'Cleanup on aisle 9': MS NOW panel ridicules Marco Rubio's papal damage control

Secretary of State Marco Rubio got a round of derision by MS NOW's "The Weeknight" panel on Thursday for his efforts to patch up the ongoing conflicts between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV, whom the president has repeatedly attacked for condemning war with Iran.

Stephen Schneck, who heads the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, brought some needed perspective to the issue.

"You know, we were having this conversation, and I've been thinking about this for a little bit," said anchor Michael Steele. "And it really boils down, as a Catholic, as a former Augustinian seminarian, you know, I get this pope and I know what he's doing. Like all the popes before him. This is policy versus teaching. And you can go back to Iran-Contra and what the policy of the U.S. government was in Central America at that time. And the teaching of the church at that time around liberation theology, which focused on how we care for each other and how we, you know, bring about human dignity. And of course, you don't go around shooting people up, right?"

"And so this pope is trying to frame the conversation for Catholics," he continued. "And this is the thing where I think Donald Trump kind of loses his stuff. He's largely talking to Catholics. He's not trying to dictate to any other faith or any anyone who doesn't have faith what they should think or believe about any. He's just reminding us, big picture, that there is a call to service, to others here, that doesn't include the kind of violence against dignity that we see. How do you see Marco Rubio's trip in light of that policy versus teaching narrative? And ... coming in his effort to clean up on aisle nine."

"So he was there to pick up the pieces from the broken relationship between the Vatican and the United States right now," said Schneck. "And it's broken, frankly, because of the, you know, the outrageous statements that have come from Trump over the last — really over the last month about, it's just been astonishing to the Catholic community in the United States."

"And I should say, by the way, you know, this what we're hearing from Pope Leo is not anything new," added Schneck. "I mean, Paul VI called out Johnson over the Vietnam War. John Paul II called out, you know, George W. Bush before the Iraq invasion. So this isn't anything new, this this teaching that we're hearing from the pope. This is traditional Catholic teaching that goes back about as far as you can go back."

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