FORMER Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin
has said Pope Francis has “taken her aback” with his liberal
interpretation of Christianity and has expressed fears he may be being
influenced by the mainstream media.
In an interview with CNN, Palin
laid bare her misgivings about Pope Francis, who has impressed
believers and nonbelievers alike with his humble and practical
application of the gospel.
She told interviewer Jake
Tapper: “He's had some statements that to me sound kind of liberal, has
taken me aback, has kind of surprised me. There again, unless I really
dig deep into what his messaging is, and do my own homework, I’m not
going to just trust what I hear in the media.”
She
continued: "I'm kinda trying to follow what his agenda is. You know he
came out with a couple of things in the media but again I'm not one to
trust the media's interpretation of somebody's message but having read
through media outlets," the former Governor of Alaska said.
Her
statements were slammed by some on social media. Radio 4 presenter Tom
Sutcliffe summed it up on Twitter as: “Christianist baffled by an
encounter with Christianity.”
Another wrote: “If Sarah
Palin's this shocked by Pope Francis, she'll be catatonic when she
finally gets round to reading about Jesus in the New Testament.”
Indeed,
Pope Francis has impressed communities worldwide with his modest and
thrifty attitude and more liberal teachings on women, abortion and
homosexuality.
In July he suggested a more permissive
attitude towards gay couples, remarking that it was not up to him to
make judgements on the sexual orientation of clergy as long as they were
searching for God and had goodwill.
He also said the
Catholic Church is obsessed with abortion, gay people and contraception
and its moral authority risks “falling like a house of cards” if it
continues.
Amidst the furore over female clergy, Pope Francis said women have a “fundamental importance” in the Roman Catholic Church, pointing to the fact they were the “first witnesses” of the resurrection
Pope
Francis has also eschewed the traditional Popemobile for a Ford Fiesta
and more recently cast out the 'Bishop of Bling' from his German palace
with its £20,000 bathtub and walk in wardrobe. It has now been turned
into a soup kitchen for poor people.
His
war on corruption continued on Monday when Pope Francis delivered an
impassioned sermon, during which he quoted a passage from the bible that
said Christians who donated money to the church but stole from the
state were leading a “double life and deserved to be tied to a rock and
cast into the sea".