“This is a sin,” he said. Also: “Be disturbed” when you see poverty etc.

This sermonizing is not a sin, but neither is it a message of mercy to the benighted who turn blind eye and are not disturbed at poverty etc.

Nor is it a stirring call to service in the spirit of Francis’ order’s founder. Rather, it is a hard-nosed, even bullying tactic out of sync with his smiling, friendly exterior.

 He says this kind of thing a lot.

I am a gut-level supporter of Trump, and even as a law-abiding, morality-upholding adult Christian husband and father of four lovely daughters and two handsome sons and grandfather of five wonderful grandchildren, I empathize with him in most of what he does.

As law-abiding, etc., I must and do of course register my uncompromising disapproval of Trump’s various, indeed multifarious, offenses and indiscretions, which I cannot, however, help but compare with those of his opponent’s husband and of the opponent herself as condoner and defender of her husband and accuser and chastiser of his accusers.

In which behavior, she has been and remains a blamer of victims, which makes her an unlikely model for women young and old, or anyone else. Not to mention her much publicized incompetence and venality. She’s a sorry specimen.