The Pope weighs in.

[Drew Phipps]

From news 6/20/14:

Pope Francis Condemns Legalization of Marijuana

"VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Francis condemned the legalization of recreational drugs as a flawed and failed experiment as he lent his voice Friday to a debate that is raging from the United States to Uruguay. Francis told delegates attending a Rome drug enforcement conference that even limited steps to legalize recreational drugs "are not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects." Likewise, Francis said, providing addicts with drugs offered only "a veiled means of surrendering to the phenomenon." "Let me state this in the clearest terms possible," he said. "The problem of drug use is not solved with drugs!"

Francis has described drug addiction as evil and met addicts on several occasions. When he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, he devoted much of his pastoral care to addicts. Last month Argentina's neighbor Uruguay cleared the way for legal sales of marijuana cigarettes in pharmacies. Recreational use of marijuana has been legalized in the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington, while Oregon may vote on the issue this year. With those successes, the marijuana legalization movement is gaining traction from the Americas to Europe and North Africa, where officials are eager to pursue policies that focus on promoting public health rather than battling drug traffickers.


But Francis emphasized Friday that the problems underlying drug use must be addressed, including social inequality and lack of opportunities for the young. To reject illegal drugs, he said, "one has to say `yes' to life, `yes' to love, `yes' to others, `yes' to education, `yes' to greater job opportunities. If we say `yes' to all these things, there will be no room for illicit drugs, for alcohol abuse, for other forms of addiction.""

http://www.aol.com/article/2014/06/20/po...d%3D491056

[Keith Millea]

[size=12]"Religion is the opiate of the masses"

[size=12]I heard this somewhere........::hush::

[/SIZE]
[/SIZE]

[Magda Hassan]

[size=12]"Religion is the opiate of the masses"

[size=12]I heard this somewhere........::hush::

[/SIZE]
[/SIZE]

::

Well, without all that black Mafia money flowing through Vatican bank austerity measures will be called for.

[Drew Phipps]

from news 6/21/14:

Pope denounces Mafia, meets father of slain boy

CASSANO ALL'JONIO, Italy (AP) -- Pope Francis journeyed Saturday to the heart of Italy's biggest crime syndicate, met the father of a 3-year-old boy slain in the region's drug war, and declared that all mobsters are automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church.During his one-day pilgrimage to the southern region of Calabria, Francis comforted the imprisoned father of Nicola Campolongo in the courtyard of a prison in the town of Castrovillari. In January the boy was shot, along with one of his grandfathers and the grandfather's girlfriend, in an attack blamed on drug turf wars in the nearby town of Cassano all'Jonio. The attackers torched the car with all three victims inside. The boy's father and mother already were in jail at the time on drug trafficking charges. The pope had expressed his horror following the attack and promised to visit the town. Francis embraced the man. He asked the pope to pray for the boy's mother, who was permitted to leave prison following her son's slaying and remains under house arrest. The pope also met two of the boy's grandmothers.


A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said Francis told the father: "May children never again have to suffer in this way." "The two grandmothers were weeping like fountains," Benedettini added. Calabria is the power base of the `ndrangheta, a global drug trafficking syndicate that enriches itself by extorting businesses and infiltrating public works contracts in underdeveloped Calabria. During his homily at an outdoor Mass, Francis denounced the `ndrangheta for what he called its `'adoration of evil and contempt for the common good. `'


`'Those who go down the evil path, as the Mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated," he warned. Francis greeted about 200 other prisoners during his visit there.
When Francis visited a hospice, a doctor there removed a bothersome wooden splinter from one of the pope's fingers at his request, organizers said."

http://www.aol.com/article/2014/06/21/po...d%3D491460
***

He's making enemies fast.