Catholic Bishops Won’t Comment on Rush Limbaugh’s Pope-Bashing

Maurizio Brambatti/ZUMA

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Rush Limbaugh has incensed Catholic groups by attacking Pope Francis’s blueprint for a more inclusive, social justice-oriented Catholic Church as “pure Marxism” and saying, “somebody has either written this for [the Pope] or gotten to him.”

But the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the top American leaders of the Catholic church, isn’t commenting on the radio host’s attacks. “We don’t follow Rush Limbaugh,” says Mary Ann Walsh, USCCB’s media relations director. Annmarie Sanders, a spokeswoman for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, also declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Limbaugh has continued to bash the Pope, saying Wednesday that “the pope is ripping American”—and, that thanks to the pope’s exhortations on poverty and powerful financial institutions, “Obama’s having an orgasm.”

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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