The Georgia congresswoman has been a critic of the Catholic Church since leaving the faith years ago
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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said evil is “being defeated by the hand of God” in a Monday, April 21, social media post, published after Pope Francis‘ death.
“Today there were major shifts in global leaderships,” the Georgia Republican, 50, posted on X. “Evil is being defeated by the hand of God.”
Greene didn’t specifically mention the pope’s death in her post. She may also have been referring to Klaus Schwab, the founder and chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), stepping down as the leader of its board.
Greene has been a longtime critic of the Catholic Church and the WEF.
While born a Catholic, the GOP rep and MAGA supporter now purports to be an evangelical Protestant. Greene said in a lengthy post on X in April 2022 that she was raised and married in the Catholic Church, but left when she became a mother.
“I realized that I could not trust the Church leadership to protect my children from pedophiles, and that they harbored monsters even in their own ranks,” Greene wrote at the time.
At the same time, the congresswoman leveled criticism at Catholic leadership in the U.S. for providing aid to undocumented immigrants. She became involved in a public feud with Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, after an interview with right-wing Christian activist Michael Voris, in which she said she saw evidence that “Satan is controlling the [Catholic] church.”
“The bishops are also busy destroying our nation using taxpayer money to advocate for the illegal invasion across our borders,” she wrote in April 2022. “They dare to dress up Democrat vandalism and lawlessness as somehow ‘religious,’ which perhaps explains their distaste for me.”
The late Pope Francis was also a divisive figure for Greene’s ally, President Donald Trump.
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires in 1936, the pope spoke out against Trump’s immigration policies multiple times throughout both of his presidencies. During Trump’s first term, the pope said his plan to build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico was “not Christian.”
He was rebuked by the president, who called him a “very political person.” However, Trump was happy to accept the pope’s 2017 invitation to visit Vatican City, calling it the “honor of a lifetime.”
On Monday, Trump posted that he and first lady Melania Trump will attend the pope’s funeral in Rome. “We look forward to being there!” he wrote on Truth Social.
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Republican vice president J.D. Vance met with Pope Francis on Sunday, April 20, just hours before the Catholic leader died.
In a press release, the Vatican said the pair had “an exchange of opinions on the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners.”
Later, in his official Easter address, which was written by the pope but delivered by an aide due to the leader’s poor health, he doubled down on the importance of compassion for discounted members of society.