Paul Ryan sure is fickle about Jesus.

First, he says it's because of Jesus and his "Catholic faith" that he hates the poor and wants to cut off all aid to them to they can stop being "dependent on government." Because even the most lapsed Catholic knows Jesus was all, like, "Screw you, take care of your own damn selves!" to the poor and the sick.

It's not as if his church wasn't perfectly clear about how Ryan's budget makes Jesus cry. He got a letter about it and everything!

He also got a homework assignment from prominent Catholic scholars who said his "budget reflects the values of his favorite philosopher Ayn Rand rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ."

Funny thing about protecting religious freedom and respecting the Catholic Church. Turns out you only have to do that when the Church gets super-whiny about women's health care. When it comes to stuff Jesus said about the poor? Meh:



“These are not all the Catholic bishops, and we respectfully disagree,” Ryan said.

For good measure, his fellow Catholic Republican in the House, Speaker John Boehner, also explained also explained to the Catholic bishops why they're wrong and should "take a bigger look" at why screwing the poor is super Jesus-y.

However, in Thursday's vice presidential debate, Ryan was back to insisting that our laws and policies must comply with what his Church demands because liberty:



What troubles me more is how this administration has handled all of these issues. Look at what they're doing through Obamacare with respect to assaulting the religious liberties of this country. They're infringing upon our first freedom, the freedom of religion, by infringing on Catholic charities, Catholic churches, Catholic hospitals. Our church should not have to sue our federal government to maintain their religious liberties. And with respect to abortion, the Democratic Party used to say they wanted it to be safe, legal and rare. Now they support it without restriction and with taxpayer funding. Taxpayer funding in Obamacare, taxpayer funding with foreign aid. The vice president himself went to China and said that he sympathized and wouldn't second guess their one child policy of forced abortions and sterilizations. That to me is pretty extreme.

So now Ryan is troubled again because the Obama administration also decided to "respectfully disagree" and "take a bigger look" when it comes to whether the bishops should be writing our policies. (Answer: No. See, for example, the First Amendment.)

Ryan of course tosses in some pretty serious false witnessing to boot, since he claims Obamacare contains taxpayer funding for abortion, even though it doesn't and even though the president signed an executive order saying, "No, seriously, no taxpayer funding for abortion." That claim is an outright lie, which some say is also against the teachings of the Church. But maybe he "respectfully disagrees" with that too.

And of course, "our Church" does not have to sue the federal government to maintain its religious liberties. Its religious liberties are just fine. It's still allowed to shut down its charities and food banks in order to stick it to gay people; it's still allowed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars protecting pedophiles; and it's still being invited into the White House and the halls of Congress to make petulant demands about women's health care.

If Ryan is so concerned about respecting his Church and its teachings, he might want to go back and read those letters from his Church, telling him his budget makes Jesus cry because Jesus did not actually hate children, poor people and women. That would be a very good place to start.