{"id":261,"date":"2025-04-22T11:36:01","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T11:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/logicalware.net\/?p=261"},"modified":"2025-04-22T19:14:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T19:14:07","slug":"bill-oreilly-pope-francis-extraordinary-but-wrong-on-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/logicalware.net\/index.php\/2025\/04\/22\/bill-oreilly-pope-francis-extraordinary-but-wrong-on-immigration\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill O'Reilly: Pope Francis 'extraordinary' but 'wrong' on immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"
Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly questioned the late<\/a> Pope Francis’ stance on immigration<\/a>, saying he would have asked the pontiff if he understood that “if you don’t have a wall, you don’t have a law, that the country will be overrun and many more people will get hurt under the banner of being kind and good.”<\/p>\n O’Reilly, during an interview Monday on NewsNation’s “On Balance<\/a>,” criticized the pope’s approach to U.S. border security<\/a>, referring to when Francis told the Trump administration, “don’t build walls, build acceptance.”<\/p>\n “There’s where Pope Francis went wrong,” he continued. “It’s not the capitalistic system that oppresses the poor, it’s the oligarchs and the corrupt people.”<\/p>\n O’Reilly added that, “I never got a chance to interview the Pope, but my first question would have been, ‘Your Holiness, I understand as a Catholic the theology of helping the marginalized… But do you not understand that if you don’t have a wall, you don’t have a law?'”<\/p>\n Despite his criticism of the pope’s immigration message<\/a>, O’Reilly praised Francis personally, calling the late Catholic leader<\/a> “an extraordinary human being” and saying that “if every human being on Earth were like Pope Francis, there would be peace on earth.”<\/p>\n The veteran news host reflected on meeting the pontiff eight years ago.<\/p>\n “I was in his presence for about two hours … It was very instructive for me as a journalist to watch how patient and kind the man was,” he told NewsNation host Leland Vittert. <\/p>\n Despite disagreeing with some of Francis’ political stances, O’Reilly emphasized the Pope’s theological consistency.<\/p>\n “On theological dogmatic questions like abortion, he was quite clear. He wasn’t backing away or trying to curry favor with the left,” he said.<\/p>\n O’Reilly also drew distinctions between Francis and Jesus, describing Christ as “much more pragmatic” in dealing with political authorities of his time.<\/p>\n