UH OH
04.10.16
Vatican: Pope Didn’t Invite Bernie Sanders
The Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told The Daily Beast that it wasn’t the pope who personally invited the politician. “The invitation was made on behalf of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, not by Pope Francis,” he said. “There is no expectation that the pope will meet Mr. Sanders.” He then added that he could not completely exclude the possibility, but that nothing was on the agenda at the moment.
Margaret Archer, president of Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, said that Sanders invited himself. “Sanders made the first move, for the obvious reasons,” Archer told Bloomberg. “He may be going for the Catholic vote but this is not the Catholic vote and he should remember that and act accordingly — not that he will.”
Not long after, Monsignor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences stepped in to dispute Archer’s statements. “”I deny that. It was not that way,” Sorondo told Reuters “This is not true and she knows it. I invited him with her consensus.”
Sorondo later toned down his initial comments telling CNN the invitation should not be seen as an endorsement of the senator’s nomination. “It does not signify any support of the campaign,” Sorondo said. “We want to establish a dialogue between North America and South America so we thought to invite a [U.S.] politician. The President of Bolivia will also be there. Perhaps the others (candidates) would have been interested but they did not request to come.”
As the nuns used to say, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Monsignor! Where have you been? Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent good chunks of her tenure at the State Department re-establishing ties and friendships that the previous administration had allowed to deteriorate and falter, among them South American relations.
Here are Secretary Clinton’s South American visits. I have left off the Central American visits because Msgr. Sanchez Sorondo specified South America, not, more broadly, Latin America. Also not included are the many summits, conferences, strategic partnerships, and visits that occurred in Washington DC.
Tour March 2010 Beginning here >>>>
Tour June 2010 Beginning here >>>>
Tour April 2012 Beginning >>>>
Since he specifically referred to Rafael Correa, here is a reminder of how well Correa and Hillary hit it off in 2010.
The bottom line appears to be that Bernie Sanders actively sought this invitation, and Msgr. Sanchez Solondo overstepped his role and that of the conference which is not tasked with establishing diplomatic relations between nations. Bernie’s primary opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, knows the South American leaders very well and has a great working relationship with them.
Certainly her campaign became aware of this conference at some point. That she did not request an invitation is evidence that 1) This visit relates to the election in only the most tangential way – the Catholic vote which, as Archer said, this is not; and 2) – and this is perhaps central – Hillary does not need foreign relations creds which the sly monsignor seemed to think this junket would afford Bernie.
No, monsignor, and no, senator, a photo op of Bernie with Correa will never outdo this one.
And, yes, monsignor, you are messing around with our internal affairs. Imagine the reaction if it were Hillary accepting an invitation from the Patriarchy in Istanbul to discuss the refugee situation!
Finally, one speech during a short trip to Rome is not even a drop in the bucket compared to hundreds of addresses delivered all over the world by Secretary Clinton and this:
Nor will any of this amount to the depth and breadth of foreign policy experience Hillary Clinton has accumulated.
The motives are transparent with diminishing returns. It was not an invitation from Pope Francis or even, really, from the Vatican. Hillary is untrustworthy? Let him who is without sin etc. etc. etc.
Still4Hill 
Desperation move for Bernie.
LikeLike
And why spend two precious days overseas right before the NY primary? Bernie isn’t even listed as a speaker. BTW, I suspect Margaret Archer was not consulted, as she says. I’m not at all happy with that monsignor. What a silly reason for inviting Sanders.
LikeLike
This is like the candidates flying to the UK to get their photo op at 10 Downing and pretending they are just there on “trade missions” for their states etc. etc. but just end up looking like total fools. See: Mitt Romney, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal et al.
On Bloomberg’s show With All Due Respect, on Friday, Mark Haperin and John Heilman interviewed Jeff Weaver and were incredulous that he’d allow Sanders to leave the trail for so long. They were like, “You’re not even meeting with the Pope.” They also called him on Archer saying Bernie sought the invite. Weaver dodged it by just saying Sanders was invited and you don’t turn down an invite from the Pope. Lol, except he wasn’t!
I thinks this is great! I believe he’s not even speaking at the conference. If not, I bet his ppl will try to get him a short speaking role but with all the bad publicity, I’d think folks like Archer would try to block that. Bernie will be MIA for 2 days. It’s a win all around. 😀
LikeLike
ROFL. One cannot come up with a better dream. .
You know one thought that occured to me is that some candidates go to Israel to show solidarity. May be Sen.Sanders thinks for whatever reason (his religion:?) he should have an outreach to the Christianity side? I just dont get it. Arent we supposed to be a secular society.. And we are talking about DEMs here.. not Conservatives… DEMs are supposed to uphold, emphasize secular society. Just do not get it.
Got to wonder who came up with the idea!
Well, as of now, looks like he is planned to go. He is in a difficult place now, cannot “face-savingly” back out.
LikeLike
I read somewhere that his campaign people were even taken by surprise. It looks like something Bernie cooked up with Jeffrey Sachs, a Sanders supporter who is one of the economists invited.
LikeLike
If you want to establish a dialogue between North and South America, of course, Bernie Sanders is the first North American politician to come to mind. NOT! This Bishop has a few screws loose if he doesn’t undertstand why inviting a politician in the middle of a heated campaign to a Vatican sponsored conference might look political. And it is duly noted that the two presidents invited (No, Bernie will never be president of anything!) are the leftist presidents of Bolivia and Ecuador. Kudos to the Hillary hating Jeffrey Sachs for engineering this disaster for Bernie.
LikeLike
Yep, this has Jeffrey Sachs’ fingerprints all over it. BTW, this is eerily similar to the Kim Davis mess, where her handlers tried to use the pope for their own ends. I’m sure Sanders’ plan was to fly over there, get a photo of him shaking hands with the pope and use that for his campaign. Now I wonder if he’s even going to actually show up at that conference, knowing the pope is in Greece.
LikeLike
Sorry, I see he’s been demoted to monsignor since the story first broke! Lol!
LikeLike
He was a monsignor all along.
LikeLike
To the person whose comment “This post is total bs” I did not approve: Sanders walked right past Margaret Archer, his host who rose to greet him, and strode straight over to Evo Morales to shake his hand. And I am wrong? This was not a grab for foreign relations creds? (Besides being rude.)
LikeLike