I used to get Rush Limbaugh

The whole being absurd to point out absurdity schtick is funny and effective when there's truth to be revealed or underscored and Limbaugh is usually brilliant when using this meme to point to leftist idiocy.

But when it comes to Pope Francis, Limbaugh is acting the fool and I'm simply not understanding why:

I know. I tell everyone not to call people names.

But there comes a time when “idiot” isn’t a pejorative; it’s an excuse.

Mr Limbaugh is doing his the-pope-is-a-marxist-communist-not-a-corporatist-like-me thing again. After reading this latest rather bizarre attack against the Holy Father, I am faced with three possibilities.

1. Mr Limbaugh has relapsed into his drug problem.

2. He’s an idiot.

or

3. He is deliberately baiting the Vicar of Christ for ratings, despite the fact that a grade-school child could read the interview he’s referencing and know that he’s misquoting and miscasting what the Holy Father said.

Given the choices, I’ve decided that, in charity, I will give Mr Limbaugh the benefit of the doubt and assume that he’s an idiot. I don’t, for instance, think that the fact that he makes at least $70 million per year in salary, or that his net worth is approximately $400 million, has in any way messed with his mind.

What set Mr Limbaugh off on another of his attack-the-Holy-Father spiels is an interview Pope Francis gave to Il Messaggero on Sunday.

That and more from Rebecca Hamilton, including Pope Francis' words that Rush is so wrong about.

Mark Shea is all the more blunt about Rush's latest attack:

The most *charitable* explanation is that Limbaugh is an idiot. The more realistic explanation is that nobody in his position is really so dumb as to believe the pope is a communist or thinks Jesus was a communist, so the more likely take is that he’s ginning up ratings with a little good old fashioned pope bashing.

What he is emphatically not doing is making the slightest effort to understand Francis or the Church’s teaching on the poor (a word he habitually pronounces “pewer” with a sneer).

The Standard Bearer of the Thing that Used to Be Conservatism, which has joined the pro-abort Left in a deepening hatred toward the Church and this pope.

I've been a huge fan of Limbaugh's for more than 20 years and so seeing this sort of thing is most troubling but there's no getting around the fact that he's wrong about this Pope.  Not just wrong though.  He seems to be going out of his way to impugn the Vicar of Christ and relying on the main stream media to do it.

It truly makes no sense to me.

I don't think him to be an idiot, certainly not in totality yet his views on Pope Francis are pure idiocy.

What the hell is wrong with him?  To what exactly is he selling out?  It's time for the man to do some serious soul searching.

He's losing a fan but worse, he's losing much, much more.

Comments

[Marvin Decker]

Or 4. Rush is right, the Pope is Socialist.

The pope is certainly not pro free markets (aka unfettered capitalism), seems against Communism (pure Socialism), so is somewhere in between, aka a Socialist of some stripe and is talking like that. This is a problem, this hurts people. This blog should know better.

All the name calling doesn't amount to much of an argument, if the Pope doesn't want to come off as Socialist, he should be clearer.

In my opinion, Jesus would have been a libertarian, aka, all help to the poor would have been private, voluntary, an opportunity for good or evil.

Nowadays, if you're Catholic, you vote Democrat so you get to go to Heaven because you helped the poor, apparently. Paying no mind that you're using violence against others to help them, it's just violence (double meaning intended).

[Ladyhobbit]

Look, the Pope is not infallible in matters of economics or current events: he is infallible in matters of faith and morals. Thus, he can make mistakes of judgment in discussing economics or current events. Past popes have made mistakes in practical matters, sometimes disastrous mistakes. Infallibility offers no protection from inadequate information, poor judgment, or even just simple mistakes in practical matters. Every word said by every pope is not absolutely faultless, and frequently what the current pope says is also misrepresented by the news media.

Rush Limbaugh obviously is not infallible. I enjoy listening to Rush, but I don't expect that he will never ever make a mistake! Also, Rush Limbaugh is not a Catholic or even an ex-Catholic, and theology is not his area of interest or expertise. I do not hear him engaging in the usual forms of anti-Catholic garbage; are we to expect a non-Catholic to agree with the Pope in all things, including things that aren't "faith and morals"?

Plenty of leftists (both Catholic and non-Catholic) have been happy to say that they assume that the Pope is one of themselves, and while I believe that that to some extent they are mistaken, should we be surprised when an anti-leftist takes their word on this, especially since he isn't a Catholic himself?

Let me just mention that I've known many Catholics who seem to believe that Catholics are required to be socialists in order to be considered true Christians. Many of them are also pro-choice and are very offended at the recent Hobby Lobby decision in the Supreme Court. These are people who go to church and identify themselves as Catholics. (At my children's Catholic high school, not a single teacher voted for a pro-life candidate. Not one.)

I find that more disturbing than the idea that Rush Limbaugh may be mistaken about something the Pope said.

[Rick aka Mr. Brutally Honest]

I too have known many Catholics who eschew, even abhor, Catholic teaching and so we can agree in part Ladyhobbit that this is more troubling than Limbaugh's mistaken notions about the Pope.

What is more personally troubling however is Limbaugh's unfairness in dealing with the totality of what this Pope stands for. He seems purposeful in not giving the benefit of the doubt. He seems to willfully be painting this Pope as something he clearly is not and is coming across as ignorant as to basic Catholic teaching yet if I've come to know anything about Limbaugh it's that he's far from ignorant.

My hope is that ignorance is to blame here. If it is not, it is most troublesome.

Mr. Decker, to proclaim that Christ was a libertarian is to proclaim that you know nothing of Him. Libertarianism has come to me to mean pure selfishness. How in hell you could lay that down as a characteristic of the Son of God is beyond my comprehension.

[Marvin Decker]

Rick, your close mindedness in painting libertarian as selfishness, is disappointing. Libertarianism as freedom is how I would describe it. Your arrogance in knowing Him, is also disconcerting. My point that people are given free will, using government to force people to make a moral choice is an evil, and I think Jesus would have been against it, thus Jesus would have shamed men into doing the right thing without the force of government, thus have been libertarian on this issue.

I'm sure soon you'll be supporting an increase in minimum wage and efforts to combat income inequality to help the poor, which of course it doesn't, but you'll convince yourself that it does, because the Pope says it it must be so. Before you object, yes the Pope has implied that income inequality is an evil, and if he had said that it was ONLY up to the individual business owners to share the wealth, but he did not, he referred to world leaders, and that's just going to hurt so many people.

If I were cynical about this Pope (I am a cynical person, but not about the Pope as of yet), one could argue that he's taking steps to produce more poor, to ensure the future success of the Catholic church's mission.

[Rick aka Mr. Brutally Honest]

Marvin, a kite is considered a symbol of sorts of freedom by many and yet, its freedom to fly and soar is actually only made possible by the tether that links that kite to the ground.

Religion, particularly the Catholic religion for me, provides the tether that allows me to fly like a kite, soaring in the freedom that comes from taking on the yoke of Christ.

Yes, it's paradoxical. A yoke is not usually associated with freedom. This particularly a problem for libertines.

My understanding of libertarianism is that freedom trumps. Freedom without tethers. Freedom to do whatever you'd like to do.

Libertarians I know will not condemn certain acts that Catholics will, if they adhere to Catholic teaching. I think of hot button issues like abortion, homosexuality and gay marriage, contraception, divorce, etc. Libertarians I know are also less likely to be supportive of such things as economic justice, subsidiarity and solidarity or the obligation to care for the poor.

There was a time when libertarianism had an appeal for me. Then I grew up. Or more particularly and perhaps less bluntly, I grew into my Catholic faith.

You Marvin may have problems with this Pope's views on income inequality but I hope you'll come to recognize that in reality, you'd have the same problems with his two predecessors and with many who preceded them, this because in reality, you have a problem with Catholic teaching, this most evidenced by your last cynical and rather bigoted statement.

Let's agree that the Pope is definitely doing that which supports and advances the Church's mission. Let's acknowledge that we're miles apart on what that mission is and that this distance is largely the direct result of your embracing libertarianism over Catholic doctrine and my doing the exact opposite.

[Marvin Decker]

I see nothing bigoted in what I said, please explain.

In regards to Libertarianism and Catholicism, I see no inherent conflict, Libertarianism, is a government and social structure regarding the laws, Catholicism is personal.

Would you convert someone to Catholicism via the force of government? I would hope not, therefore should you codify Catholicism in the laws? No you should not, otherwise you're no better than a Sharia led nation, irrespective of how true your Truth is.

[Rick aka Mr. Brutally Honest]

I see now that I might've misunderstood this statement: "If I were cynical about this Pope (I am a cynical person, but not about the Pope as of yet), one could argue that he's taking steps to produce more poor, to ensure the future success of the Catholic church's mission."

I see anyone who would suggest that the Catholic Church's or the Pope's mission is to produce more poor as a statement steeped in bigotry at most, complete ignorance at best.