(LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has seemed to compare Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini to Donald Trump as a means of downplaying sexual sin and justifying Amoris Laetitia and Fiducia Supplicans.
“Then, of course, there is always some resistance, often linked to inadequate knowledge or some form of hypocrisy,” Francis wrote in his new wide-ranging memoir Hope, released Tuesday.
“I am thinking of the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia – which opened the doors for new pastoral challenges in regard to the family – and note on the possibility of divorced people having access to the sacraments, which made some people throw their arms up in horror,” he continued.
Francis then says that sexual sins “tend to cause more of an outcry from some people” but that these sins “are really not the most serious,” instead pointing to other grave sins like “pride, hatred, falsehood, fraud” and “abuse of power.”
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Francis says this reminds him of A Special Day, an Italian film about a homosexual and a woman who “are left alone in a deserted apartment while the rest of Rome awaits Adolf Hitler’s visit to Mussolini” as he prepares to drag the world into war.
“Whereas Mussolini and Hitler are greeted with jubilation, the two central characters are treated with public scorn… It is strange that nobody worries about the blessing of an entrepreneur who exploits people, and this is a grave sin, or about someone who pollutes our common home, while there’s a public scandal if the pope blesses a divorced woman or a homosexual.”
“Opposition to pastoral open-mindedness often uncovers these hypocrisies,” he added.
READ: Pope Francis says God loves homosexuals ‘as they are’ in new memoir
While Francis never uses Trump’s name directly, the example of an “entrepreneur who exploits people” seems to be a not-so-subtle swipe at the incoming U.S. president, whom Francis has previously criticized for being against illegal immigration and equating that policy to being in favor of abortion.
This wouldn’t be the first time Francis appeared to compare Trump to Hitler. Back in 2017, on the same day Trump was being sworn in as the 45th president, Francis stated that “Hitler didn’t steal power, his people voted for him, and then he destroyed his people.”