Presidential candidate and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Sunday criticized Pope Francis for praising leaders in the United States and Cuba for working to normalize the relationship between the two countries.
“I just think the pope is wrong,” Christie said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “The fact is that his infallibility is on religious matters, not on political ones.”
Christie referenced Joanne Chesimard, an escaped fugitive who broke out of prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba.
“The fact is that, for me, I just believe that, when you have a government that is harboring fugitives, murdering fugitives, like Joanne Chesimard, who murdered a state policeman in New Jersey in cold blood, was broken out of prison, and has been harbored for the last 40-plus years by a Cuban government that has paid her and held up her as a hero — that this president could extend diplomatic relations with that country without getting her returned so she can serve the prison sentence that she was sentenced to by a jury of her peers in New Jersey is outrageous,” Christie said.
The New Jersey governor, who is a Catholic, said he happens “to disagree with the pope on this one.”
During a visit to Cuba this weekend, Pope Francis said that the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba “fills us with hope.”
Watch part of Christie’s interview via CNN:
