Boehner: I won’t pick a fight with pope

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday it’d be unwise to pick a fight with Pope Francis, who last week blasted unrestrained capitalism as “the dung of the devil.”

{mosads}Boehner, who is Catholic, has invited the outspoken pope to address a joint session of Congress on Sept. 24. But the Speaker doesn’t plan to cramp his style.

“Well, listen, there’s one thing we know about this pope: He’s not afraid to take on the status quo. He’s not afraid to say what he really thinks,” Boehner told reporters. “And I can tell you this: I’m not about to get myself into an argument with the Pope.

“I’m sure the pope will have things to say that people find interesting, and I’m looking forward to his visit,” the Speaker added.

During a high-profile visit to his native South America last week, he issued a stinging rebuke of capitalism, denouncing it as a “subtle dictatorship.”

The world’s political leaders, he said, should “not to yield to an economic model which is idolatrous, which needs to sacrifice human lives on the altar of money and profit.”