Sunday, September 27, 2015

The Pope is my Shepherd (updated)

Once again, my personal hero, the Pope, said plainly what the American people needed to understand. He said Trump was not a Christian, because Christians don't build walls, they build bridges.
He wasn't trying to intrude on the American political process. Trump had started things when the Pope went to Mexico.
A few months ago, Fareed Zakaria spoke about the Republicans and their fellow travelers on the right. They were saying the Pope's comments were communistic and used other derogatory language toward the Holy Father.  Zakaria said they weren't against the Pope, they were against the teachings of Jesus. From my viewpoint, the head of the Catholic Church (of which I'm not a member) is the man I look to for moral leadership in a very scary world.
You have to understand how much this goes against my upbringing. After my father died when I was seven, we went to live with my grandfather for a while. My grandfather never took a drink. He never smoked. He used instant postum instead of coffee and there were no regular playing cards in the house. He played Rook (It had cards  that featured birds that looked like crows).
One day I came home a little bit late from school. He was sitting there waiting for me. He wanted to know why was late. I told him I'd stopped at Aggies drugstore and bought a girl a cherry phosphate. Although I was only in fourth grade, I knew what was going to happen next. He asked me what was the girls name? I told him, to which he replied "do you know what kind of name that is?" he asked. "It's a Catholic name, grandpa." He responded "Do you know what that can lead too? I was being brought up to believe in a Jesus who sets up there with an Uzi waiting for me to make a mistake.
By the time I was 16, I realize that God was about love. I believed that living according to the golden rule was the only way to go. As I mentioned before, when I was a senior in high school in 1962 I suggested to my high school fraternity that we add African-American members. I was glad it was my senior year, because I ended up fighting a guy who was 6 feet four, that I couldn't lay a hand on, and pretty much was a social outcast.
Now in my dotage I listen to the Pope enunciate everything I feel. He is the most Christian man I've ever seen. I'm lucky he's in this world to give me guidance.

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