I am standing in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
About 20 feet away from me is a memorial to Pope John Paul II.
While I was growing up in Europe, he was the brave bishop who resisted the communists in Poland.
His resistance, along with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, led to the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
But more than Ronald Reagan, more than Margaret Thatcher, more than any other world leader, this bishop stood against Soviet communism and Russian expansionism, the occupation of Poland, the occupation of Ukraine, the occupation of Latvia, the Eastern Bloc of Germany.
Because of John Paul II, figures like Lech Walesa and Václav Havel came forward to lead a new European democratic movement that overcame communism.
But at that time in the communist movement, there were the KGB agents that became the FSB and one of them was Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin at that time, along with the rest of the KGB, numerous times plotted the death and the murder of John Paul II.
Well, he wasn't John Paul II at that time. He was Bishop Karol Józef Wojtyła in Poland.
He defied death, and his courageous stand against communism, tyranny, and the lack of democracy and freedom meant that the Roman Catholic Church in the Eastern Bloc became free for the first time since the Nazis occupied Poland.
It was then taken over by the expansionist Russian Empire. It is that imperial order that Putin, who was a KGB agent at that time, and the KGB was part of numerous plots to kill John Paul II, pushed back against. He was trained as a murderer and a killer, along with other KGB agents, and used that training to command the death and the murder, for instance, of a number of people in the British Isles and other places where they killed them with poisons and other murderous plots; people thrown from windows, political prisoners imprisoned.
And then he viciously attacked, to try to complete the work that had failed because of John Paul II, the retake of Ukraine.
Now, this brings up the subject of JD Vance, who is a recent convert to the Roman Catholic Church. I have to ask, what kind of convert is JD Vance making common cause with a KGB agent that was part of an organization that numerous times tried to murder John Paul II, who had to have extra security because they wanted to kill him, first when he was a bishop in Poland, and then afterwards in revenge for the stand he took as Pope against Soviet communism?
And what he stood for was democracy and freedom and civil rights and human rights.
And what Russia stood for then is an imperial archaic power that goes back into history and has tried to maintain its hold on the Eastern Bloc through arms.
The Czech Republic, the tanks moving into Hungary in the 1950s. I was alive at that time as a child in Switzerland.
We listened on the armed forces radio to the reports of Soviet tanks moving into Europe. That was part of my childhood, just such as Americans my age remember the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The fact of the matter is there's a long history of warfare against democracy.
And now that JD Vance has changed sides and he's on the side of Vladimir Putin, it's strange that he would call himself a Catholic.
So I stand next to the memorial to John Paul, who now is a saint; He has been sainted and beatified. And I would like to say that no Roman Catholic can stand against John Paul's sainthood and for the communist bloc that Vladimir Putin comes from.
Now, he may have the "blessing" of Archbishop Kirill of Moscow, who himself is a Russian nationalist who believes in expansion and torture and rape of civilians in the great cause of Mother Russia. But this has nothing to do with what John Paul II stood for, what Margaret Thatcher stood for, what Ronald Reagan stood for: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall" while JD Vance is saying "Mr. Gorbachev, rebuild that wall."
And he is now on the side of tyranny along with the person he follows, Donald Trump, who, of course, doesn't know anything about history, could care less about his position in history, is only out for personal aggrandizement, power, and prestige.
But JD Vance should know better. He says he's a Roman Catholic.
So I have this question to ask: If you're a Roman Catholic or you're a Protestant who come from a background like I do, an evangelical pastor was my father, let's call ourselves the loyal opposition to the Roman Catholic Church coming out of the Reformation, and the Counter-Reformation and all the back and forth we had.
But one thing we can agree on, John Paul II was a great man.
John Paul II deserves his sainthood.
He freed Eastern Europe more than Ronald Reagan did.
And his bones that are buried here and his spirit and his soul cry out for justice for the Ukrainian people.
We know what side he would be on.
What side is JD Vance on?
And what form of Catholicism is this? It's the form of the corrupt bishops and popes, who also were part of the Roman Catholic Church, just as we have corrupt Protestants and corrupt atheists; we're all humans.
I'm not pointing the finger. But John Paul II stands in luminous contrast, giving a life to freedom and democracy that resulted in the freedom of the Eastern Bloc from Soviet tyranny, which then translated into the tyranny of Vladimir Putin, who doesn't even pretend to be a communist now.
It's just pure nationalist aggrandizement and expansion. Power for power's sake.
No wonder Donald Trump likes him.
But I have a message for JD Vance.
I wouldn't call myself a Catholic when you can't pray to John Paul, who is a saint, and ask for his blessing.
Because standing here in St. Peter's, I can say very clearly, with no equivocation, that John Paul II would not pray for you before the altar of Christ.
I was just in the Sistine Chapel this morning looking at the final judgment and the damnation, and there were some bishops on their way to hell.
Well, guess where you would be, JD Vance?
And in your own lifetime, if you live long enough, you will live to regret and have real sorrow at the fact that you threw your lot in with this hater of freedom, this oppressor, Vladimir Putin, and his lick-spittle handmaid, Donald Trump.
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