Senator Kennard critiques Pope Leo XIII for criticizing Donald Trump while remaining silent on Iran's slaughter of 40,000 citizens and systemic human rights abuses against women and LGBTQ+ individuals. He argues the Pope lacks moral clarity by elevating Iran to equal status with the US and Israel, contrasting this with the Church's historical failures under Pius XII and John Paul II. Callers echo this sentiment, condemning selective morality regarding abortion versus genocide and debating military options like striking Karg Island. Ultimately, the segment asserts that true leadership requires confronting evil directly rather than engaging in political mediation that ignores atrocities. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Pope's Moral Compass Off00:13:39
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Senator Kennard, simple man that can only mean one thing on this radio program, that is all things self proclaimed simple man that means all things Bill O'Reilly, all things Bill O'Reilly at BillO'Reilly.com.
Mr. O'Reilly, sir, we'll do it live.
How are you?
I'm okay trying not to get excommunicated, honey.
You know, here's what frustrates me about the Pope, and I know you once met a Pope.
Was it John Paul II?
I know you met somebody.
I don't remember who.
We met Pope Francis.
He was a very kind gentleman.
And a very bright person and very kind person, but also a very liberal person.
And this is a problem I have with the Catholic Church in general.
And like you, I went to Catholic schools for 12 years.
I think the Mass is beautiful.
I've gotten a lot out of studying Latin theology, going to Mass in high school every single day.
And it's been a good force in my life.
But I really have a tough time with the institutionalized corruption.
11 of the 12 apostles were married for the first 1,200 years of the church.
Priests were allowed to marry.
I think they made a mistake with this church run rule.
That's my opinion.
And what frustrates me about Pope Leo's little battle lecturing Donald Trump on the issue of war is it's the number one state sponsor of terror.
They have slaughtered over 40,000 of their own people, they have slaughtered tens and tens of thousands of others.
It is a society based on death and destruction.
They have no problem promising young people if they strap bombs on themselves and kill innocent men, women, and children that they will be rewarded by Allah in heaven with 72 virgins and not a peep out of the Pope about any of those immoral atrocities.
So I find his moral clarity, his compass to be way off.
It's a complicated situation.
Is there anything I said that's wrong?
No.
I know you are more hesitant than I am to criticize the church.
There's a little bit of context, I think, that has to be provided before valid criticisms are made.
So, John Paul II was the only Pope in our lifetime who inserted himself into social justice in a sense that he, as a Pole, went to Poland and demanded that the Soviet Union provide better working conditions for the Polish people.
You'll remember that, I think, right?
Of course, the Solidarity Movement.
It was Reagan.
It was Thatcher.
And it was Pope John Paul.
They changed the world.
Newt Gingrich did a great documentary on it.
No other pope in our lifetime has done that.
And then in World War II, there's been controversy about Pope Pius XII and the Third Reich.
Pope Pius XI, the first, was also in the early stages of the rise of Nazism.
And then Pope Pius XII was involved as well.
And there was a lot of criticism of the church.
They did some things to help innocent people, humanitarian things, but they even went into an official agreement with the Nazis that the Nazis didn't keep.
And secondarily, the Nazis, you know, they systemically were also persecuting Catholics as well.
Yeah, Dachau was full of Catholic priests, and the Pope knew that if he defied Hitler, Hitler was going to take over, physically take over the Vatican.
So, anyway, so that is not a lot of political politics on the Vatican's resume.
And remember, the Vatican is a country.
So now, where Pope Leo, with all due respect, made his.
Mistake, in my opinion, is that when you get into these waters, these very controversial things about countries doing terrible things to other countries, human beings doing terrible things to other human beings, that you have to spell it out.
You can't just make a general statement.
And that's what Pope Leo did.
Pope Leo wants peace through mediation.
All right.
I think everybody in the world, the decent people, would love to have peace through mediation.
But there comes a point where the mediation is a fraud because one side, Iran, is not going to cooperate.
So, what Pope Leo did was he elevated the West, let's just call it the West, the United States and Israel, to the same status as Iran.
Well, they both should be negotiating.
Well, wait, wait a minute.
We're talking about a country that will not.
Negotiate on an honest basis, and that does maintain a level of danger for the world.
And you skip over that part.
The Pope skipped over that part.
So while he was correct in speaking out about peace and justice and mediation, you can't leave all that out.
But then President Trump makes a mistake by instead of trying to mediate this whole thing, and I could do it, Hannah, you and I could probably go over to Rome and mediate this thing in a week.
I don't think so.
He challenges the Pope politically, Trump does.
And that puts the president in a position where he is alienating a lot of people who don't understand, and I mean that literally, they don't understand what is happening here.
They think that the.
I'm going to be a little more blunt than you, and if you think I'm wrong, correct me.
If you think I'm wrong, dispute it.
I think the Pope is missing moral clarity.
I think the Pope, if he cares about human life, I think the Pope should have spoken out when all of these innocent people were being slaughtered in Iran.
If he's going to speak out on these issues, I think the Pope should speak out about radical Islamic terrorism.
I think the Pope should speak out about how women are treated and the lack of rights for women in Iran.
And they're about to hang the first woman in a number of years in Iran, but they've hung many others that dared to speak out or the treatment of women if they don't.
If they don't dress a certain way, they can either be beaten or killed depending on what they're wearing.
Gays and lesbians are thrown off the top of roofs.
And I never heard the Pope speak out about any of this or strapping bombs on young people, promising them 72 virgins in heaven.
And what frustrates me is this was a political statement of the Pope that is missing the biggest part of the equation.
And the biggest part of the equation is radical Islamic.
Terrorism and the number one state sponsor of terror.
Now, if he has a better idea on how to deal with the radical Islamists that have been running Iran, that chant death to America, death to Israel, that have slaughtered untold numbers of tens of thousands of people, then he ought to come forward with that rather than lecture President Trump that's trying to end evil in our time.
And that frustrates me.
But that's not his job.
He's a pet.
Well, then don't speak out, then shut up.
I mean, be quiet.
No, that's a legitimate point.
But it's not his job to come out and get involved in these kinds of controversies.
His job is to preach pacifism.
He's a pacifist.
And this is where the two ships.
Well, that should not be his job, Bill.
I mean, there is right and there is wrong.
And slaughtering innocent men, women, and children and fomenting terror is evil.
That is evil in our time.
I understand it, but that's not what the Catholic Church does.
Then why is he lecturing Donald Trump for taking on the evil that is slaughtering innocent people?
I thought the church was pro life, Bill.
He isn't taking him on per se.
He's trying to persuade both sides.
No, he went after Trump.
He didn't go after Iran.
He didn't go after Trump by name either.
Okay.
It was, oh, come on.
It was painfully obvious who he was referring to.
Look, he made a mistake in what he was trying to do was appeal to all quarters to stop the madness.
And he made a mistake because he leaned toward one quarter.
And what he doesn't understand or doesn't accept, one of the two, I don't know the man, is that Trump's job is completely different.
Let me ask you a serious moral question.
If a church cannot have moral clarity against evil in our time, then what is the point?
Now, they can talk about spirituality.
All they want, which is very, very important.
It's important in my life.
I know it's important in your life.
That's very important.
However, when innocent people are being slaughtered to, quote, be neutral or to take on and attack the people that want to stop it, seems to me to be, you know, the moral compass is way off here.
I think that's too harsh.
He doesn't understand.
I think I'm being very fair, but go ahead.
All right.
But he doesn't, the Pope does not understand that Trump's job is different.
He is, Trump's job is confrontational, to protect people from danger.
The Pope's job is pacifistic, to stop all.
When did the Pope's job become, or when did the job description for a Pope be to be a pacifist?
Well, that comes directly from the execution of the Nazarene that I wrote in Killing Jesus.
Okay, so when he was being scourged and about to be nailed to the cross, Jesus was mocked by the Roman centurion saying, Hey, you're the king of the Jews, bring your army down and stop this.
And what did Jesus say?
Nothing.
Nothing.
Not a word.
All right?
He allowed it to happen.
And so that is basically what the church's population.
Let me see if I can turn this, create an analogy that might be the equivalent.
If you, in the course of your life, see an innocent woman or child being attacked by somebody that is clearly committing an act of evil in front of your eyes, does your conscience, does your soul compel you to interdict in some way?
Is that a, are you as I'm asking in the course of your daily life, you see innocent women and children being attacked.
Does your conscience compel you to get involved?
To me, I intervene.
Okay?
Okay.
So you have moral clarity that Bill O'Reilly is going to do everything humanly possible.
I know you're not that strong like I am, and I'm kidding.
But you're going, your conscience would compel you.
To try to protect the innocent people against the obvious evil that they're facing, right?
Absolutely.
Okay.
So, what's the difference here?
The difference is that the Pope's boundaries are not my boundaries.
I have much more.
Let me give you a.
So, you're letting the Pope off the hook that the Pope can turn a blind eye to evil in our time.
That's what you're saying to me.
No, I'm trying to explain his mindset.
Because this could be mediated.
You could sit these two guys down in a room.
And you could get a very positive thing to come out of it, I believe.
Joe Biden was committing evil in the eyes of the church.
Politics Behind Papal Statements00:09:50
And he did it in a very public way.
Not only did he support abortion, he promoted abortion.
He didn't want any restraints on it at all, none.
Now, there was a heavy discussion within the American Catholic Church whether to boost him.
And deny him communion because of this act, the promotion of abortion that Biden clearly did.
Okay, now he's got to answer.
Biden's going to have to answer for that.
Pelosi was in the same category.
All right, do you want to finish your analogy on abortion on the other side?
Because we are just completely out of time.
I'd be glad to hold you for a couple of minutes if you have a few.
Sure.
All right.
Bill O'Reilly, all things O'Reilly at BillO'Reilly.com, 800 941 Sean.
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Lock it in right here on the Sean Hannity Show.
Liberals nuts.
Sean Hannity is back on the radio right now.
So, we're having a pretty interesting discussion about the Pope and the Catholic Church, and why hasn't Pope Leo spoken out against the atrocities of radical Islamists slaughtering innocent people?
And it's become a big problem.
I don't recall him ever speaking out about October 7th either.
Another issue, but he's very quick to criticize Donald Trump, who is trying to.
To mitigate evil in our time, and that would be the Iranian regime.
I think for the better good of humanity, I think the risk of a nuclear armed Iran is not one that we should have.
But we were talking about well, if the Pope is going to criticize Donald Trump, why wasn't he out there criticizing October 7th?
Why wasn't he out there criticizing when 40 plus thousand Iranians were mowed down by the Iranian regime?
Why doesn't he criticize the lack of human rights?
They just don't exist in Iran for everyday men and women, and they slaughter gays and lesbians, and women are beaten if they don't dress a certain way or they're put to death.
Anyone that dared to rise up against the regime, they have been put to death, and they're still being put to death.
And it seems to me to be a lack of moral clarity.
And, you know, Bill, we were talking about, and you brought up the point about, well, the church is very pro life.
Well, if it's pro life, I would think that it's kind of a no brainer for them to speak out against the slaughter of.
All these innocent people by the Iranian regime over the years.
That's not what they do.
So Biden didn't get it booted.
They didn't do anything to him at all.
And they did not want to get, they, the Catholic Church, into a political beef between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans.
So here's the final point on this both men are correct, both men are right.
Okay, and this is very unusual for Americans.
We don't accept this.
We always have to have somebody's right and somebody's wrong.
That's our collective mentality in this country.
Not here.
And this is why I could moderate this thing.
Trump is absolutely correct in trying to wipe out a threat to the world, the threat that would kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, women and children.
He's absolutely correct in doing that.
The Pope is absolutely correct in speaking in general terms that we don't want human conflict.
We have to be pacifists.
We don't use violence.
So they're both right, theoretically.
And the Pope unfortunately injected himself into a situation where he wasn't equipped to deal with the backlash.
Most people think the backlash is against Trump.
It's not.
It's against the Pope because people don't understand exactly what you were saying.
Why wouldn't he speak out against these horrible terror nations?
Why would he ignore that?
But he never does that.
They don't do that.
They speak in general theological terms.
But they don't do that when it comes to the issue of life.
And I think this Pope, as selectively, and I think there is a lot of politics behind the statement that he made, and I'm not tying it to David Axelrod's visit, although it may very well be tied to it.
I'm sorry, Bill, but if you're going to take such a strong stand for life, it should be every life.
And if you're going to take a stand, if the church is.
Itself does not have moral clarity on the issue of good and evil, then I think they are failing.
I feel like they're failing in their mission.
I mean, Jesus had no problem, you know, pointing out evil when and where he saw it.
And I think that he should be the example for all.
And I think the church is too timid.
What's that?
I said that's an excellent point.
The church is too timid, they don't want to get involved.
With politics and pitting one religion, Islam, against the other, Catholicism.
They don't want any of that.
So that.
Then stop lecturing world leaders that are eradicating evil in our time.
Stop.
If you're going to stay out of it, stay out of it.
But he took a side.
I'm going to pass that along in Latin to Pope Leo.
You know why I'm so confident in my views?
It's from the Latin confideo.
Did you know that?
Word of the day, confideo.
With deity, with God.
There's a difference between confidence and arrogance.
Anyway, I hope my commentary comes from a position of confidence, not arrogance.
I would not want to be an arrogant person.
That is not an attractive quality.
Mr. O'Reilly will do it live, sir.
I wouldn't know anything about that.
I think this was a worthy discussion, that's for sure.
Bill O'Reilly, all things O'Reilly at BillO'Reilly.com.
We appreciate you, sir.
We'll check in with you next week.
800 941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
John, Long Island, New York, next on The Sean Hannity Show.
What's up, John?
How are you?
Hey, Sean.
Thanks for taking my call.
You and O'Reilly, born and raised on Long Island, Catholic school for 12 years.
I didn't go to a prep high school like you guys did.
I just went to a regular high school.
But what it comes down to is, in my opinion, Pope Leo is a liberal, and he's speaking as a liberal.
He's not speaking as a pope.
But when O'Reilly is sending just a basic outline, yeah, I'll go with that as far as what the Pope should do.
But I think Pope Leo is speaking as a liberal.
I think you're right.
And I think, unfortunately, it's selective morality on the church's part.
And I think there was selective morality on the church's part when they didn't deal with their institutionalized corruption in the church, which is such a shame because, as I said, I mean, in so many positive ways, Being raised Catholic and going to Catholic schools for 12 years and really embracing the Eucharist and the Mass, which I do to this day, it's heartbreaking to me that they allowed that to happen and they never resolved it,
as far as I'm concerned.
And it pushed me away from the church, and they pushed me away.
I didn't change, my values have not changed.
And if anything, I've gotten closer to my faith as I've gotten older.
And I just look at this church as lost.
And these comments further illustrate where I think the church is lost.
You know, if you can't stand against the death cult that has been fomenting terrorism around the world that wants nuclear weapons, and then you're criticizing the guy that has had the moral courage to take them on and defeat them.
Which is not an easy decision for any leader to make.
I find it beyond disappointing to me, but I'm not shocked.
John, we appreciate you.
Thank you, my friend.
All my best to my friends in Long Island.
800 941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
JP in Gavin Newsom's Marxist Utopia of California.
What's up, JP?
Free Flow of Oil Prices00:07:10
How are you?
Hey, Sean.
It's great to speak with you again.
Unfortunately, while I was waiting for you, I was filling up my gas, and what used to cost me $40 cost me $85 today.
It was crazy.
How much per gallon of gasoline do you get regular unleaded or premium unleaded?
What do you got?
No, I get regular.
And it's up to, I paid $7.59.
It's nuts.
$7.59 a gallon?
I mean, that is insane.
You know, most of that money goes to your state.
On a gallon of gasoline, the state of California makes more profit than the oil companies.
How sick is that?
It's crazy.
And on top of it, while I was waiting, they were changing the sign.
For the super to $8.
I mean, this is out of.
Anyway, that's my question to you is first of all, I want to thank Rush Limbaugh for annotizing me because he was my mentor.
He was great.
He's my mentor too.
He's a lot of people's mentor.
And frankly, for all of us that give our opinions every day, we owe a debt of gratitude to Rush for all that he did to pave the way.
And it was not easy for him, it was hard.
I know.
Well, my question to you is President Trump always says, drill, baby, drill.
And if we have enough oil, supposedly in the United States, what happened to the Alaskan pipeline?
And why are we paying so much for oil?
Well, it is happening.
We are energy independent.
We don't need a drop of energy from the Strait of Hormuz at all.
We just don't.
I think right now, as I said at the beginning of the program, I think the president's showing great restraint.
The president could wipe out the Iranian economy, it would probably take less than an hour.
He could blow up Karg Island.
Their entire economy is based on oil.
And at that point, they would have no ability to bring in income.
The president is very patiently standing by, not doing that for the sake of the Iranian people.
Now, have I had that discussion with him?
No, but I know the president well enough to know what he's thinking.
Now, his patience at some point will run out.
He's not going to stay there forever.
He says this is going to come to a quick close.
That means that that option is right there in front of him on the table.
He's been outspoken, saying that he can do all of this.
And I think he's trying, you know, as hard as humanly possible to get to a negotiated settlement without revealing sources.
We are closer than we ever were in Islamabad, in large part because the president himself has taken over the negotiations.
And in no uncertain terms, he has laid out every red line as it relates to the uranium regime moving forward.
They can't have nuclear weapons, they got to hand over the enriched uranium.
They've got to keep open the Strait of Hormuz.
They've got to allow the free flow of oil at market prices.
They can't charge a tax.
They can't charge a tariff.
And at that point, they will survive and they will have an ability to bring in an income and have an economy.
Otherwise, it's either going to happen the easy way.
They cooperate.
They get along with the rest of the world, whether they like it or not.
They're backed in a corner, or it's going to happen the hard way.
But it's going to happen.
And for their sake and the sake of the world, I hope they choose wisely.
And it's not going to be very long from now that this is going to come to a resolution.
But we don't hear anymore about the Alaskan pipeline.
What's going on with that?
From my understanding, we are getting a lot of oil out of the Alaskan pipeline.
The president, in this term, reopened the wildlife refuge, the ANWR, as we call it.
And my understanding is that during that season, that time of year, when they're actually able to extract oil, they're doing so.
Oil production, liquefied natural gas production, and our supplies are enough for this country.
However, we do have to worry, although it seems like oil prices in particular have stabilized in spite of this continuing conflict that's been going on here.
They seem to have stabilized at a sustainable rate where I think you're going to probably see oil prices come down.
Once this is resolved and the Strait of Hormuz is back open, and hopefully, The Iranians will still have infrastructure to be able to have an economy for their sake, then I think that this will be mission accomplished.
Once we get the enriched uranium mission accomplished, the president can come home and we can focus on domestic issues, the economy, so on and so forth.
Well, thank you for answering my question, and I hope to see you in Florida.
I'm getting out of California.
Don't blame you.
A lot of people in California down here, a ton.
Anyway, thank you, my friend.
800 941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, quick break, right back to our busy phones.
It's toll free 800 941 Sean if you want to be a part of the program as we continue.
Next, our final roundup, an information overload hour.
To our busy phones, it's toll-free, 800-941-SHAWN.
If you want to be a part of the program, Fernando, Texas, God bless Texas.
Fernando, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Well, I know you're tired of talking about the subject, so I apologize.
But this thing with Linda and the gentleman who called in the other day, uh, with what he thought was a gotcha moment, right?
He said, Does God forgive everyone?
It's not a reason to justify unforgiveness.
Uh, so God freely offers forgiveness to everyone through Christ.
Right.
And that's the key.
I am trying so hard to get off this topic.
I quoted Matthew 6, 14 and 15 or 13 and 14, whatever it was yesterday.
Yeah.
That was the key.
That was the slam dunk moment, but even Linda rejects that.
Linda Tarianism has now become, you know, I guess she wants to create her new religion and she's going to be the Pope or the Popes.
I don't know what you call it.
What do we call that?
In Luke 17, which she brought up, That's all fine and dandy.
I agree.
It does say rebuke and forgiveness.
It does talk about that, but that's talking about between Christians, right?
It's about brothers and sisters in Christ.
You got to read the whole context.
You can't just cherry pick.
And if somebody, one of your brothers and sisters, sins against you and they ask you for forgiveness, sure.
Yeah.
Linda's New Religion00:00:31
Look, I just think overall, it's in everybody's best interest.
The most destructive emotion, human emotion to me, is anger and impatience.
And to the extent that you can practice patience and you can let your anger pass, I think you're a healthier self.
It's in your best interest not to hold on to anger, resentment, impatience.
And I just think it makes you a better person.
You're hurting yourself more than you're hurting the other person, in my humble opinion, for what it's worth.