Trump 1, Pope 0
It’s difficult to mediate a grudge match between Donald Trump and the Pope. ( Yes, it has come to this. But the less lament about the state of crazy in American politics, the better.) While visiting Mexico and encouraging the U. S. to address the growing humanitarian crisis afflicting migrants, Pope Francis responded to a question about Trump’s immigration policies.
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel,” he told journalists.
Trump responded with his predictable humility. “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful,” he responded in a statement. “I am proud to be a Christian and as President I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike what is happening now, with our current President.”
For a would- be Defender of the Faith, this is an interesting claim. Surely if Trump can demand the temporal power to keep all Muslims from entering the United States “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” he must concede the Pontifex’s spiritual authority to question another man’s faith. Indeed, the Pope has about 2,000 years of precedent on his side on this one. For much of recent history, the Catholic Church has been traditionally unshy about declaring apostasy, heresy and excommunication. It’s the Church’s bag, in fact.
Not content to stop there, Trump’s supporters further went on to point to the Pope’s apparent hypocrisy. The entire state of the Vatican itself is also surrounded by walls, is it not?
Far be it from me to defend the Holy See from charges of undeserved sanctimony, but the comparison here is a little silly. The Vatican is more robust independent religious enclave and museum than state, really. Its walls were built to protect the medieval city- state from roving barbarians. Nowadays, millions of tourists stroll through St. Peter’s Square without hindrance. Measuring in at 110 acres, and with 450 citizens, it’s also hardly in a position to welcome untold thousands of immigrants.
But anyway, one hardly expects historical nuance during a U.S. presidential debate and the rest of Trump’s statement was a much more characteristic mess of rambling, self- aggrandizing and xenophobic nonsense.
“If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened,” it read. “Everyone knows”? ISIL is perfectly content to engage in terrorism in the West and to inspire others to do so on its behalf. The civilized world has an obligation to stand against it. But let’s be clear — a bunch of poorly trained jihadis equipped with AK- 47s and pilfered armoured vehicles do not represent any existential threat to the Vatican, to the Christian faith, nor to the West as a whole. Warning about the fall of the Vatican is as unhinged and overwrought as, well, characterizing Mexicans as scheming drug fiends. Which, of course, Trump has made it his wont to do: “The Mexican government and its leadership has made many disparaging remarks about me to the Pope, because they want to continue to rip off the United States ... ( The Pope) didn’t see the crime, the drug trafficking and the negative economic impact the current.”
The American belief in its own exceptionalism has birthed one of the most extraordinary states in human history; a technologically, militarily and economically robust nation whose power in the world remains unmatched. But that national sense of optimism and selfimportance has a thin, dark edge made manifest in Donald Trump. He is an Empire’s ignorance, insecurity and tribalism, its fear covered by braggadocio and a cheap, fleeting wealth.
So here is the Catholic Church, ready to do what it tries to do — often unsuccess- fully. Pope Francis inserted himself into worldly politics to attempt to be a voice of reason, gentleness and compassion for a nation that seems to be wobbling.
There are obvious and ancient points to be made here about the declining moral authority of the Church itself; what right does the Pope have to lecture Trump, preaching from his noble pulpit of extraordinary wealth, priestly sex abuse scandals and penchant for holy human suffering? There is evidence that the Church is attempting to shift its tone under Pope Francis, who has placed new emphasis on the plight of the poor and even seemed to soften the stance on contraception in light of the Zika outbreak in South America. Will this enough to restore not just faith, but credibility?
It’s a funny thing how humans seem to abhor a moral vacuum the same way nature detests an absence of any other kind; how we rebel against decaying and corrupt old orders by seeking out new ones.
Trump seems to have won this round vs. the Pope — won in the very callow sense that most of his followers read his response and snickered with pride. This is just another snide kick at an establishment, after all, a sign that they have found in him a true strongman, someone willing to stand up even to the Pope, to the infallible word of God Himself.
IF TRUMP CAN DEMAND THE POWER TO KEEP ALL MUSLIMS FROM ENTERING THE UNITED STATES, THE POPE CAN CLAIM THE SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY TO QUESTION ANOTHER MAN’S FAITH.