Conservative author and columnist Ann Coulter has made no secret of her disdain for the pronouncements of Pope Francis on worldly matters like immigration and the environment.
But her crack about pedophilia among priests on Wednesday was too much for even conservative Coulter fans to take.
Even if she was trying to make a conservative point.
Coulter was responding to a statement by the pope in the White House.
“As the son of an immigrant family, I am happy to be a guest in this country, which was largely built by such families,” Francis said, according to The Wall Street Journal.
For Coulter, an outspoken advocate of cracking down on illegal immigration in the United States, the statement was infuriating.
Equally accurate statement to the Pope’s: The Catholic Church was “largely built by pedophiles.” https://t.co/PPgCKFIe08
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 23, 2015
The blowback was swift — and fierce. American Catholics have spent more than two decades sickened by the clergy abuse scandal — and the way the mainstream media has used to to smear the entire church. Hearing a line like that from a conservative they normally agree with was too much.
@AnnCoulter The Church has its problems, but that was a cheap shot and untrue. As a Catholic, I find your remark offensive.
— hplem (@hplem) September 23, 2015
@hplem @AnnCoulter but…that’s Ann’s whole point/purpose: to offend people, needlessly and callously.
— Brad M. (@bmast39) September 23, 2015
Are you trying to be incendiary @AnnCoulter? I may not agree w/ the pope but I will defend my faith against outrageous attacks
— Ryan O’ (@CO2isAwesome) September 23, 2015
Of course she was trying to be incendiary. Ann Coulter gets incendiary like a normal person gets hungry — regularly and at least three times a day.
But she was also making a point — that what the pope said about America and immigration was simply not true.
Contrary to the popular media, Catholic priests are no more likely to be child sexual abusers than the general population (even the lefty Newsweek magazine says as much), and they’re a good deal less likely to sexually abuse children than public school teachers (who get a free pass from the media).
For an anti-illegal immigration activist like Coulter, to say that America was built by immigrants — as understood in the current context of hordes of illegals trampling across the southern border — is abhorrent, and wrong. Just as for a Catholic to be told Mother Church was built by pedophiles would be abhorrent — and dead, flat wrong.
Coulter has built a career on conservative polemics — and as a confirmed despiser of public school teachers unions, she surely knows that priests as a class are much less likely to be sexually involved with minors than your basic unionized teacher.
But a Catholic church in America, sensitive to an obvious sore point and trying to welcome the leader of the church, didn’t want to hear it, especially right after Coulter’s most recent social medial storm when she used an obscenity in a Twitter post about Jewish voters and the Republican primary debate.
@AnnCoulter @WSJ @Pontifex You are WRONG on so many levels.
— J Vitztum (@Vitztum) September 23, 2015
@AnnCoulter wow.You insult Jews & Cath in same wk? Also,immig.just 1 of many U.S. problems .was admirer, then “follower”. Bye. adios amigo.
— John Senica (@John_Dango) September 23, 2015
You’re just having a great little month for yourself, aren’t you @AnnCoulter https://t.co/bV6ncW2YkG
— Ride It Down (@Beer__Wolf) September 23, 2015
@AnnCoulter no, it was built by Christ and Saint Peter and all the saints. You’re not truly this hateful or ignorant.
— Terry Schilling (@pizzapolitico) September 23, 2015
No, she probably isn’t truly hateful. And she damn sure isn’t ignorant.
But she can sure sound like it.
Ann Coulter INFURIATES another entire religion:
‘This is why our founders distrusted Catholics’
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