I thought so too. But consider this: if he met with her (and I’ll wait for confirmation from the Vatican) he did so in a manner consistant with meeting those experiencing political persecution for their religious beliefs.
In a way thats actually a more powerful statement than if he met with her in a big public meeting. It’s an acknowlegement that she IS being persecuted for her beliefs.
Add the statements made on the plane to that, and it presents a pretty clear picture.
An added, perhaps intentionally so, benefit is that the Progressives have just spent a week completely validating him as a source of moral and political authority. This gets the kind of wide play it probably will and they’re trapped in a corner. You can’t be selective on seeing someone as a moral authority, either they are or they aren’t.
You vastly underestimate the power of cognitive dissonance my FRiend. What you described is exactly what they will do. Moral authority when he agrees with them. Repressive religious fanatic when he doesn’t, or they will say he is just putting on an act.
And the pope gives her and her husband rosary beads, though they are both (he is assume) holiness Pentecostal Christians!
If they should have met him at all, they should have handed them right back and challenged him to find even one prayer addressed to anyone else but the Lord in the over 200 prayers by believers in the Bible. And given him the gospel of grace as preached in Acts. Which the pope does not even come close to preaching.
The pope even said that, “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class! - http://www.newyorker.com/news/hendrik-hertzberg/father-the-atheists-even-the-atheists
I’m interested to hear what MSM says - I just Googled it, and the NY Slimes has a story 2 hours ago, and NBC News 4 hours ago.