Amid Mother of All Countdowns, Pope Drops "Bombs"

Having secured the President of the United States for a starkly early-morning audience in 18 days' time, during an impromptu Q&A earlier today with Italian high-school students committed to working for peace, the Pope engaged in an apparent rehearsal for his impending Main Event with Donald Trump....

“I tell you this here because you’re a school of peace, but I tell you: the world is at war. That if this one bombs over here – a hospital, a school: sick people, babies – it doesn’t matter, and so the bomb is dropped.

See, I don’t know – I was ashamed by the name of a bomb: the “Mother of All Bombs.” Look – a Mother gives life, but this brings death! And this is what we casually call it? What on earth is happening here?....

God created the world and placed at its center man and woman – the human being – God created the world, with us at the center! But today, the world moves forward with man and woman not at the center of it.

If I could ask you a question – and I don’t know if you can answer – but I’d like [you] to… you’ll do it? If today, man and woman aren’t at the center of the life of the world, what is at the center of all the world's movement now?

[Student: "Evil, money and power."]

[Pope:] There it is! Well done! “Evil, money and power,” eh? Good, thank you!

You understand evil, but then you said the two other words: “money” and “power” – money is the power. At the center of the world’s life today is God: not God the Father, but the Money God, eh? It’s all about the money....”

Lest anyone missed the broader context, it bears recalling how the bulk of the American public came to know the figure who would be elected as the 45th Commander-in-Chief:



And as if said scene wasn't wild enough, that Francis' only major event between today and the 24th is Fatima – a place whose apocalyptic message of clashes of powers has inspired controversy and conversion in equal measure over the last century – should prove yet again how when it comes to this beat at its best, try as some might, you just can't make it up.

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