Church has a duty to challenge drug gangs

THE contrast between the Pope’s clear-eyed commentary on America’s presidential race and the fawning, wrong-headed, and offensive indulgence afforded to those who turned the funeral of murdered gangland figure David Byrne into a three-ringed circus contrived to express untouchable power and indifference to the victims of crime could not be greater.

Moreover, that contrast could hardly be more perplexing for those who still hope that Christian values, even in the loosest sense, might help inform our civic morality.

Pope Francis was impressively unambiguous when asked about Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s promise to build a wall along the Mexican border from Texas to California and expel 11m people who are in America illegally if elected. Pope Francis said that anyone who wants to build such a wall isn’t Christian.