Pope Francis condemns “huge economic interests”

From here:

Re: “huge economic interests” – What a libocrite!

The Vatican Bank owns HALF the world’s wealth.

Pope Francis condemns “huge economic interests” and “fake news fueling prejudice and hate”

APR 4, 2019 4:00 PM BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

“Pope Francis suggested Tuesday that ‘huge economic interests’ are at work in the digital world, capable of manipulating ‘the democratic process.’” He continued: “The way many platforms work often ends up favouring encounter between persons who think alike, shielding them from debate….These closed circuits facilitate the spread of fake news and false information, fomenting prejudice and hate.”

As subtle as the Pope’s speech may sound, he has has long castigated truth-tellers for resisting open-door immigration due to specific concerns about the Islamization of Western countries, not because of “prejudice,” “hate,” or discrimination. Western countries have been accepting of immigrants.

The Pope uses the same type of language that the European Union has been using against those who try to preserve free societies in the face of open-door immigration. EU chief Guy Verhofstadt — who is also President of an organization called “Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe” — has accused Poland and Hungary of being “illiberal” and working contrary to traditional values. He stated rightly that “the European Union… was built to guarantee our citizens’ freedom, democracy and the rule of law,” but overlooks the fact that Poland and Hungary are trying to preserve those values. It is the EU that has been bullying these countries to surrendering these values to Islamic supremacists.

While the Pope accuses “huge economic interests” at work in the digital world, it is worthwhile to remember that the “US Catholic Bishops received over $95 million from US taxpayers in 2016 for refugee/migrant care.”

It is also the Leftist mainstream media and its allies that shut down open debate about Islam and the threats that Islamic doctrine poses to free societies.

The Pope fails to highlight the “huge economic interests” of jihad groups, because to do so would not suit his interests. An Assyrian group that fled war in Syria once filed a lawsuit in North Carolina against the Turkish-Kuwaiti Bank for funding jihad terrorism and:

It is no secret that major jihad-funding groups disguise themselves as aid groups while bankrolling terror organizations across the Middle East and beyond. Recall the Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terror funding trial in U.S. history, which unveiled the charity’s material support for Hamas and also a list of approximately 300 “unindicted co-conspirators” that included CAIR and other mainstream Muslim organizations operating in North America.

When the Pope decides to remove his own screening practices of who enters the Vatican, along with his protective walls and security personnel from around the Vatican, as he exhorts Western nations to do, perhaps he would be more convincing.

Pope Francis has received no gratitude from those whom he is enabling. Last year, the Islamic State threatened to assassinate him. The year before that, “another pro-ISIS group depicted a van full of weapons heading towards the Vatican and vowing ‘Christmas blood.'” Meanwhile, Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar, has thanked Pope Francis for his “defense of Islam against the accusation of violence and terrorism.”

“Pope Francis Decries ‘Fake News’ Fueling ‘Prejudice and Hate,’” by Thomas D. Williams, Breitbart, April 2, 2019:

Pope Francis suggested Tuesday that “huge economic interests” are at work in the digital world, capable of manipulating “the democratic process.”
“The proliferation of fake news is the expression of a culture that has lost its sense of truth and bends the facts to suit particular interests,” the pope said in a book-length letter bearing the Latin title Christus Vivit (Christ Is Alive).

“It should not be forgotten that there are huge economic interests operating in the digital world, capable of exercising forms of control as subtle as they are invasive, creating mechanisms for the manipulation of consciences and of the democratic process,” he said.

Moreover, social media create polarization and ideological ghettos, the pontiff proposed, as people only listen to those who share their particular worldview.

“The way many platforms work often ends up favouring encounter between persons who think alike, shielding them from debate,” he wrote. “These closed circuits facilitate the spread of fake news and false information, fomenting prejudice and hate.”

The internet and social media are powerful instruments capable of destroying a person’s good name, he said, without allowing them any defense.

“The reputation of individuals is put in jeopardy through summary trials conducted online. The Church and her pastors are not exempt from this phenomenon,” he said.

This is not the first time the pope has come out against fake news, a phenomenon he once likened to “excrement.”

Last year, Francis denounced “fake news” as a serious problem in the modern age, while calling on journalists to break oligarchies that present just one version of the story.

“In today’s fast-changing world of communications and digital systems, we are witnessing the spread of what has come to be known as ‘fake news,’” the pontiff said, suggesting that homogeneous news cartels without the necessary competition easily spread disinformation.

“Disinformation thus thrives on the absence of healthy confrontation with other sources of information that could effectively challenge prejudices and generate constructive dialogue,” the pope said. “Instead, it risks turning people into unwilling accomplices in spreading biased and baseless ideas.”

The Vatican itself has not proved immune to the phenomenon of fake news.

A year ago this month, the Vatican was caught doctoring a photograph of a letter from Emeritus Pope Benedict making it look as if he were endorsing a series of books on the theology of Pope Francis…..