So, yesterday morning before I went to work, I made a short video, telling you about Pope Francis, how he got the name the slum priest, how he went into the slums of South America. In that video, I wanted to reflect on the POPE FRANCIS LEGACY and what he means to so many people around the world.
And u, a woman, one woman recounts that she was so embarrassed that a priest would come to her house. She said her house was filthy. They were poor. Her children were addicted to drugs. And she said to Pope Francis, um, Father Bergolio back then, “Father, I’m so embarrassed. I’m not worthy to get visited by a clergy.”
And Pope Francis said to her, “My daughter, you are a child of the king, and I am just his servant.” And he knelt down and washed her feet. And she talked about how he brought such joy to that little village that was wrecked by the cartel and drug abuse and political corruption, police corruption. But that wasn’t the whole story.
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The Slum Priests
You see, Pope Francis was the leader of a religious group. He was a superior to a group of Jesuits in that area, maybe about an hour away.
And not only did he visit the poor and minister to the poor, like Jesus told us to in the story of the goats and the sheep, he led his men to do the same. So they were known as the slum priests plural.
And not only did they minister to the poor, they lived very poor. The priests that were under Henry count that they barely got a meal a day.
They said yet they were full of joy. They said Pope Francis would teach them every night the spiritual laws of Saint. It’s like a spiritual exercise of St. Ignatius of Loyola, another great Jesuit. Um he said Pope Francis was such a deeply spiritual man. He brought us to spiritual heights we didn’t even know existed and we were so full of the spirit, so full of the joy of the spirit that it didn’t matter that we were suffering and poor. And they said although Pope Francis although Pope Francis was their superior, the leader of the group, they would always wake up and he would be ironing their clothes. He was a servant.
And and when I say Pope Francis was the most Christlike Christian I’ve ever seen in my life, this is what I’m talking about. Because Christ said, “I didn’t come to be served. I came to serve.”
A Servant to the Poor
And the late Tony Palmer, Anglican bishop that was close friends with Pope Francis said when he became pope, he said like a leper doesn’t change his spots. Pope Francis never changed. He said the stories were all true. And and I remember reading these stories as an evangelical saying, “Man, there’s something about this guy how he would the guards would say, man.” He’d sneak out, we’d find him in the middle of the night. with the homeless, feeding them pizza and praying with them. He was always ministering. He was always amongst the poor and the needy and and the Swiss Guard said, you know, it was very dangerous. You know, there’s a lot of people, you know, he’s like on the number one hit list for the Islamist terrorists. You know, Pope Francis are, you know, the Pope and then the president of the United States are always, you know, their two greatest enemies. Um, so it’s very dangerous for the pope just to be out among the people, but he didn’t care. He had no fear.
And you’ve seen that when he came in, he got a lot of people angry. You know, a a very wealthy aist donated this huge ancient palace that the church was refurbishing and and they were going to get a lot of money to rent it out to tourists. And Pope Francis said, “No, this will be a palace for the poor.” And he made the most beautiful, luxurious hotel into a homeless shelter.
And when the news interviewed the homeless people in there, they’re like, “I’ve never seen such beauty.” And Pope Francis said, “Yes, beauty heals.” Great artwork of the greatest artists in history. these homeless people got to experience. Not only that, but they got hot meals every day. Warm showers and a warm bed to sleep in the palace of the poor.
Reforming the Vatican Bank
And people thought he was this reckless communist just spending other people’s money. Yet, the first thing he came he did when he came in was took control of the corrupt Vatican bank. Fired fired all the people that were running it. You know, there was rumors of the mafia was in it. dishonest clergy. He fired them all. You’re fired. He came in like a CEO, like a capitalist, and put real bankers in charge. And in 2013, you know, banks invest the money that they have. You know, they try and turn a profit if they’re not corrupt. And um in 2012 when he came in, the bank only made a $6 million profit. Forbes magazine had a big article about him. In one year he turned a profit of 75 million for the bank and today the bank is is what they call solvent and and then secure.
But he made a lot of enemies
and I had a a book I written from back then the temple of merchants or something temple merchants. And the reporter said yeah these people he fired they’re going to project onto him what they are. every evil thing they do, they’re going to project and the meat is going to pick it up. And sure enough, he was right.
Miracles and Children
but not only did he love the poor like Jesus loved the poor, he loved the children like Jesus loved the children. And I and and I remember when the the little boy Paulo came up and he took the he wanted the pope’s hat and he sat with the pope and everybody thought it was funny. Well, a lot of people didn’t get the rest of the story. The mother said that Paul was very disabled. Besides autism, he could barely walk. It would be impossible for him to walk 5 feet without assistance. And he walked up to the stage and then walked upstairs. She said, “That was a miracle. There was no way my son could walk up the stairs.”
And he walked up the stairs and she told the pope, “Thank you.” She said, “You know, they think he has a brain tumor here. All the blood work is showing he has a brain tumor and we’re going for a scan tomorrow. Please pray for him because it looks like he’s going to die of a brain tumor.” And the pope said to her, “For you, the impossible doesn’t exist.”
And she said, he said it with such confidence and in her spirit, she knew her son would be okay. And the next day the brain scan showed no tumor and his blood work miraculously was better.
And I talked about the little baby a Cassidy 20month year old with a huge hole in her heart. The mother told Pope Francis he kissed her and prayed for her. And the next week the MRI showed the hole had disappeared. And there’s there were numerous stories I I told him throughout his pontificate.
And it seemed like I was the only one reporting these great miracles on Catholic YouTube. You know, I used to say, “Man, if this was a Muslim iman healing people, it’d be all over CNN and and all the fake news would would want to promote that.” But because it was the Pope, all they would focus on was the negativity.
Safeguards and Abuse Reforms
And he loved children so much.
He loved children so much that he told a group of Italian priests, “Our children are too valuable.”
You cannot You cannot let a man into seminary that has a hint of femininity. We cannot allow homosexuals into the priesthood. And then he got in trouble for using a derogatory word, [ __ ] in Italian. and I forget how you say it, telling these bishops, there’s too many of these guys in there. We got to get them out.
But not only did he do that, he put in all kinds of safeguards. And of course, the secular media on reporting on the change in the child abuse didn’t report on stopping homosexuals into the seminary. They reported on all his safeguards he put in like the background checks. And you know there’s a it’s very it’s very hard. They made it very safe. The FBI said the Catholic Church is probably the safest place today for your children because of all the safeguards.
And if you want to know the figures, you knew the figures before Pope Francis were outrageous. But in 2013, there were seven cases of child sex abuse in America. 8 that says that’s when the book was written. This is Bill Donghue the truth about clergy sexual abuse. I looked up the latest statistic 2023 there were three and compare that with the Chicago school system in that same year there was over 3,000 just among the teachers in the Chicago school system. And when I had first reported on this, I gave the comparison of the public school system as a whole in the United States. There were nearly 300,000 abuse cases in a 10-year period versus 50,000 in a 50-year period or 10,000 rather in a 50 year period in the United States. But the media never talked about the school system. All they talked about was the Catholic Church.
Media, Criticism, and Church Teaching
And also Bos Tjitan, Billy Graham, the late evangelist, Billy Graham’s grandson, still a devout evangelical, who was a sex crime prosecutor in Florida, now runs a private law firm where he investigates religious sex crimes. He told a group of Protestant pastors. Sex abuse in Protestant churches is two to three times worse than the Catholic Church has ever been. And today, Catholic Church um doesn’t have an issue with that thanks to Pope Francis. You know, again, Jason Bur, I mentioned him, he was the investigator, reporter who broke the sex abuse scandal and they made the movie Spotlight based on his investigation. He said what Pope Francis has done to stop sex abuse in the Catholic Church is head and shoulders above all his predecessors.
but again, the enemies the enemies of Pope Francis like lied about him literally and said, “Oh, he’s going to allow he’s going to allow gay marriage. He’s going to allow homosexual priests.” When the first priest he excommunicated, I believe it was 2012, like when he first got it, may have been 2013, but the first priest he excommunicated was a man named Greg Reynolds. and he excommunicated him for advocating gay marriage and he said you got to stop talk you know they’ll warn you first stop this and then you keep showing disobedience and then it’s ultimately the disobedience that gets you excommunicated
the second priest he excommunicated he went by the name father had a long name I think Francisco like four names but his nickname was father in Brazil and he excommunicated him for preaching that homosexuality isn’t a sin. And when he was in Brazil, they asked him, “Well, what if a priest is a homosexual, but he’s seeking God and he’s trying his best to live by the Catholic faith.”
And that’s when Pope Francis famously said, “Well, if he’s seeking God, who am I to judge?”
And that’s where it cut off with the major media, the fake news media, just, oh, Pope Franc said we shouldn’t judge homosexuality.
But he went on to say, I would rather have the sinner close to the sacraments, close to reconciliation in the church than to push them far away from the church. Love the sinner, hate the sin is the old saying.
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Growth of the Church
But not only did Pope Francis solve the financial crisis, which is probably the second largest financial crisis in the church, the first being Judas selling out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
He solved the child sex abuse crisis, which was the greatest crisis this church has ever faced. And you had all these people talking about another crisis that he was limiting in the Latin mass. Oh, we’re in a crisis. We’re in a crisis because of this. And they were missing these great things he was doing.
But not only was he doing this, the church was exploding. And when I would report on this, people were like, “Oh, Rob, you’re a Pope’s planer. You have no idea. Your head’s in the sand. The church isn’t exploding. It’s it’s dying.” And now everybody admits it. Now the same people that were calling me a popesplainer are like, “Yeah, it’s undeniable.” For the first time in the history of the United States, there’s more Catholics in the age of 20 to 30 than Protestants.
During Pope Francis’s pontificate, the Catholic Church grew 9.9% when world growth was only 9.1%. We outgrew the world when secularism is on the rise.
Protestantism is on the decline. the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, the Southern Baptists in that same time period lost 30% of their members. The United Methodist Church, the second largest Protestant denomination in the United States, lost over 50%. And the Catholic Church is growing. This is no coincidence. I was attract I was an evangelical attracted to Pope Francis. You see, I seen this man who’s Christlike.
Many evangelicals were like, “Wow, this is a very Christlike man.
Women, Doctrine, and False Claims
But he had his enemies. They would say, “He’s going to ordain women.” And people heads would explode. And these YouTubers would report this and their views would go up.
And I would say, “No, that’s a lie.” And I would call them out by name and they would say, “Oh, you’re causing division.” And my subscriptions would go down. But I pointed it out. Not only did Pope Francis say publicly dozens of times while he was pope, the church cannot ordain women because Christ picked 12 men to be apostles.
Not only did he change canon law, he literally changed canon law to say if a bishop ordains a woman, they’re both excommunicated. Like so he put it into law. Not only did he say it, he put it into law. And yet they kept saying, “He’s going to ordain women. He’s going to ordain women.”
And then when he showed women the respect that Jesus showed them, Jesus said, you know, the Bible says there’s there’s no difference between men and women spiritually. There’s no Jew, there’s no Greek, there’s no men, there’s no woman, there’s no free.
Spiritually, in the eyes of God, yes, we have different roles.
You know, the husband is the head of the household and only men can be in the hierarchy of the church. This is all biblical.
But Jesus had more women followers than men.
The early Christians, there were so many women because before Christianity, women were treated like secondass citizens like they are today in Muslim countries.
But Jesus brought them on brought them to the level of men. The dignity in the eyes of God, they’re equal to men. They have different roles, but the greatest saint that ever lived was a woman, Mother Mary.
And so he would elevate women to positions of power and in in the Vatican and in the church. And they would say, “Oh, this is a threat. He’s going to ordain them.” When he said he wasn’t going to ordain them, and they kept saying, “Oh, he’s going to allow a homosexual marriage. He doesn’t think homosexuals is a sin.” when he outright said, “Yes, homosexuality is a sin.” And people would take him out of context and they hated him. They lied about him.
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Carlo Vegano and the Attacks
And who were these liars?
Well, one such man was a name man man named Carlo Vegano in 2018 when the report came out about um excommunicated a man named McCarrick a cardinal who had homosexuals lovers and he was not excommunicated leasized. Um, the report came out that Pope Benedict put Vegano in charge of keeping tabs on McCarrick and said he can’t leave Washington DC until we finish this investigation, this 2018 report that’s coming out to see if the accusations are true. Keep him in Washington. And the report showed pictures of these guys partying, toasting champagne. They look like two wealthy lovers traveling the world.
And then Pope Francis leasized McCarrick and Vegano knew he looked bad. So he flipped the script and said Pope Francis protected McCarrick and the grifters and liars kept repeating and putting this liar up. So I investigated. I said why would this lie? Why this guy lie? I seen the report. Why is he lying? So I investigated Vegano.
He’s always been a liar. The court in Italy, an Italian court found him guilty of stealing $2 million from his brother.
And he’s a very wealthy man. He’s worth like $30 million now. He heard it a ton of money at a young age. And his brother, who’s also a priest, his brother, Father Lorenzo, said that um he lied. He because he’s a liar. He said, “My brother’s a compulsive liar. He lied to the pope, Pope Benedict at the time, and said, “You need to leave me in Rome so I could take care of my disabled brother, Father Lorenzo.” And Father Lorenzo said, “I was in America and we didn’t even talk. We we we you know, we didn’t like each other.” and he stole $2 million from me and he had to pay it back. And not only that, a Swiss court found he stole like $300,000 from his little sister who’s also religious. This guy was a thief and a liar.
Final Reflection
So you see, it was always liars attacking Pope Francis and you’re like, well, if he was honest, why didn’t he argue? You know, again, he was so Christlike.
Jesus was always accused and he just humbly kept doing the will of God. He just humbly kept doing the will of God.
When they were going to stone a woman, Jesus said, “Well, him who without sin can throw the first stone, they all dropped their stone.” And he said to the woman, “Where are you condemners?” And she says, they all left. He said, “Well, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” Again, he loved the sinner, but he hated the sin.
And what the grifters and the liars were trying to do was portray Francis as not caring about sin when that was his greatest concern was the soul of the children of God to bring him back in the unity and you and this is why people responded and the church grew. So, you had the fake media, and you know, I’ve been I’ve been watching the fake media my whole life and I see how they make narratives and their narrative was Pope Francis is like one of us. He doesn’t think homosexual is a sin. He doesn’t think divorce is a sin. He thinks there should be women.
So, they would ignore the truth about Pope Francis where he would point out sin and he hated the sin but his love for the sinner was greater.
the Pharisees, the grifters, those who had agendas. Money is the root of all kinds of evil. 1 Peter 6:10. People had a lot of agendas to attack and lie about Pope Francis.
And I would just explain the truth like I’m here. In my view, Pope Francis was living saint. And people call me Pope explainer and unsubscribe. I’ll probably get unsubscribed after this one. But you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
So, I tell you this because Pope Francis one-year anniversary was yesterday of his death, and people are still lying about him, and some are now lying about Pope Leo.
The Issue Was Never the Issue
And just like with the left, the issue is never the issue. They didn’t have an issue with Pope Francis being a heretic.
He was not a heretic.
The issue was their lack of faith. You see, they didn’t trust Jesus when he said, “The gates of hell will not prevail against my church.” They thought at Vatican 2, the gates of hell prevailed. So, every pope after Vatican 2, they attack they attack Pope St. John Paul II, they attacked Pope Benedict.
But YouTube exploded under Pope Francis.
So, you seen more of these grifters and attackers, you know, on a regular basis, day after day. And like I had a former Delta Force operator on talking about SCOPS saying if you repeat a lie every day and someone hears that lie for 60 days, you’ve programmed them. And today there’s another boogeyman and we’re I’m going to talk about that with Dr. Robert P. George. He’s a renowned legal scholar, political scholar, theologian, Catholic theologian. Um, I’m gonna have him on Saturday and we’re gonna talk about another boogeyman that they’re programming Catholics to hate. Kind of.
Closing
But anyway, we’ll talk about that on Saturday. So, please subscribe if you haven’t subscribed.
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God bless and stay Catholic. Now, I got to go to work.
Editor’s Note: This article was adapted from a spoken transcript and lightly edited for clarity, spelling, and formatting.