As the population of Christians slowly dwindles in the Western world, Pope Francis has shifted the church’s ideology leftward to increase its appeal. However, some critics believe that he has gone too far.

“The pope should be focusing followers to God’s words, but he’s focused on being popular among non-Christians, like he’s in high school,” said Alan Benttio, a Christian journalist, “you can tell because he’s made unpopular statements, such as calling for mass Muslim migration to be accepted in the West and being pro-LGBT marriage.”

During an interview with Benttio, the pope said that “people on both the left and right politically have an tendency to stray from the Lord, even the most holy devout servants.” While it’s true that people fall into temptation, they also recover and repent, “but many never choose to,” retorted Benttio.

“Sometimes it’s okay to be liberal and not Christian,” continued Francis, continuing his message of telling Europe and America to accept refugees and showing tolerance to LGBT rights.

“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”, lectured Francis, quoting Leviticus 19:18, “we need to show far-away Muslims love by welcoming them to our homes while not judging our next-door LGBT neighbors.”

“The Holy Father would also like us to practice forgiveness,” he said, “if you can forgive Muslims and gays for being different, then God can forgive you. It’s the cycle of love and forgiveness”.

Indeed, the Pope has been unprecedented moves to connect to the Muslim world, frequently citing his trips to Turkey in 2014, the Central African Republic in 2015, Egypt in 2017, and Morocco and the United Arab Emirates in 2019. “We used to fight them,” he said, referring to the Crusades, “now we want to show love.”

He has also campaigned for Western nations, such as the US, Poland, and Italy to accept Muslim immigration. “I don’t think Trump is right to slam the gate at Muslim refugees and I think the Lord disagrees with him,” he stated, amidst the controversy of President Trump’s “Muslim ban”. Trump proposed restricting immigration from Chad, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria and Yemen to reduce terrorism.

When Benttio mentioned the threat of terrorism, Pope Francis answered to “forgive them. Good people can act innocently astray, let the Lord judge them for that after they live.” But are terrorists even good people? Isn’t committing to terrorism more than simply acting “innocently astray”?

Additionally, Pope Francis has also taken a more liberal attitude towards gay marriage. He initially shocked the world when he said, “If a person is gay and seeks out the Lord and is willing, who am I to judge that person?”

But critics, such as Benttio, have countered him with actual Bible verses, including Genesis 2:24 which declares that in a marriage, “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Best of all, 1 Corinthians 7:2 states that “But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.” This directly counters the both concept of gay marriage as well as Islam, which gives a man up to four wives. The verse metaphorically kills two birds with one stone.

“I’m guessing that Pope Francis fell asleep during Sunday school when the class was reading 1 Corinthians 7:2,” finished Benttio.