4-15-16

The Vatican invites Bernie Sanders to speak at the Vatican in Rome

Sanders Moved By Vatican Invite

Bernie Sanders told reporters that he was honored to address the Vatican conference and admired Francis’ message on the economy and the environment. He said it was an invitation he couldn’t refuse. 

Bernie Sanders Carbon Copy of Jimmy Carter

As I watch Bernie Sanders regards to Israel he really reminds me of former President Jimmy Carter. And with his single mindedness with the Pope of Rome he may very well be instrumental in changing the political landscape of Israel if he became the next US President, scary thought.

As Bernie Sanders Heads to Vatican, a Visit With Pope Francis Seems in Doubt

On the campaign trail and in Congress, Senator Bernie Sanders has frequently invoked Pope Francis, quoting his writings about the “idolatry of money,” sending solicitations for donations headlined “Why we must listen to Pope Francis” and praising the pope as a “radical” for “speaking out with courage and brilliance about some of the most important issues facing our world.”

Someone was listening. On Friday, Mr. Sanders was scheduled to fly to Rome to address the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in effect theVatican’s in-house think tank on social, economic and environmental issues.

“We invited the candidate who cites the pope the most in his campaign, and that is Senator Bernie Sanders,” said Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, the academy’s chancellor.

Monsignor Sánchez Sorondo, an Argentine who is close to the pope, said that Mr. Sanders’s focus on climate change and his attention to poor people on the margins of society were “very analogous to that of the pope.” He said that made the Vermont senator an obvious person to invite to Friday’s conference, which celebrates the 25th anniversary of an encyclical by Pope John Paul II about the potential pitfalls of the market economy after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But the issues of globalization at the heart of the conference have been eclipsed by questions over whether Mr. Sanders fished for an invitation to the Vatican to help his presidential campaign and whether he would get a coveted meeting with the pope.

As recently as Wednesday, Mr. Sanders said he was hoping to see Pope Francis. Though the possibility of that meeting was always a stretch, the Vatican seemingly put the matter to bed on Thursday.

“There won’t be a meeting with the Holy Father,” a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said. The pope, who is leaving for Greece some time after Mr. Sanders’s arrival, would not be meeting with any participants of the conference, Father Lombardi said.

But that was not the final word for Monsignor Sánchez Sorondo, who has a reputation among some in the Vatican for attracting attention to his conferences with star-studded names. (Last year the academy screened a movie directed by Angelina Jolie, who did receive an audience with the pope.) He dismissed the Vatican statement on a potential papal audience as “all the Roman gossip” and suggested Mr. Sanders could bump into the pope at the Vatican dormitory where he keeps his apartments.

Almost since the moment that Mr. Sanders announced last week that he was “delighted to have been invited” to what his campaign called a “high-level meeting” at the Vatican, the visit has prompted typical Vatican politicking. That day, a Bloomberg News article quoted the academy’s president, Margaret Archer, a laywoman professor, as saying that Mr. Sanders had asked for the invitation. “Sanders made the first move,” she said. Monsignor Sanchez Sorondo called Ms. Archer’s remarks “a little strange” and insisted he alone had the idea to invite Mr. Sanders.

A visit to the Vatican is not, senior church officials pointed out, the same thing as receiving an audience from the pope. And while Mr. Sanders has not claimed that a papal reception was in the works, his campaign has made much of the Roman detour from the New York campaign trail. READ MORE

ARE YOU COMPLETELY PREPARED? 

IT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT PREP YOU CAN DO!   

The Bible tells us that every human has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God which is  is a heart-penetrating truth. He has provided a way to cleanse us of our sins since we can never be “good enough” to cleanse ourselves. That avenue to God’s grace, mercy and forgiveness (the cleansing of our sins) is through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth Who is equally God.