Catholic Priest’s Epic Poetry Reply to Viral Bethke Video

The war of words continues from the right and the left in response to the viral You Tube video placed by poet Jefferson Bethke entitled, “Why I hate Religion but love Jesus”. There have been many responses to the video, including one we reported on earlier from the Amazing Atheist. Now the Catholic Church responds with a video by rapper and priest Father Claude Burns who calls himself Fr. Pontifex.

Burns has had an interest in music all of his life, briefly setting his love of music aside to follow his calling as a Catholic Priest. After being ordained however, he continued his musical past time as a means of entertainment and enlightenment. His return to his love of modern music was inspired, he says, when he met a Dustin Seiber from Phatmass.com, an organization that mixes the Catholic religion and  modern music.

Burns has produced a CD of his hip-hop music in August and distributed it to fans at the parish school in which he works. The kids know his lyrics by heart he says and many are paying more attention in church he claims.

Days after Bethke’s video went viral, representatives from Spirit Juices Studios in Chicago contacted the priest to ask if he would like to film a rebuttal video. He agreed, but rather than mocking the young poet Bethke, Burns says he wanted to respond in a loving way, as if the two of them were talking face to face.

When asked why he felt compelled to respond, burns explained he wanted to clarify terms and answer questions posed in the original video. Burns was especially irritated on the question and claim of “why does religion build such magnificent churches but fails to feed the poor?” and “why does religion start so many wars?”.

Here is the Pontifex video and the video that started the debate in the first place.

Bethke:

As of this writing the Bethke video had soared in popularity with nearly 19 million views. The Pontifex video has had over 420,000 thus far. Of the video responses I’ve seen thus far, the Pontifex video is this author’s favorite. See for yourself.

The Amazing Atheist’s video response as of this writing has garnered over 1 million views so far.

The Amazing Atheist: