Rightwingers make up quote Pope Francis saying socialism causes misery, and USA is becoming Commie
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100208720/did-pope-francis-really-say-that-socialism-causes-misery-and-that-america-is-heading-towards-a-form-of-communism/
Did Pope Francis really say that socialism causes misery, and that America is heading towards a form of communism?
By Damian Thompson
updated: March 24th, 2013
[Latest: The Diocese of Salford link to the interview is now dead. So I think we have our answer. The “interview” has almost certainly been concocted to appeal to a certain sort of conservative American. It’s meticulously done, so it did take me a few minutes to be sure it was fake. I’m leaving it online because the hoax is interesting in itself. I mean, why bother?]
[Update: Here’s why on reflection I think this interview has to be fake. The journalist who conducted it would have the most incredible world exclusive on his hands. It would have been out there on the day of Francis’s election, not dribbled to an obscure English diocesan website with no identifying details.]
There is something pathological about right wing conservative Americans needing to make up quotes from prominent people to bolster their failed world view (they do this a lot with the Founding Fathers). That the current Pope is seen as sympathetic to the Catholic church seeking “social justice” when we had right wing kooks like Glenn Beck declare churches that talk about social justice are actually promoting code words for Nazism and communism must be maddening to them.