You are not signed in as a Premium user; we rely on Premium users to support our news reporting.
Sign in or Sign up today!
VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) – John Kerry, climate envoy for the Biden administration, is praising Pope Francis as “one of, if not the, most powerful voices on the planet” campaigning against the climate crisis.
from Holy Communion in 2004
In an interview with Vatican News, Kerry, who identifies as a “practicing Catholic,” hailed Francis as “extraordinary in the eloquence of his call on people … to step up and be reasonable and to live out our responsibility as human beings in caring for God’s creation.”
Francis, who refused to meet U.S. secretary of state Mike Pompeo in September during the Trump presidency, welcomed Kerry in a private audience Saturday after the climate envoy spoke at a closed-door Friday forum on resetting the global economy.
Top officials from the Biden administration, finance ministers, left-wing economists, and heads of the World Bank, African Union, Rockefeller Foundation and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) participated in the high-level conference hosted by the Vatican.
“The pope is one of the great voices of reason and compelling moral authority on the subject of the climate crisis,” Kerry said, lauding Francis’ green encyclical Laudato Si’ as “really a very, very powerful document, eloquent and morally very persuasive.”
“I think his Holiness speaks with a moral authority that is quite separate. It’s unique, and we need all the power we can bring to the table,” Kerry stressed, underscoring Francis’ special position in lobbying governments “to do what we need to do to preserve the planet.”
“I think that the Vatican may be a small entity, but the flock is enormous on a global basis, and His Holiness, Pope Francis, has the ability to help galvanize action from countries,” Kerry added, noting that China was currently the world’s biggest polluter.
While campaigning for president in 2004, Kerry, a former altar boy who is strongly pro-abortion, claimed: “My Faith, and the Faith I have seen in the lives of so many Americans, also teaches me that, ‘Whatever you do to the least of these, you do unto me.'”
According to media reports, Kerry complains when his campaign staff does not leave time in his Sunday schedule for Mass. He also takes Communion and describes himself as a “believing and practicing Catholic, married to another believing and practicing Catholic.”
Instead of exposing and expelling Kerry from the Church as the hypocrite that he is, the Pope is legitimizing him and enlisting himself as an appeaser.
In comments to Church Militant, Dave Brennan, director of pro-life Brephos, a project of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform U.K., pointed out the irony of Kerry’s misuse of Jesus’ words about “the least” while pursuing policies murdering babies in the womb.
Referring to a CNN report that described Kerry’s policies as blatantly anti-Catholic, Brennan said, “How is it that even CNN can see that Kerry is at odds with the Church’s canon, but the pope cannot? Or is Francis quite happy to be used by someone who, despite claiming to be a Catholic, openly disregards and fights against the teaching of the Church?”
Brennan continued:
Instead of exposing and expelling Kerry from the Church as the hypocrite that he is, the Pope is legitimizing him, helping him to fool millions of gullible American Christians into supporting him (and Biden), and enlisting himself as an appeaser who will give room to a dishonest, corrupt and bloodthirsty regime.
The pro-life campaigner explained that “the ‘climate crisis,’ even if real, is often used, together with the overpopulation myth, to accelerate birth-control programs across the world, including abortion: So this is worse than a mere diversion of precious attention and resources, which in itself would be a travesty.”
Vatican News interview with John Kerry
On so-called “same-sex marriage,” Kerry said his position had “evolved” from rejecting the idea in 2004 — when campaigning for U.S. president against George W. Bush — to supporting it in 2011.
“You evolve with these things. You see through experience what happens,” Kerry said. “The sort of concerns I had — that somehow it would have some impact on the quality of Church teaching or that I wasn’t honoring that — I think is just not borne out by experience.”
I believe that choice, a woman’s choice, is between a woman, God and her doctor.
At the third presidential debate in 2004, Kerry argued: “I believe that choice, a woman’s choice, is between a woman, God and her doctor. And that’s why I support that. Now, I will not allow somebody to come in and change Roe v. Wade.”
Nevertheless, Kerry claimed he opposed abortion, personally: “I don’t like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception. But I can’t take my Catholic belief, my article of faith and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist … who doesn’t share it.”
“Since Kerry has voted to support abortion every chance he has had as a senator, his belief that life begins at conception comes as a bit of a surprise,” leading evangelical magazine Christianity Today commented.
should be refused Communion
Dr. R. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called out Kerry on abortion and same-sex relationships, remarking, “Interestingly, President George W. Bush, a Methodist, stands much closer to the Catholic Church’s teaching on these issues than does Sen. John Kerry, who identifies as a practicing Roman Catholic.”
Nigerian cardinal Francis Arinze (former prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship) categorically stated in 2004 that “the norm of the Church” was clear, and Kerry should be refused Holy Communion because of his pro-abortion stance.
When he was archbishop of St. Louis in 2004, Cdl. Raymond Burke forbade Kerry from receiving Communion while campaigning in the area. Burke also observed that Biden “is not a Catholic in good standing, and he should not approach to receive Holy Communion.”
Vatican News did not quiz Kerry on his views on abortion or same-sex marriage; neither did Kerry challenge Pope Francis’ secret deal with China and the heightened persecution of Catholics — as Pompeo did on his earlier visit to Rome.
Despite the Biden administration’s insistence on wearing masks to prevent COVID-19 transmission and the Catholic bishops’ stringent regulations on masks, both Francis and Kerry met without any face-mask precautions.
— Campaign 31877 —
Have a news tip? Submit news to our tip line.
We rely on you to support our news reporting. Please donate today.
