Ben Shapiro

So yesterday, the vice president of the United States said that the Vatican should stick to matters of morality and the president should stick to public policy.

Here is the vice president, who, of course, is a faithful Catholic.

Now, of course, there's crossover between morality and public policy.

Of course, of course.

And that's why I think that this other statement by J.D.

Vance is correct, where he says you can respect the pope, but disagree on some of the substantive questions.

Okay, now again, I think that's the correct take.

And I have some substantive disagreements with the Pope when it comes to politics.

And again, this is coming from somebody who respects the papacy so much and respects the Catholic Church as a non-Christian that I literally traveled to the Vatican and gave the Pope personally a hand-signed 2005 White Sox World Series baseball.

So this is not coming from a place of disrespect.

It is just a reality, however, that in the world of politics, criticism is merited when it is merited.

And Pope Leo thus far has not commented in any real or serious way on, for example, Hezbollah's attacks on Israel or, by the way, its destruction of Lebanon, a once Christian state, and its continued targeting of Christians.

He has not commented in any serious way on the slaughter of Nigerian Christians.

He has not issued any very strong statement on the terrorist regime of Iran and its continued spread of violence and evil across the region.

And of course, the Pope just went to Algeria, which is in fact an Islamic state, a quasi-dictatorship.

And there he met with a president named Abdel Madjid Tabun.

Following Algerian independence, you have to understand that this country, again, used to be governed by France and it had a very large Christian population.

And then there was a war by a terrorist group called FLN against the French government in Algeria that ended with Algerian independence in 1962 when Charles de Gaulle gave up the ghost.

And when that happened, the population of Christians, just like in Lebanon, dropped precipitously from 12% to less than 1%.

Christians in Algeria are only allowed to pray in registered places.