By Laurie Baron
MARGATE, New Jersey‒ After his absence from television for fabricating stories about his role in the news he was reporting, Brian Williams covered the Pope’s visit to the United States for MSNBC. He did well until he reminisced about how he and the Pope smoked pot during his audience with Francis.
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In his visit to Congress and Washington D.C., the Pope introduced himself as a child of immigrants, endorsed stricter gun control laws, and commended President Obama for introducing tougher emissions standards to slow climate change. This prompted ‘birthers” to formulate two new conspiracy theories: either the Pope was born in Kenya and is a Muslim,or President Obama was born in Rome and is a Catholic.
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The Pope’s Latino origins and advocacy for admitting more immigrants and refugees to the United States provided Donald Trump with an opportunity to walk back his stereotypes of Mexicans who have entered the United States illegally. He claimed he meant to call them Papists not rapists.
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Pope Francis met with victims of child abuse committed by priests. He .warmly embraced them as a gesture of God’s love. Some of the victims recoiled because this was the same thing their abusers had done.
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Let us bless Pope Francis for exhibiting the virtues of civility, compassion, forgiveness, and reverence for life and for taking the media spotlight away from Donald Trump insulting his enemies and pontificating on the virtues of power, wealth, and winning.
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Baron is professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. Currently serving as the Ida E. King Distinguished Visiting Professor of Holocaust Studies at the Richard Stockton College in Galloway, New Jersey, he may be contacted via lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com San Diego Jewish World points out to new readers that this column is satire, and nothing herein should be taken literally.