RUSH: Back to the pope. You’ll note that I didn’t spend any time in the first hour on this. I am not striving to keep this alive. I’m not striving to make this about me. But the Drive-Bys won’t let it go. They can’t turn this loose. The latest, Piers Morgan on CNN last night on Piers Morgan Live. He had the noted author and well known conservative raconteur, Ann Coulter. And during his conversation with Coulter, he wanted to bring up me and Il Papa, Pope Francis. And to set it up, this is what he said.

MORGAN: Rush Limbaugh keeps whacking away at Pope Francis, which is, you know, it’s like watching the devil incarnate taking on Mother Teresa. But tell me why the right seemed to have some big issue with a man who appears to be non-bigoted, incredibly humble, a force for good, somebody perhaps revolutionizing an anachronistic church, dragging them kicking and screaming into the real world, why would this enrage the likes of Rush Limbaugh?

RUSH: Okay, that’s the question. The devil incarnate. I am the devil incarnate. The pope is Mother Teresa. And you’ll note, folks, look, I don’t want to be subtle about this. It’s Christmastime. Can I take a little credit for something here? (interruption) What, you think you know what I’m gonna say? Here is an avowed leftist who every other day of the week despises the Catholic Church, Piers Morgan. And he’s no different than anybody else out there on the left. Every other day of the week, they hate the Catholic Church. They don’t like the pope because of abortion, because of gays, gay marriage, because of no women priests, because of AIDS, you name it. They do not like the Catholic Church at all, except now since I, the devil incarnate, have entered the fray. These people that hate the Catholic Church are now its biggest advocates.

Is that not amazing? Is that not a wonder to behold? I don’t care that he calls me the devil incarnate. He’s speaking out positively about Christianity now. He doesn’t know it. He thinks the pope is modernizing the church in the way the left thinks it should be. See, to the left, a religion is nothing but a malleable, bendable, shapable, flakable, formable thing. And like anything else, it ought to accommodate whatever the will of the people is at that moment. So if the people are for abortion, the church ought to be, ’cause the church ought to relate to the people. It’s a total lack of understanding of what a religion is, what a church is.

For him to call the church anachronistic shows he has no understanding of religion whatsoever. The church, Catholic Church, whatever church, is what it is. And if you don’t like it, it’s your role to get out, not change it. Christianity is Christianity. The various denominations are what they are. If you don’t like it, you move on. It’s not up to the church to modernize. It’s not up to the church to be dragged kicking and screaming into the real world. Yet that’s what he thinks Pope Francis is doing, and it’s not what Pope Francis doing.

Pope Francis is as rock rigid anti-abortion as any pope ever has been. The same thing on gay marriage, female priests, and all of this. But I still think, folks, that it is a wondrous thing that because of little old me, the devil incarnate, leftists who would otherwise and do otherwise revile the Catholic Church are now singing its praises. It is a beautiful thing. But that whole sound bite is proof that Piers Morgan, incompetence incarnate, hasn’t the slightest idea, slightest understanding of religion. Religion is timeless. Anachronistic, he says? Anyway, here is well-known conservative author and media raconteur Ann Coulter’s answer to Piers Morgan.

COULTER: In Rush Limbaugh’s case we of course think he is the Pope, so I could see why he’d be angry at it. The statement by the Pope that I find most surprising was his statement that you don’t have to be a Christian to go to heaven. Look, you may think that. Maybe there are a lot of people who think that, but if you’re head of the RNC youÂ’re not supposed to be saying, “Oh, don’t bother voting Republican.” That isn’t supposed to be your position.

RUSH: Now, I didn’t even want to — I studiously stayed away from Pope Francis saying that you don’t have to be a Christian to go to heaven. I didn’t even want to touch that, but she has a point. I’m not gonna go there. ‘Cause I didn’t want to touch on religion. The pope ventured into the world of economics, and he did so as the mouthpiece of the genuinely uninformed left. That’s what I responded to. Listen to how Piers Morgan responded to what Ann Coulter just said.

MORGAN: Or it could just be that he believes in open church, open —

COULTER: Well, yeah.

MORGAN: — Christianity, all-inclusive, they’ll take anybody. Unlike you, Ann, who are so dogmatic that you have to be right of Genghis Khan to even be acceptable.

COULTER: Okay, but if you’re the head of the Catholic Church and your position is, “Ah, join any church. In fact, you don’t even have to be a Christian,” maybe you could get a show on CNN, but maybe you shouldn’t be the head of the Catholic Church.

RUSH: Well, she’s right, and the pope isn’t doing any of what Piers Morgan’s assigning to him. This is what is laughable. The pope is not modernizing the church. He’s not dragging the church kicking and screaming into the real world, any of that. This is what the leftists think religion ought to do, like everybody else it ought to bow down to them. Whatever the left wants, every institution should do it. And the ones that stand up in strident opposition to that tug and that pull of the left are the ones that are hated and reviled, and that’s why the Catholic Church has been hated and reviled, because they have not been movable. They haven’t been dragable. They haven’t been kickable, and they haven’t been screaming as they’ve been dragged into the modern real world, as defined by Piers Morgan.

“Well, could it be that the pope just believes in an open church, open Christianity?” No, Piers, he doesn’t believe in that. He’s the pope, for crying out loud. But this is projection. Nevertheless, folks, it’s just a beautiful, wondrous thing that people who any other day of the week despise this institution are now speaking up for it and defending it.