Come on! Let’s get real here, okay?
If the very popular Pope Francis had invited Bernie Sanders to a meeting in the middle of this primary it would be epic. It would have ramifications that would upend all the math.
That’s how I perceived it as I watched it live on Morning Joe.
I want Hillary Clinton to be the nominee of the Democratic party. I’m also, officially, Catholic, as are my relatives. I heard the words and immediately stopped what I was doing:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: I don’t know if this is new. Have you heard that he’s going to the Vatican? Has anyone—
BERNIE SANDERS: You have the story, Mika. Tell the world.
BRZEZINSKI: Tell me. You’re going to be going to the Vatican to talk about how to create a moral economy that works for all people rather than the top one percent. How did this come about?
SANDERS: It was an invitation from the Vatican.
SANDERS: I was very moved by the invitation, which just was made public today. I am a big, big fan of the Pope. Obviously there are areas where we disagree on women’s rights or gay rights. But he has played an unbelievable role. An unbelievable role of injecting a moral consequence into the economy. And here’s what he is saying. There are people who think that Bernie Sanders is radical. Read what the Pope is writing. What he is saying is not only that we have to pay attention to what he calls the “dispossessed.” And again, we don’t talk about it enough. These are the children who have no jobs all over the world. Youth unemployment is off the charts. The elderly people who are watching this program now who are trying to get by with $11,000 a year. We don’t talk about that. But you know what else he’s even doing—he’s talking about the idolatry of money. The worship of money. The greed that’s out there.
So let’s stop the “Bernie didn’t say he was invited by the Pope” defense.
First off, what was Mika encouraged to “tell the world?” Be honest. It wasn’t to tell them that he was invited by some so-and-so to be an attendee at some so-and-so symposium. It was to say that “The Vatican” (wink wink, the Pope) had invited Sanders to meet with him. In the highlighted text it is clear that he was conflating “the invitation” as coming from the Pope.
Later, Mike Barnicle lamented that after his “40 years of attending Catholic mass” he didn’t get an “invitation from the Pope,” and Bernie smugly chuckled in pride and they all moved on.
Finally, he was on The View, and it is unequivocal that he is asserting that this huge thing has happened.
So yeah. If this is indeed the story then I am amazed. Hats off to Sanders. I’m still voting for Hillary in New York, but I’m feeling a lot more concerned about what the results will be. Things just got real.
But that’s not what happened, at all.
Bernie Sanders is not being embraced by Pope Francis. In fact, Pope Francis won’t even be in the Vatican when Sanders is there to attend a symposium.
What Sanders has done is frankly, despicable.
I can’t even believe it isn’t more of a story.
This guy, who wants to be POTUS, and runs on this premise of having the moral high-ground, casually conflates attendance at a symposium as an endorsement by the Pope.
The fucking Pope!
This guy is so much worse than I originally thought he was.