Who is Pope Francis?

Updated 3/21/13:

First, a story that we covered last week, but we didn’t cover it like the rest of the media. We didn’t cover it wall-to-wall. They covered it wall-to-wall, but it was only about an inch deep. The media was making a spectacle out of the pope last week. No one really talked about what this really means for you if you are a Christian and somebody who believes in self-government, maximum liberty, and maximum responsibility. What does the pope – what side is he on?

If you’re somebody who believes in charity but not charity as defined by a government where they force you through taxes, if you know the meaning of liberation theology and you don’t want social justice as it was practiced when it was trying to overthrow the church in South America in the way Jim Wallis means it. Who is he?

This guy at this time is either going to be John Paul, who helped free the world from Communism, or he could be, and I hate to use this example because I don’t necessarily agree with what people say but, Pius XII, who some say collaborated with the Fascists and the Nazis. Which one is he? Because it would probably be one or the other because of the time that we live in now.

Well, the media took their usual tact of just hitting only their hot-button issues. The white smoke had barely cleared, and then they began defining the new pope as vigorously against gay marriage, fervently anti-choice, and I love this one, but he’s also “less energetic, however, when it came to standing up against Argentina’s military dictatorship during the 1970s.” Oh, and I love this one, too – he also testified on “the military junta’s systematic kidnapping of children, a subject he was also accused of knowing about but failing to prevent.”

Now, the media also told us within five minutes that he has something to do with liberation theology, and I love this quote, “the unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin” and real problems. Oh, no. Which is it? I mean, because I don’t know. The pope’s all one of these two things. Pope Francis is either a conservative bigot who four decades ago loved dictatorship so much, he only loved that slightly less than the systematic kidnapping of children, or Pope Francis is a Marxist radical who was in on subverting the church through liberation theology.

You know, I watched TV last week and I thought, Boy, you know what we need? We need a network that would, I don’t know, wait, do their homework, and then give us the truth. That’s what TheBlaze is going to do tonight, give you the truth. We waited. We did our homework, and we have lined up a few people that can actually tell us what all of this means.

Pope Francis was dubbed the “Pope of Hope” on Twitter, and that is exactly what the world needs now, because the world is on fire or about to be. There is going to be a new Axis and new Allied powers. Do you remember the old alignment from World War II? That was the Axis power, the evil power, and then this was the ones that fought against it in World War II.

I will tell you that – make this prediction out loud – in the next five years, there will be a country in Europe that is run by the Nazis. Five years ago, I said that, Hey, the Nazis were going to come up. That was crazy. Now I will tell you within five years, and I think it will be sooner than that, a country will be a part of this again.

The new lines have not been drawn yet, but we’re working on the show, I think for next week or the week after, where we’ll show you exactly what’s growing, where it’s growing, but you know about the radicals Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood. Sharia law is spreading throughout the Middle East, but up in Europe, politicians have lost credibility on all sides. Europeans are now throwing their support behind the Nazis we’ve told you, the Golden Dawn Party, gaining more seats in Parliament. It now is, I believe, up to 28% approval rating, and those two things will be the new Axis power, anyone who is anti the Western way of life, the free market, capitalism, anti-Israel. And it will be supposedly pro-democracy and social justice. Okay, but who’s on the other side?

Start with social justice here. I know social justice quite well. Remember, those are the two words that brought down the wrath of almost every church on the planet when I said on the radio, social justice, you better find what that means and run. Let me make the same statement that the media never reported on the first day that I said that, and that is Social justice as practiced by Jim Wallis and Jeremiah Wright is dangerous. Social justice as practiced by most Catholics, most Baptists, and most people of religion, where it is connecting with your heart and choosing as an individual to help those in need, that’s good. But which one does the new pope practice?

First, let me dive deeper into the difference between the two. Social justice can be used, and liberation, and all of this stuff, can be used for good and bad. Hitler actually, believe it or not, rode into power on social justice. It’s a classic tactic for the extreme left – you stir the masses, you get the bottom to rise up so the top can come crashing down. Hitler was actually talking about Jesus before he was elected, but he was only doing it because everything was out of control, and then as soon as that happened, then that Jesus thing – That guy was an atheist if not just out and out a Satanist.

It’s the oldest Marxist trick – you come in on something that means something good and you pervert it, and by the time people figure out what it is, it’s too late. It was perfected in South America, where it really becomes insidious because it merged with religion to overthrow the religion. You’ve heard me talk about black liberation theology, and that’s what Obama’s Pastor Reverend Wright preaches and just about everybody he surrounds himself with. It is Marxism poorly veiled as religion. That was born out of liberation theology which began back in 1968 at a Latin America Bishops’ Conference – think of this – where they proposed to combine the teachings of Jesus Christ with the teachings of Karl Marx.

Now, you often hear leftist politicians quote Jesus to support massive government redistribution of wealth programs, right? It puts the focus on the faith. You don’t focus on the saving grace of Jesus; instead, you focus on the way the government can fix liberating people from unjust economic or political or social conditions, social justice, a decidedly Marxist principle and evil. This happened in South America, exactly where the new pope is from, and so when you hear the words “social justice,” when you hear the words “equality,” “economic justice,” “fairness,” “income inequality,” “labor,” “struggle,” “redistribution of wealth,” all of these things, if you know what they mean can absolutely be Marxist or Communist in nature.

But social justice can be good. Equality is great. Economic justice – okay, maybe. Fairness, income inequality – maybe. Labor – you should work. Struggle – yes. It builds us. Redistribution of wealth – no, no. Redistribution of wealth and Capitalism, they’re one or the other. Capitalism – I believe redistribution of wealth is really only Marxist, and Capitalism can only be used, true Capitalism, not Statism, Capitalism, it can fall into the hands of evil, but it also can lift people out of poverty and squalor. It’s like jihad – it’s either evil or it’s about a struggle to make things better.

You have to investigate these words, and that’s what we’ve done. We’ve spent the last week really looking into this pope and looking into these words. And we’ve assembled a couple of people here, three or four people that I think can help you understand is he a good guy or a bad guy, and I think you’re going to like the message here. The media looked at this pope and within ten minutes saw things like lack of equality, social justice, why he’s just like us. Uh huh.

We need to know exactly what he means by those things. We need to know, does he practice what he preaches? That’s an important one. It’s really not too hard to spot a fraud on things, because a real leader will lead by example. Progressives don’t. Dictators don’t. They tell you how to live your life, and then they do something different. Let me give you an American example – in fact I’ll give you three of them. President Obama told the American people that we are in a time of crisis, and so we all have to tighten our belts. Do you remember?

VIDEO

President Obama: When times are tough, you tighten your belts. You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college. You prioritize.

Got it? Prioritize. Prioritize and tighten your belt. Now, he shut down the student White House tours and threatened to cancel the White House Easter egg hunt because of the sequester cuts. That’s him tightening his belt. Quite honestly, you can keep the White House closed forever and the White House Easter egg hunts I could care less about, but that’s how he’s tightening his belt. But is he really living it? Is he concerned about saving every penny of taxpayer money he can? And is he walking the walk himself? He’s telling us we have to as families – don’t go to Vegas, yet his family keeps going on very lavish vacations with and without him.

Taxpayers last year spent $1.4 billion on the Obama family, $1.4 billion, and I get it, he needs security, but is it too much to ask to at least have him vacation with his own family at the same place at the same time? I mean, Michelle is in Spain. Their daughter is in Mexico on spring break, and he’s spending millions of bucks, you know, golfing with Tiger Woods. That golf game a couple of weeks ago cost $1 million in your hard-earned money.

It is so blatant that even his adoring fans in the press have recently questioned him about his lavish lifestyle.

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Report: How does the president justify lavish vacations and a golf trip to Florida at taxpayer expense, and does he plan to cut back on his travel?

Jay Carney: I can tell you that this president is focused everyday—

Okay, stop. What he can say is, Do as he says, not as he does. Same thing for Michael Bloomberg. He passed strict idling laws. We told you about ’em this week. Next three months, he paraded around New York City with a fleet of SUVs that idled for hours at a time, all the time, and when confronted, his solution was to have people strap an air-conditioning unit to the outside of his car. He can get around it, but you cannot.

Same thing with Al Gore. He tells everybody cut back for the sake of the earth, yet he owns multiple energy-consuming mansions, yes, mansions. This green warrior has a 20 – look at these mansions that Al Gore lives in. Really? His father was a senator, and then he was a senator and a vice president. How does he have this? One of his mansions consumes 20 times the energy of the average American home. Now, his response when confronted with irrefutable fact that he is a hypocritical energy hog, he says, “I think what you’re seeing here is the last gasp of the global warming skeptics. They’ve completely lost the debate on the issue so now they’re just attacking their most effective opponent.” No, no, Al, no.

Pretty sweet mansions for a guy who by the way has also been accused of just getting rich off of this global warming scheme, but he says, remember, I am putting every penny, every penny I have into nonprofits.

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Al Gore: I believe that the transition to a green economy is good for our economy and good for all of us, and I have invested in it. But every penny that I have made, I have put right into a nonprofit, The Alliance for Climate Protection.

Okay, so it’s all for a nonprofit, and maybe he’s telling the truth, I don’t know. I haven’t looked at his taxes. And you know, maybe he’s just buying all of those houses, you know, with the money he earns from, I don’t know, selling TV networks to the sworn enemy of America. Anyway, the point is on those three examples is a strongman, a dictator, a Fascist, an Uber-Progressive, will always fail to live the life and practice what he preaches.

So how does the pope live? Where does this pope stand? Which side of social justice is he on? Does he see liberation theology as a goal or a problem? How about Capitalism? Does he see wealth inequality as something caused by rich not paying their fair share, or that people all around the world have lacked the heart now to see the need for charity, personal charity, so their hearts are going to need to be changed? Is he a guy who says the rich just isn’t paying their fair share while he dresses in only the finest Italian tailor-made clothes and shoes, and lives in a palace?

Let me tell you, we’ve been planning this show for a while, and I’ll tell you, one of my first glimmers of hope was this picture that came out on Saturday. Look at his shoes. Now I know he wasn’t the pope, but I think they could’ve gotten him a new pair of shoes if he wanted one. These are real shoes. These are people shoes. These are not pope shoes. Does this pope see Jesus as someone who believed big government was the answer, or does he believe as I do and I think you do that Jesus was a radical transformationalist and the radical transformation was of the individual?

Bible-quoting leftist like Jim Wallis will twist the Scripture to fit their Marxist ideology, but that’s where Communism and liberation theology go wrong every time. Jesus came to change hearts, not government laws.

If the pope believes in collective salvation, if he worries about the collective and fails to speak about the individual salvation, individual empowerment, individual responsibility, individual potential, then there is trouble. But if he recognizes the individual and then leads by example and demonstrates how you change the world not through a big government but you change the world by being more kind, more gentle, more humble, we will see one of the best popes, I believe, in the Catholic Church’s history, and we just might see a man who’s not on our side but on God’s side. Tonight, the perspective I don’t think you’re going to see anywhere else but on this network, TheBlaze.

What do clay pots have to do with to preserving American history?

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Editor's note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Why should we preserve our nation’s history? If you listen to my radio program and podcast, or read my columns and books, you know I’ve dedicated a large part of my life and finances to sourcing and preserving priceless artifacts that tell America’s story. I’ve tried to make these artifacts as available as possible through the American Journey Experience Museum, just across from the studios where I do my daily radio broadcast. Thousands of you have come through the museum and have been able to see and experience these artifacts that are a part of your legacy as an American.

The destruction of American texts has already begun.

But why should people like you and me be concerned about preserving these things from our nation's history? Isn’t that what the “big guys” like the National Archives are for?

I first felt a prompting to preserve our nation's history back in 2008, and it all started with clay pots and the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1946, a Bedouin shepherd in what is now the West Bank threw a rock into a cave nestled into the side of a cliff near the Dead Sea. Instead of hearing an echo, he heard the curious sound of a clay pot shattering. He discovered more than 15,000 Masoretic texts from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D.

These texts weren’t just a priceless historical discovery. They were virtually perfect copies of the same Jewish texts that continue to be translated today. Consider the significance of that discovery. Since the third century B.C. when these texts were first written, the Jewish people have endured a continued onslaught of diasporas, persecutions, pressures to conform to their occupying power, the destruction of their temple, and so much more. They had to fight for their identity as a people for centuries, and finally, a year after the end of the Holocaust and a year before the founding of the nation of Israel, these texts were discovered, confirming the preservation and endurance of their heritage since ancient times — all due to someone putting these clay pots in a desert cave more than 2,000 years ago.

I first felt a prompting to preserve our nation's history back in 2008, and it all started with clay pots and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

So, what do these clay pots have to do with the calling to preserve American history? I didn’t understand that prompting myself until the horrible thought dawned on me that the people we are fighting against may very well take our sacred American scriptures, our Declaration of Independence, and our Bill of Rights. What if they are successful, and 1,000 years from now, we have no texts preserved to confirm our national identity? What kind of new history would be written over the truth?

The destruction of American texts has already begun. The National Archives has labeled some of our critical documents, like our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, as “triggering” or “containing harmful language.” In a public statement, the National Archives said that the labels help prepare readers to view potentially distressing content:

The Catalog and web pages contain some content that may be harmful or difficult to view. NARA’s records span the history of the United States, and it is our charge to preserve and make available these historical records. As a result, some of the materials presented here may reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions. In addition, some of the materials may relate to violent or graphic events and are preserved for their historical significance.

According to this statement, our founding documents are either “outdated, biased, offensive,” “possibly violent,” or a combination of these scathing descriptions. I’m sorry, the Declaration of Independence is not “triggering.” Our Constitution is not “outdated and biased,” and our Bill of Rights certainly is not “offensive and possibly violent.” They are glorious documents. They should be celebrated, not qualified by such derogatory, absurd language. Shame on them.

These are only the beginning stages of rewriting our history. What if they start banning these “triggering” documents from public view because they might offend somebody? Haven’t we torn down “triggering” statues before? What if we are no longer able to see, read, and study the actual words of our nation's founding documents because they are “harmful” or “possibly violent”? A thousand years from now, will there be any remnant to piece together the true spirit behind the nation that our founders envisioned?

The Declaration of Independence is not “triggering.”

That is why in 2008, I was prompted to preserve what I could. Now, the American Journey Experience Museum includes more than 160,000 artifacts, from founding-era documents to the original Roe v. Wade court papers. We need to preserve the totality of our nation’s heritage, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We need to preserve our history in our own clay pots.

I ask you to join with me on this mission. Start buying books that are important to preserve. Buy some acid-free paper and start printing some of the founding documents, the reports that go against the mainstream narrative, the studies that prove what is true as we are continually being fed lies. Start preserving our daily history as well as our history because it is being rewritten and digitized.

Somebody must have a copy of what is happening now and what has happened in the past. I hope things don’t get really bad. But if they do, we need to preserve our heritage. Perhaps, someone 1,000 years from now will discover our clay pots and, Lord willing, be able to have a glimpse of America as it truly was.

Top 10 WORST items in the new $1.2 TRILLION spending bill

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Biden just signed the newest spending bill into law, and Glenn is furious.

Under Speaker Johnson's leadership, the whopping $1.2 TRILLION package will use your taxpayer dollars to fund the government through September. Of course, the bill is loaded with earmarks and pork that diverts money to fund all sorts of absurd side projects.

Here is the list of the ten WORST uses of taxpayer money in the recently passed spending bill:

Funding venues to host drag shows, including ones that target children

David McNew / Contributor | Getty Images

Money for transgender underwear for kids

Funding for proms for 12 to 18 year old kids

Bethany Clarke / Stringer | Getty Images

Border security funding... for Jordan and Egypt

Another $300 million for Ukraine

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

$3.5 million for Detroit's annual Thanksgiving Day parade

Icon Sportswire / Contributor | Getty Images

$2.5 million for a new kayaking facility in Franklin, New Hampshire

Acey Harper / Contributor | Getty Images

$2.7 million for a bike park in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, a town with a population of less than 2,300 people

$5 million for a new trail at Coastal Carolina University

$4 million the "Alaska King Crab Enhancement Project" (whatever that means)

FRED TANNEAU / Stringer | Getty Images

There is no doubt about it—we are entering dark times.

The November presidential election is only a few months away, and following the chaos of the 2020 election, the American people are bracing for what is likely to be another tumultuous election year. The left's anti-Trump rhetoric is reaching an all-time high with the most recent "Bloodbath" debacle proving how far the media will go to smear the former president. That's not to mention the Democrats' nearly four-year-long authoritarian attempt to jail President Trump or stop his re-election by any means necessary, even if it flies in the face of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Biden is doing worse than ever. He reportedly threw a tantrum recently after being informed that his polls have reached an all-time low. After Special Counsel Robert Hur's report expressed concerns over Biden's obviously failing mental agility, it's getting harder for the Democrats to defend him. Yet he is still the Democratic nominee for November, promising another 4 years of catastrophic policies, from the border to heavy-handed taxation, should he be reelected.

The rest of the world isn't doing much better. The war in Ukraine has no clear end in sight, drawing NATO and Russia closer and closer to conflict. The war in Gaza is showing no sign of slowing down, and as Glenn revealed recently, its continuation may be a sign that the end times are near.

One thing is clear: we are living in uncertain times. If you and your family haven't prepared for the worst, now is the time. You can start by downloading "Glenn's Ultimate Guide to Getting Prepared." Be sure to print off a copy or two. If the recent cell outage proved anything, it's that technology is unreliable in survival situations. You can check your list of supplies against our "Ultimate Prepper Checklist for Beginners," which you can find below:

Food

  • Canned food/non-perishable foods
  • Food preparation tools
  • Go to the next level: garden/livestock/food production

Water

  • Non-perishable water store
  • Water purification
  • Independent water source

Shelter

  • Fireplace with a wood supply
  • Tent
  • Generator with fuel supply
  • Go to the next level: fallout shelter

Money

  • Emergency cash savings
  • Precious metals

Medicine

  • Extra blankets
  • Basic first aid
  • Extra prescriptions
  • Extra glasses
  • Toiletries store
  • Trauma kit
  • Antibiotics
  • Basic surgery supplies
  • Potassium Iodate tablets

Transportation

  • Bicycle
  • Car
  • Extra fuel

Information

  • Birth certificates
  • Insurance cards
  • Marriage license
  • Immunization records
  • Mortgage paperwork
  • Car title and registration
  • House keys, car keys
  • Passports
  • Family emergency plan
  • Prepping/survival/repair manuals
  • Go to the next level: copy of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and other important books/sources

Skills

  • Cooking
  • Gardening
  • Sewing
  • First Aid
  • Basic maintenance skills
  • Go to the next level: farming/ranching
  • Self-defense training

Communication

  • Family contact information and addresses
  • HAM radio

Miscellaneous

  • Flashlights and batteries
  • Lamps and fuel
  • Hardware (tools, nails, lumber, etc)
  • Extra clothes
  • Extreme weather clothes and gear
  • Gas masks and filters
  • Spare parts for any machinery/equipment

Is Trump's prosecution NORMAL?  This COMPLETE list of ALL Western leaders who served jail time proves otherwise.

PhotoQuest / Contributor, The Washington Post / Contributor, Win McNamee / Staff | Getty Images

Mainstream media is on a crusade to normalize Donald Trump's indictments as if it's on par with the electoral course. Glenn asked his team to research every instance of a Western leader who was jailed during their political career over the past 200 years—except extreme political turmoil like the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, Irish Revolution, etc.—and what we discovered was quite the opposite.

Imprisoning a leader or major political opponent is not normal, neither in the U.S. nor in the Western world. Within the last 200 years, there are only a handful of examples of leaders in the West serving jail time, and these men were not imprisoned under normal conditions. All of these men were jailed under extreme circumstances during times of great peril such as the Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War.

What does this mean for America? Are Trump's indictments evidence that we are re-entering times of great peril? Below is a list of Western leaders who were imprisoned within the last 200 years. Take a look and decide for yourself:

Late 1800s

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Jefferson Davis: The nearest occurrence to a U.S. President to serve jail time was in the case of Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America. Jefferson was captured in Georgia by Northern Soldiers in 1865 and locked up in Fort Monroe, Virginia for two years. He was offered a presidential pardon but refused out of his loyalty to the confederacy.

Early 1900s

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Eugene V. Debs: Debbs, a Midwestern socialist leader, became the first person to run for president in prison. He was locked up at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta having been convicted under the federal Sedition Act for giving an antiwar speech a few months before Armistice Day, the end of World War I. Many of his supporters believed his imprisonment to be unjust. Debs received 897,704 votes and was a distant third-part candidate behind Warren G. Harding, the Republican winner, and James M. Cox, the second-place Democrat. Harding ordered Debs’s release from prison toward the end of 1921.

Nazi sympathizers and collaborators: After the end of World War II in 1945, several European leaders who had "led" their countries during the Nazi occupation faced trial and imprisonment for treason. This list included Chief of the French State Philippe Pétain, French Prime Minister Pierre Laval, and Minister-President of Norway Vidkun Quisling. The latter two were also executed after their imprisonment. President of Finland Risto Ryti and Prime Minister of Finland Johan Wilhelm Rangell were also tried and jailed for collaborating with the Nazis against the Allied Powers.

Late 1900s

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The end of the Cold War: The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was one of the pivotal moments that brought the Cold War to a close and marked the end of Communist East Germany. With the fall of the wall and the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the former leaders were brought to trial to answer for the crimes committed by the GDR. General Secretary Erich Honecker and General Secretary Egon Krenz were both put on trial for abuse of power and the deaths of those who were shot trying to flee into West Germany. Honecker was charged with jail time but was released from custody due to severe illness and lived out the rest of his life as an exile in Chile. Krenz served 4 years in jail before his release in 2001. He is one of the last surviving leaders of the Eastern Bloc.

Lyndon LaRouche: Larouche was a Trotsky evangelist, public antisemite, and founder of a nationwide Marxist political movement, became the second person in U.S. history to run for President in a prison cell. Granted, he ran in every election from 1976 to 2004 as a long-shot third-party candidate. When he tried to gain the Democratic presidential nomination, he received 5 percent of the total nationwide vote. Even though in 2000 he received enough primary votes to qualify for delegates in a few states, the Democratic National Committee refused to seat his delegates and barred LaRouche from attending the Democratic National Convention.