U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said “evil is being defeated” hours after the death of Pope Francis.
The controversial Republican shared a post on X Monday, around nine hours after the pope’s death was announced by the Vatican.
While she did not directly state the post was about his passing, many have interpreted it as being so.
Highlights
- Marjorie Taylor Greene was criticized for a tweet hours after the pope's death.
- The Catholic League has called to censure Greene for her remarks.
- Greene's history of criticizing the Catholic Church goes back years.
- Pope Francis died of a stroke and heart failure at the age of 88 on Easter Monday.
Greene has come under fire after she appeared to celebrate the death of Pope Francis online
Image credits: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
“Today there were major shifts in global leaderships,” she posted.
“Evil is being defeated by the hand of God.”
Greene has not clarified what she meant by her statement but has been widely criticized for the post.
The Catholic League, a U.S. Catholic civil rights organization, is calling for her to be censured over the “bigoted remarks.”
In a letter to the House Ethics Committee, the league’s president, William Donohue, said the two major world leadership changes that were announced were the death of Pope Francis and the resignation of Klaus Schwab as the head of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
“It is obvious that Greene’s remark about God defeating ‘evil’ was aimed at the Holy Father,” he wrote.
“How can we be sure? In 2022, I asked the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Ethics Committee to sanction Greene for saying that ‘Satan’s controlling the church.’ In short, she has a history of slandering Catholics.
“If Greene, who is an ex-Catholic, wants to make reasoned criticisms of Pope Francis, she has every right to do so. But no sitting member of Congress has the right to denigrate the leader of a world religion.”
Democratic Representative Sam Liccardo also condemned Greene’s tweet.
“If Pope Francis were alive, he’d ask us to pray for Marjorie Taylor Greene,” he wrote.
The Pope died on Easter Monday after suffering a stroke and then heart failure
Klaus Schwab resigned from his role as leader of the WEF board Monday with immediate effect, giving no reason as to why.
Greene has previously criticized Schwab and the WEF.
It is not the first time she has come under fire for controversy, or gotten into it with the Catholic Church.
Recently, she told a British reporter to “go back to your country” after she asked about the Signal chat scandal involving The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg being added to the group by mistake.
Last year, she also appeared to suggest the U.S. government could control the weather amid the devastation of Hurricane Helene.
Image credits: Ashwin Vaswani/Unsplash
Back in 2022, she said she could not trust the leaders of the Catholic Church to “protect my children from pedophiles.”
She also said the Church’s leadership was “controlled by Satan” and riddled with “criminals and abusers.”
It sparked a feud with Donohue, who demanded an apology and called Greene a “loose cannon.”
“The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue accused me of slandering Catholics and Catholicism in an interview I gave to Michael Voris at Church Militant,” Greene said in response.
“Nothing could be further from the truth, and he must apologize promptly and publicly for these words.”
U.S. Vice President JD Vance visited Pope Francis on Easter Sunday, despite having differing views on migration
Image credits: Vatican Media/Getty Images
The pope died aged 88 of a stroke followed by a coma and heart failure on Easter Monday.
He was visited briefly by U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Easter Sunday to “exchange Easter greetings.”
While Republicans and the Catholic Church share socially conservative views on issues like abortion, they often clash over issues like immigration and economic inequality.
Pope Francis’ funeral has been planned for Saturday at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City. The late pontiff will be buried at the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome.