking here about a man who’s expected to make decisions on behalf of billions of people around the world, okay. A person who is, basically, meant to play the role of God on earth. But at the same time, we’re talking about a guy who’s never even touched a woman and probably doesn’t even know what female breasts look like in person, let alone their reproductive organs. Yet, here we are, and everybody seems to expect me to take the opinion of such a man seriously. How can anyone in their right mind do that?”
“Look, us guys are pretty simple creatures. We basically and universally love three things in life: food, sports and most of all, women. And now you’ve got a guy who’s supposed to be doing an insanely important job with the Church and at the same time, he’s had no firsthand experience with what the other side, the so-called dark side, is offering. That’s not only hypocritical, but it’s also plain rude. You expect people to believe him when he says they’re not supposed to have sex before they’re married? Let me put it this way: if he’d ever had sex prior to applying to be the Pope, I guarantee you we would never have heard of him, as a priest or as a person. He’d probably have ended up at some brothel in Brazil or wherever he’s from. So, I tend not to take to heart things said by people who have no idea what real temptation feels like,” Trump said.
He also added, “Personally, I would consider having an honest, mano-a-mano conversation with him if and when he pops his cherry. Until then, I’m going to do what’s best for this country and he can go on philosophizing about the sanctity of marriage and forgiveness and all that mumbo jumbo for as long as he wants.”