Your Holiness, about the world's problems that you have just mentioned, Donald Trump has just become the president of the US, and the whole world is tense because of it. What do you think about that? I think that we must wait and see. I don't like to get ahead of myself nor judge people prematurely. We will see how he acts, what he does, and then I will have an opinion. But being afraid or rejoicing beforehand because of something that might happen is, in my view, quite unwise. It would be like prophets predicting calamities or windfalls that will not be either. We will see. We will see what he does and will judge. Always on the specific. Christianity is specific or it is not Christianity. It is interesting that the first heresy in the Church took place just after the death of Jesus Christ. The gnostic heresy, condemned by the apostle John. Which was what I call a spray religiousness [???], a non-specific religiousness. Yes, me, spirituality, the law... but nothing concrete. No, no way. We need specifics. And from the specific we can draw consequences. We lose sense of the concrete. The other day, a thinker was telling me that this world is so upside down that it needs a fixed point. And those fixed points stem from the concrete. What did you do, what did you decide, how do you move. That is what I prefer to wait and see. Both in Europe and in America, the repercussions of the crisis that never ends, the growing inequalities, the absence of strong leadership are giving way to political groups that reflect on the citizens' malaise. Some of them — the so-called anti-system or populists — capitalize on the fears in face of an uncertain future in order to form a message full of xenophobia and hatred towards the foreigner. Trump's case is the most noteworthy, but there are others such as Austria or Switzerland. [Now that's a loaded leading question that virtually begs for the answer that Berghoglio did give! So much for objective journalism!], Are you worried about this phenomenon? That is what they call populism. Which is an equivocal term, Which is an equivocal term, because, in Latin America, populism has another meaning. In Latin America, it means that the people — for instance, people's movements — are the protagonists. They are self-organized, it is something else. [For Bergoglio, it seems, only these 'people's movements' in Latin America - each and everyone of them a Marxist movement - constitute populism! When Trump says in his inaugural address that 'today marks the day when the power in Washington is transferred to your hands', that's not populism. Well, let's all wait and see about Trump's populism. But in the past several decades, Latin American populism has either been the false populism of Peronism or Marxist populism - neither of which was brought progress to anyone.] When I started to hear about populism in Europe I didn't know what to make of it, I got lost, until I realized that it had different meanings. Crises provoke fear, alarm. In my opinion, the most obvious example of European populism is Germany in 1933. [There,he has created the opening he needed for his next statements.] After [Paul von] Hindenburg, after the crisis of 1930, Germany is broken, it needs to get up, to find its identity, a leader, someone capable of restoring its character, and there is a young man named Adolf Hitler who says: "I can, I can". And all Germans vote for Hitler. Hitler didn't steal the power, his people voted for him, and then he destroyed his people. [In which Bergoglio has his history all wrong. Hitler was never elected but defeated precisely by that Hindenburg, then 84, in a runoff election when he was considered the only German who could defeat Hitler. But with the increasing political instability of the post-World War I Weimar Republic, that Von Hindenburg had led since 1925, he dissolved the Reichstag (parliament) twice in 1932 and finally, under pressure, agreed to appoint Hitler Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, because Hitler's National Socialist Party had won 37% of the vote in the November 1932 elections. But that was a significant drop in votes for the Nazi Party with increases for the Communists and the national conservative DNVP. It was the last free and fair all-German election before the Nazi seizure of power on 30 January 1933 (when Von Hindenburg named Hitler chancellor, as the following elections of March 1933 were already accompanied by massive suppression, especially against Communist and Social Democratic politicians. Even then, the Nazis got even less votes, 33%, down from 37% the previous year. In that sense, the Germans never 'elected' Hitler at all. God protect us from a pope who is not only radically 'revisionist' in the teaching of the faith, but is also willfully revisionist - or not sufficiently informed - about world history.] That is the risk. In times of crisis, we lack judgment, and that is a constant reference for me. "Let's look for a savior who gives us back our identity and let's defend ourselves with walls, barbed-wire, whatever, from other peoples that may rob us of our identity". [Which is not what Trump has been saying about the dangers to the USA of uncontrolled immigration. The danger is more immediate - the danger to the nation's security, its economy and its laws.] And that is a very serious thing. That is why I always try to say: talk among yourselves, talk to one another. [What's with this obstinate non sequitur about dialog???? In any case, Trump's first calls today to other foreign leaders were to the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada, so it's not as if he has ever said he opposes any dialog - as long as it leads to some resolution.] But the case of Germany in 1933 is typical, a people that was immersed in a crisis, that looked for its identity until this charismatic leader came and promised to give their identity back, and he gave them a distorted identity, and we all know what happened. [The Germans were not in search of identity in 1933, they knew all too well who they were - a nation defeated in the first World War, for which they now had to pay. But they did want political stability and an economic future given the onerous Treaty of Versailles which ended that war - and Hitler played to them by denouncing that treaty, a bagatelle he conceded while going on to establish his dictatorial regime.] Can borders be controlled? Yes, each country has the right to control its borders, who comes and who goes, and those countries at risk —from terrorism or such things — have even more the right to control them more,[MARK THAT IN RED because he has never acknowledged this before!] but no country has the right to deprive its citizens of the possibility to talk with their neighbors. [And mark that in deep purple for being a nonsense non sequitur!] I'm not tempted to read the rest of the interview, but surely others will come up to point out anything else questionable or objectionable in it... [Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/01/2017 15:16]