Andrew Bolt: Christians, beware of Anthony Albanese’s newfound devotion

Anthony Albanese’s claim that pausing campaign events out of respect for Pope Francis’ death was a tactic to make Labor seem friendly to the Christians — and once again, to persuade voters of something false.

How lucky can Anthony Albanese get? Pope Francis dying is – with respect – a blessing for the prime minister.

Don’t believe Albanese’s vow to “pause my other campaign-related events” on Tuesday morning out of respect for the Pope’s death.

The pause itself was a campaign tactic to sell Albanese as the Christians’ friend.

A campaign, again, to persuade voters of something false.

What’s more, Albanese’s response was so brilliantly political that he painted Pope Francis as a saint of the Left, and especially the patron saint of the Left’s cult of global warming.

“He asked the world to hear the cry of the earth” and stop “environmental devastation”, declared Albanese, as if the Earth had a voice of its own, a truly pagan notion.

And again: “He was tireless in advocating for the powerless, campaigning against poverty, for the rights of working people and for protecting our natural environment.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese once complained Morrison was mixing ‘church and state’. Picture: Mark Stewart

That is Albanese describing a Labor politician, not a leader of a Catholic Church created to preach salvation through Christ. It’s political spin.

If you think I’m too cynical, here’s some history.

Six years ago, Labor lost to the Coalition under the very Christian Scott Morrison.

Albanese back then complained Morrison was mixing “church and state”, and said “the idea that God is on any political side” was not “respectful”.

But a Labor review into its shock loss, conducted by party elders Craig Emerson and Jay Weatherill, concluded Labor’s policies and attacks on Christian freedoms had hurt it.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton went to Cardinal George Pell’s funeral, not Albanese. Picture: James Brickwood

In contrast to Morrison, “Labor as a whole did not project an image that was appealing to devout Christians”. Labor “would be wise to reconnect with people of faith on social justice issues and emphasise its historic links with mainstream churches”.

You might think Albanese wasn’t the man for that job.

He’d mocked then Prime Minister Tony Abbott, a Catholic, as a “mad monk”. He was sworn in as Prime Minister not on a Bible, but with an affirmation. And when Cardinal George Pell died, a man falsely jailed, it wasn’t Albanese at his funeral, standing by the church and its persecuted servant.

No, it was Peter Dutton, the Opposition Leader.

Six years ago, Labor lost to the Coalition under the very Christian Scott Morrison. Picture: Samuel Corum

But Albanese has now warmed to becoming a Captain Catholic himself.

Before the last election, Catholic frontbenchers such as Kristina Keneally and Tanya Plibersek promoted Labor, and especially the Socialist Left Anthony Albanese, as inspired not by Marx but Christ, just as that 2019 Labor review recommended.

Plibersek even gave a whole speech to claim a mandate from Christ for Labor policies.

“Medicare or the NDIS” were “necessary for human dignity and human flourishing”, she said.

“That’s what Christ taught his disciples. It’s what Pope Francis teaches us today … I know it’s what motivates our leader, Anthony Albanese. “

Clearly, Albanese no longer seemed to worry about mixing “church and state”.

On Easter Sunday, he attended mass with a camera in tow, and attended a cathedral again the next morning.

Then, when the Pope died, Albanese even implied he was a believer himself, even a believer in the resurrection and everlasting life.

“At times like this, I think what people do is to, they draw on who they are, and certainly my Catholicism is just a part of me,” he said.

He quoted the Pope saying “Christ has triumphed over death”, before adding: “May God welcome Pope Francis to eternal life.”

If the Pope is now the saint and inspiration of Labor and Albanese, it is only because of what he said of global warming – the one religion to which Labor can truly give its heart. Picture: Mark Stewart

I’m not saying Albanese hasn’t now found God again. Nor do I complain that Labor is finally giving the Catholic Church the respect it long denied.

But what I’ve described is totally consistent with a Labor campaign to make the party seem as friendly to Christians as Morrison was before.

That said, Christians shouldn’t been fooled. None of this seems driven by a respect for their religious beliefs or even their right to preach them.

I have no doubt Francis was a good man. Unlike Albanese, he had faith in Pell’s manifest innocence and stood by him, even though Pell was a conservative and the Pope a man of the Left.

But the Pope’s preaching on global warming was a mistake, even insisting again the evidence that we are “on the road to death”.

As Pell privately complained, this activism was unmoored by a proper understanding of the science and economics.

Yet if the Pope is now the saint and inspiration of Labor and Albanese, it is only because of what he said of global warming – the one religion to which Labor can truly give its heart. Christians beware.