RedState's Streiff on the death of Pope Francis (04-21-2025--Hour2)

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[00:00:29] Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, April 21st, today at the age of 88 at his residence in the Vatican's Casa Santa Marta. And I read a piece over at redstate.com by Bill Cruz. He writes under the nom de plume of strife. Is it, Bill, is it pronounced strife or is it like street? Okay, good. Because otherwise I've been saying it wrong for like 10 years.

[00:00:54] Well, welcome to the show. And my apologies. I figured I would have had you on at some point, but I am glad that our mutual friend Stacy said, hey, you should have this guy on. And I'm like, yeah, I really should because I thought I really did, but I hadn't. So welcome to the show, sir. I appreciate it. I've read your work for a long time. It's great to be here, Pete. And you have some of the best bumper music out there, I think. Nice. Always love the, always love that. Well, that's really the producers that do that, but I'll take the compliment too. Why not?

[00:01:19] All right. So let's talk a little bit about Pope Francis. He was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Bergoglio. Bergoglio. Anyway, I think that's how he pronounces that. But so what was so unique about him? Tell us sort of like his, his bio and his rise. Well, you know, he's like, I mean, obviously his real claim to fame is he is the first pope from the Americas.

[00:01:48] And probably I think he's the first pope from like outside of Italy in several hundred years. So that way he's a standout. I don't know a lot. I mean, what I think his tenure is Archbishop of Buenos Aires is a bit cloudy.

[00:02:13] There's a lot we don't know about everything that happened there. There's a lot of people who are. But anyway, he was sort of picked to be the, I think, the answer to two fairly doctored air popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. And obviously he came in trying to add an openness.

[00:02:43] And I think he always referred to it as he wanted to be more of a more he wanted a more pastoral church, one that was more open to all kinds of people. So and he was the first Jesuit, right? Which is an order. First Jesuit. And I think it's probably safe to say maybe the last one.

[00:03:06] Right. Well, it's funny you say this, because when he was named, I know a lot of Catholics who were kind of worried about putting a Jesuit into the papacy. Why is that? Well, look again, this is you're dealing with the N equal one. And this is Bill Cruz's perspective on that.

[00:03:25] I think that where in the 16th, 17th, 18th century, a Jesuit going into to be pope would have been very controversial for a different reason, that they are much too morally, much more interested in politics, you know, that type of thing.

[00:03:50] I think that the real fear that I think it played out, that it was justified, was that the Jesuits since the 1960s have been heavily associated with leftist activities, political activities. They've been heavily associated with liberation theology.

[00:04:15] Most of the brush fire wars going on in Central America in the 80s, you know, whether it was El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, all had a non-trivial number of Jesuits involved on the side of the communist guerrillas.

[00:04:40] And also the Jesuits sort of became, I mean, a lot of their more prominent voices in the media really were pushing things contrary to the Catholic catechism in terms of normalizing homosexuality, accepting homosexual marriages. They bought in heavily to the transgenderism.

[00:05:08] And so there was a whole lot of baggage coming in with Francis as a Jesuit that, you know, may have resulted in him not quite getting a fair shake. And maybe the worst inferences were drawn from some things he did because it was all looked at through the lens of we're dealing with a Jesuit. Right. Right. When he's got that kind of baggage just because he is of that order, he comes in with certain expectations that people are on guard.

[00:05:37] Yes. Yes. And another pope could probably, may have been able to do some of the similar things without the internal drama. But the fact is that because he was a Jesuit, a lot of his actions were colored by that fact. Yeah. And then, of course, he did stuff, which would also... And then he did stuff.

[00:06:03] And then he did stuff that would then lead people to like, oh, see, my fears were confirmed. You mentioned in your piece about environmental policy, the role of women in the church that people had thought had been settled before. There was all of the immigration stuff in that debate, death penalty stuff. You also mentioned, I have not heard anything about this, the Vatican's finances. You say he never brought the Vatican's finances under control. What does that mean?

[00:06:29] Well, I mean, the Vatican Bank has been sort of a festering sump of corruption for quite a while. I mean, this is the bank that managed to lose hundreds of millions of dollars on investing in prime real estate in London. I don't really know how you managed to do that. I mean, I think me and my wife could have pulled it off and made some money on it. But it just goes back to a lot of things you can go back to.

[00:06:59] I'm trying to remember the person who was allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself under Blackfriars Bridge in London, who was associated with the Vatican Bank. But this has been going on for a while. And one of the things that happened was that he brought in a very, very good man, Cardinal Pell from Australia. And suddenly when Pell, once again, this is my perspective. This is not a held by court records or anything.

[00:07:30] When Pell apparently was getting close to closing down some of the corruption, suddenly allegations surfaced with Pell that got him brought back to Australia. Actually, you know, sentenced to prison for sexual abuse until his name was finally cleared, if indeed your name could ever be cleared after that.

[00:07:54] Then there was some interesting stories of money flowing out of the Vatican to organizations in Australia that were pushing the narrative that Pell had sexually abused members of a choir, I think it was, something like 30 years ago, 40 years ago. And so you have all this stuff going on.

[00:08:18] And there was also a lot of suspicion that one of the reasons that Benedict XVI resigned was he looked at what was going on there and realized that at his age he simply did not have the energy to deal with that. I think that he wanted to be the Pope and didn't want to be the administrator of what was going on.

[00:08:46] And then, of course, you have the whole scandal with, again, another Jesuit, the artist Marco Wupnick, who is associated with some horrendous cases of sexual abuse of religious women. And he was dismissed from his order. He was laicized, which means, you know, made non-clergy.

[00:09:13] That order was somehow reversed, and so he's back in a clerical state somewhere. I want to say he's in Austria, I think. But his artwork is still used by the Vatican for various holiday events, and it's still featured in a lot of major churches. And so they've never really come to grips on what we are going to do about this man and his work.

[00:09:43] So I think that on his promise of transparency and accountability, he felt really, really short. And I think that it was a steady-classic case of the in-crowd protecting the in-crowd. And he either acquiesced to it or was leading the charge, depending on who you talk to. Yeah. You cover a lot in this piece. It's at redstate.com. It's called Breaking, Pope Francis Dead at 88.

[00:10:12] Fair to say that his legacy is a mixed bag at this point? I think so. We'll see what the next guy does. By last count this morning, it was of the 135 cardinals who can vote. Those are the ones under 80. He has appointed 109.

[00:10:34] So a lot of people are expecting a Francis II to appear. But there's also a large number of people who watch the Church who say that, you know, his heavy-headedness, his overbearing way, the way he micromanaged things, really rubbed even people he appointed the wrong way.

[00:11:00] And so look for a pope who's going to be a lot more hands-off and a lot more of a traditional pope next time around, rather than someone who is trying to turn bishops into lower-level middle managers and run the entire Catholic Church, you know, from his office, which I think is a fair description of how, you know, Francis ran the Church. I would just like to announce I am taking my name out of the running for pope. Yeah, me too. Okay. It sounds too much like work.

[00:11:29] Yeah, it does. Hey, Bill, I appreciate your time today. Great work at Red State. And we'll have you back on soon. Thank you, sir. All right. So spring is here, a time of renewal and celebrations. You've got graduations, weddings, anniversaries, and the special days for mom and dad. Your family's making memories that are going to last a lifetime. But let me ask you, are all of those treasured moments from days gone by, are they hidden away on old VCR tapes, 8mm films, photos, slides? Are they preserved?

[00:11:58] Because over time, these precious memories can fade and deteriorate, losing the magic of yesterday.

[00:12:32] At Creative Video, they help you protect what matters most. Mail orders are accepted, too. Get all the details at createavideo.com. Statement from the Vatican. Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow, I must announce the death of our Holy Father, Francis. At 735 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his church. He taught us to live the values of the gospel with fidelity, courage, and universal love,

[00:13:01] especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized. With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite, merciful love of the one and triune God. The Pope was admitted to the hospital on Friday, February 14, 2025, when he had a bout of bronchitis for several days. His situation gradually worsened.

[00:13:26] His doctors diagnosed him with bilateral pneumonia on Tuesday, February 18. He spent 38 days in the hospital. He then returned to his Vatican residence to continue his recovery. In 1957, in his early 20s, Jorge Mario Bergoglio underwent surgery in his native Argentina to remove a portion of his lung that had been affected by a severe respiratory infection.

[00:13:51] And as he aged, Pope Francis frequently suffered bouts of respiratory illnesses, even canceling a planned trip to the United Arab Emirates in November of 2023 due to influenza and lung inflammation. That, again, is part of the statement from VaticanNews.va in a statement from the Catholic Church. Bill, welcome to the show. Hello, Bill. Hello, Pete.

[00:14:19] First time caller on your program, a long-time listener. Well, thank you, sir. Welcome. A couple of small corrections, and I am, if I'm wrong, I'm prepared to be counter-corrected, I guess you'd call it. One on the last caller, he said no one out of Rome had been a pope in 200 years. I thought we had a Polish pope a couple of popes ago.

[00:14:47] That would be John Paul II, and Poland, I believe, does count as Europe. But I think he said Italy. Yeah, he said Italy. But he wrote, right, he said Italy. But that was Bill Wells. He is a writer at redstate.com. He did say in our conversation, he said Italy, but he wrote in the piece, outside Europe. And the last one from outside Europe, Gregory III in the 8th century.

[00:15:17] Wow, okay. And also Trump. And I'm not a Trump critic. I voted for him twice. But he did say he will have all flags fly at half-mast. Well, that's totally outdated. He should have said half-staff. Because as an Army officer about 60 years ago, I learned that a staff is what a flag flies on.

[00:15:43] A mast is what a flag flies on, only on a ship or on a naval base. Or, right, I think those two. And I think at Country Day School here in Charlotte, I've talked to a couple people who taught there and so forth, that theirs is not a mast. It is a, or it is a mast, not a staff.

[00:16:09] And you can tell by the, I don't know what those outrigger ropes are that go to the cross piece and down. They will distinguish a mast from a staff. All right. I will, if I ever get a chance to talk with Donald Trump, I will pass the correction on to him. But you are correct. Staff is not mast, and mast is not staff. Say hi to him.

[00:16:37] By the way, my Holy Father, my only Holy Father is God only. But I do respect my Catholic friends. All right, Bill, I appreciate your call, sir. Thank you. All right, take care. I made that mistake one time in a newscast like 20 years ago. I said, flags flying at half staff. And, or sorry, I said, flags flying at half mast. And, oh, the emails that I got.

[00:17:06] So that's when I learned that mast is not staff and staff is not mast. They are different things. So when Trump said half mast, he was wrong. He was wrong. It's half staff. That's what people told me. That's what people told me. I swear. That's like, I got some of the worst emails after I made that mistake. All right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do too. And you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources.

[00:17:36] Why? Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place. So you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check.ground.news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate

[00:18:03] because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check.ground.news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get 15% off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. All right.

[00:18:33] So did you hear what happened over the weekend? Late Friday night, Saturday morning, got an order from the U.S. Supreme Court came down. It's very odd. Very odd. I didn't know they worked that late. What? No cocktail circuit to attend? I kid. I kid. William Jacobson writing at LegalInsurrection.com says the judiciary appears to be cracking under the weight of Democrat lawfare.

[00:19:01] He talks about how the emergency stay issued just after midnight, Saturday morning, April 19th by the U.S. Supreme Court over the dissent of Justices Alito and Thomas. The state halted all deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

[00:19:27] The Supreme Court conduct, he says, was bizarre by any standard, reacting to a filing that was made on Friday night before a holiday weekend without giving the government any chance to respond. This is highly unusual. This is highly unusual. The conduct of numerous district court judges has been emotional and reactive, but you don't expect that from the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet it happened.

[00:19:57] Alito wrote the dissenting opinion. He was joined by Clarence Thomas. Here's what Alito wrote. Shortly after midnight yesterday, the court hastily and prematurely granted unprecedented emergency relief. The court ordered the government, he puts that in quotes, not to remove a putative class of detainees. Key here is a class, right?

[00:20:26] A group of people, like when you hear a class action lawsuit, like a class of people that share, you know, a particular, similar, you know, either harm or claim or something that they're suing that makes them all united. Like we were all harmed by this company. So we are a class in the lawsuit. So this is the class of detainees. Although the order does not define this class.

[00:20:54] It appears that the court means all members of the class that the petitioners have sought, the ACLU, has sought to have certified.

[00:21:08] Namely, quote, all noncitizens in custody in the Northern District of Texas who were, are, or will be subject to the March 2025 presidential proclamation called Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act regarding the invasion of the United States by Trendy Arugua and or its implementation. Okay, so they didn't, they have not defined this unless you're just going to go with what the ACLU has defined them and that was their description, their definition.

[00:21:38] He says, though, that the court did this even though it's not clear that the court has jurisdiction. It is questionable whether the applicants complied with the general obligation to seek emergency injunctive relief. So in other words, we're going to seek an emergency injunction at a lower court in the district court before asking for relief from an appellate court.

[00:22:05] Right, you start at the lowest court and you work your way up and they didn't do that in this case. The ACLU did not do that. When the applicants, the ACLU, requested such relief in the district court, they insisted on a ruling within 45 minutes on a good Friday afternoon. And when the district court did not act within 133 minutes, they filed a notice of appeal.

[00:22:32] He says that you're basically depriving the district court of its jurisdiction. The only papers before this court were those submitted by the applicants. The court had not ordered or received a response by the government regarding either the applicants' factual allegations or any of the legal issues presented by their application.

[00:22:58] There's no response from the government because they fast-tracked this thing in a way that we have not seen them do. He said Alito writes that the papers before us, while alleging that the applicants were in imminent danger of removal, they provided little concrete support for that allegation.

[00:23:25] Although the court provided class-wide relief, the district court never certified a class, which is what you're supposed to do in these types of proceedings. You have to certify the class. You have to say this is actually a class. And they didn't do that. He says,

[00:24:19] He then says, Both the executive and the judiciary have an obligation to follow the law. The executive must proceed under the terms of our order. And this court should follow established procedures. He's calling out the seven other members of the Supreme Court. Like, no one is above the law. And he's saying, that includes us, guys. William Jacobson says,

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[00:26:09] All right, back to the Supreme Court emergency stay that was issued Saturday morning, early Saturday morning, like just after midnight. And the gentleman that we interviewed at the beginning of the hour, Bill Wells, the writer at redstate.com named Strife, S-T-R-E-I-F-F. He wrote about this also. He says it's not clear.

[00:26:39] This is according to Alito's dissent. Alito lays out the problems. That it's not clear if the court has any jurisdiction on this case. And that the ACLU probably did not even have the authority to appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in the first place. Much less to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Fifth Circuit was still considering the case when the Supreme Court intervened.

[00:27:03] Even though the Supreme Court knew that the Fifth Circuit would be issuing a ruling momentarily. So why did the U.S. Supreme Court bigfoot the Fifth Circuit? The government was not given a chance to respond to the appeal. And the evidence in the appeal does not support emergency action.

[00:27:27] And then Alito reminds the court of a prior ruling in South Bay United Pentecostal Church versus Newsom. Gavin Newsom, that is. Okay. There was a request, an emergency appeal from California Governor Gavin Newsom's order closing churches during the pandemic.

[00:27:56] The church wanted an injunction and they wanted an emergency appeal. And the U.S. Supreme Court said an injunction pending appeal can only be granted when, quote, the legal rights at issue are indisputably clear and even then sparingly and only in the most critical and exigent circumstances.

[00:28:22] So Alito is throwing Robert's words right back in his face. This is what you guys used as your rationale for not taking up that emergency appeal. But this one goes. This one's allowed. It violates our rules. The lower court is already hearing it, even though they probably shouldn't even be hearing it either, let alone us.

[00:28:49] And then you just bigfoot them and take it and give the emergency appeal without giving one of the parties in the case an opportunity to reply. To respond to the appeal. I got to tell you the way it looks. There's a word for the way this looks. It looks like corruption. That's what it looks like. Because I haven't seen any of the legal rationale for it, but that's. This is not good.

[00:29:21] Apparently, American citizens being prevented from gathering to worship was not a problem. But you get a bunch of illegal alien gangbangers facing deportation, which they've been ordered deported. And that that that's. That's worthy of us breaking all of our our norms over. Right. In a related story.

[00:29:45] An American citizen was held in a Florida jail at the request of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. So this is an American citizen. Held in a Florida jail at the request of ICE. Despite the county judge being able to see a U.S. birth certificate in court. This is from the Hill dot com.

[00:30:12] The guy's name is Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez. Not kidding. He was born in the United States and he was detained. Last week in Florida by the state's highway patrol and was charged with illegally entering Florida as an unauthorized alien. Under a state law. This is not federal. This is a state law that has been temporarily blocked now by a judge.

[00:30:41] Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggins. Said that despite the charge against Lopez Gomez being dropped. She did not have the authority to release the 20 year old because ICE asked the Leon County jail to hold him. Which is true. She would not have that authority to release him if there's been an ICE detainer put on him. And the state of Florida says you have to cooperate with ICE.

[00:31:09] The judge looks at Lopez Gomez's birth certificate. Which had been waived earlier in court by a supporter. I think that's an. I think they spelled waived incorrectly. I think they literally mean waved it around like held it up. And the judge said in looking at it and feeling it and holding it up to the light.

[00:31:34] The court can clearly see the watermark to show that this is indeed an authentic document. So I was not aware but the judge is apparently. A document expert as well. He knows how to detect this kind of thing on the fly. Lopez Gomez was heading from Georgia and was pulled over in Florida by a highway patrol trooper. So this is like oh my gosh. What an abuse. Holy cow.

[00:32:04] Right. He's going to get deported now. He's going to get shipped to El Salvador. He's an American citizen. This is everything we warned you about. Way down at the end of the story I feel the need to point out. He was released. So he was released. So. Is that evidence that the system worked? So. Somebody comes in. He's charged with being an unauthorized alien. ICE says. Hey hold on. 48 hour detainer. Right. Hold on to him.

[00:32:33] We're going to check into it. And then apparently they discover. Oh no he's an American citizen. So yeah he's free to go. Which isn't that the way that's supposed to go. Now maybe it should never have gotten to that point. Maybe they should have been better in communicating. Right. Again. I'm not one who believes that GovCo gets all of this stuff right. But I do bristle at the idea. That people who break every single rule and procedure to enter.

[00:33:03] Now. And I'm not saying this guy did. But in the larger context of the. You know. First they came for the illegal aliens. And we didn't give them. You know trials. Like these are. They're. These are different proceedings. Somebody enters the country illegally. They go through deportation proceedings. These are not criminal charges. Right. These are. It's administrative. And you can't prove you're in the country legally. Then you get sent home. And that's it. And.

[00:33:34] Particularly with the guy down in El Salvador. The Maryland man. Oh by the way. We went over last week. The tattoos on his fingers. You know. And MS-13. Represented there in the. In the. The icons. In the graphics. His wife posted some pictures onto social media. Showing like. He's just a loving dad. Look at. You know. And have all these pictures. And she blacked out his finger tattoos. Why would you do that?

[00:34:03] She scribbles them out. Like with the. Like the digital marker or whatever. You know. Where you can like edit a photo. And scribble out stuff to. Like black it out. And that's what she did. She blacked it. Because he's got his hands around her. Hugging her. And. You can see the tats on his knuckles. And so. She. She scribbled them out. Which I'm sure. Indicates nothing at all. Nothing. All right.

[00:34:33] That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support. And the support of the businesses. That advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like. Please support them too. And tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron. At my Patreon page. Or go to. ThePeteCalendarShow.com Again. Thank you so much for listening. And don't break anything while I'm gone.