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Former President Clinton Insults Pope on Way to Funeral

ROME, April 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Former President Bill Clinton, one of recent history's most ardent political advocates of abortion, placed himself on an equal  footing with the Pope and critiqued the Pope's legacy in comments to reporters  while en route to Rome for the papal funeral.   

Matt Drudge reports that Clinton told reporters, the Pope "centralized authority in  the papacy again and enforced a very conservative theological doctrine. There will  be debates about that. The number of Catholics increased by 250 million on his  watch. But the numbers of priests didn't. He's like all of us - he may have a mixed  legacy."   

Clinton's comments have already spurred outrage from Catholic bloggers and  Protestant ministers alike. Joseph Grant Swank Jr., pastor of New Hope Evangelical Church in Maine wrote an editorial in his local paper calling Clinton a religious  hypocrite and a liar. Pastor Grant writes, "This rank sinner of the most alley cat genre plows into the Pope on the way to the Pope's funeral! In moments after making  his 'confession,' the former United States President then has the audacity to kneel in St. Peter's Church, looking on adoringly at the Pope's corpse." 

President Bush's decision to include Clinton in the US delegation to the Pope's  funeral has already upset many Catholics. Clinton's presidency was one of aggressive opposition to the Catholic moral universe which John Paul personified.   

Clinton's audacity in critiquing the Pope - who will likely be best remembered for his indefatigable championing of the sanctity of human life - will strike many as especially insulting from a president whose reign was a mud-spattered catalogue of moral and  political scandals. Bill Clinton's particular legacy among pro-lifers is to be  remembered for his repeated vetoes of the partial birth abortion ban.   

Clinton's indifference to Catholic sensibilities was exemplified in 1998, when he and his wife received Holy Communion at a Catholic Mass while on a trip to South  Africa. This act, understood by Catholics to be one of sacrilege, occurred while the  Clintons led the world in their war against traditional Christian morality. The late John  Cardinal O'Connor of New York declared the episode "legally and doctrinally wrong."   

Focus on the Family President Dr. James Dobson in February 2001 said, "No man has ever done more  to debase the presidency or to undermine our Constitution - and particularly the  moral and biblical principles upon which it is based - than has William Jefferson  Clinton." Dobson wrote, "Clinton's hands are stained with the blood of countless  innocent babies. By twice vetoing a bill that would have banned partial-birth  abortion, he almost single-handedly preserved a barbaric procedure by which fully  viable and un-anaesthetized infants, each fresh from the Creator's hand and brimming  with life, were murdered during the final moments of delivery."   

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