WASHINGTON (AP) — The day earlier than he died, in his ultimate public deal with, Pope Francis expressed an Easter Sunday message of unity and an enchantment for the marginalized and migrants. “All of us,” he proclaimed, “are children of God!”
In a dramatically completely different message Sunday, President Donald Trump issued an insult-laced put up wishing a contented Easter to his opponents, together with “Radical Left Lunatics,” “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials,” and former President Joe Biden, “our WORST and most Incompetent President.”
A number of the basic variations between the U.S. president and the late pope — not solely their divergent types however their positions on migration, the surroundings and poverty — will come into sharper focus as Trump travels to Rome on Friday for Francis’ funeral, to be held Saturday morning in St. Peter’s Sq..
David Gibson, director of the Middle on Faith and Tradition at Fordham College in New York, put it this manner: “Obviously, it’s been a fraught relationship.”
The connection eroded
Issues weren’t nice between Trump and the pope throughout Trump’s first time period, from 2017 to 2021. However, says Gibson, “Trump II was even worse with the Vatican because of how much more aggressive it has been on every level, against migrants, against international aid.”
The Argentine pontiff and the American president sparred early on over immigration. In 2016, Francis, alluding to then-candidate Trump, referred to as anybody who builds a wall to maintain out migrants “ not Christian.” Trump referred to as the remark “disgraceful.”
Regardless of the billionaire former actuality star’s divergences over time with Francis, who was recognized for a humble fashion, Trump’s assist has step by step risen amongst American Catholics. He courted them in his final presidential marketing campaign, and plenty of influential bishops are amongst his supporters.
Trump, who has recognized himself as a “non-denominational Christian,” has lengthy counted Christians, particularly evangelical Christians, amongst his key blocs of assist. His insurance policies on abortion, together with his position in appointing three of the 5 U.S. Supreme Court docket justices who overturned nationwide abortion rights, deepened his assist amongst Christians, together with many conservative Catholics.
His politics are additionally carefully aligned with many conservative U.S. Catholic bishops, who had been typically at odds with Francis’ extra progressive method to main the church.
The Republican president implored Catholics final 12 months to vote for him. In October, when he addressed the Al Smith charity dinner in New York, which raises tens of millions of {dollars} for Catholic charities, Trump mentioned: “You gotta get out and vote. And Catholics, you gotta vote for me.”
Many Catholics did. Within the 2024 election, Trump received the Catholic vote, in response to AP VoteCast, a survey of greater than 120,000 voters. In 2020, the Catholic vote was evenly break up between Joe Biden, however in 2024, 54% of Catholic voters supported Trump and 44% supported Kamala Harris.
For Trump, Catholics’ assist didn’t earn Francis’
However whereas Trump might have received the Catholic vote, he by no means received over Francis.
Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic who met briefly with Francis the day earlier than he died, dismissed the pontiff’s disagreements with the administration, telling reporters this week that the pope was “a much broader figure” than American politics — a person who led a church with 1.4 billion members worldwide.
“I’m aware that he had some disagreements with some of the policies of our administration,” Vance mentioned. “He also had a lot of agreements with some of the policies of our administration. I’m not going to soil the man’s legacy by talking about politics.”
Trump, too, met as soon as with Francis, in a largely cordial assembly on the Vatican in 2017. However their variations endured.
In February of this 12 months, Francis despatched a letter to U.S. bishops that was comparable in tone to his feedback on immigration virtually a decade earlier. He denounced the Trump administration’s embarking on plans for mass deportations and famous that within the Bible, the toddler Jesus and his household had been themselves refugees in Egypt, fleeing a risk to their lives.
Some main bishops did applaud a few of the new Trump administration initiatives on “school choice” and insurance policies defining gender as decided at delivery. Francis, whereas upholding church teachings on sexuality, took a extra tolerant stance towards LGBTQ+ individuals.
Different outstanding bishops, appointed by Francis, are extra sympathetic together with his priorities. They embody the brand new archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Robert McElroy.
Catholics are a various group and act accordingly
However the Catholic vote shouldn’t be monolithic. John Fea, a professor of historical past at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, mentioned many conservative Catholics, even when they respect the workplace of the pope, “don’t like his progressive views” on immigrants and his authorizing of blessings for same-sex {couples}.
In distinction, he speculated that many progressive Catholics who do share Pope Francis’ social justice issues most likely didn’t vote for Trump.
Along with migration, Francis additionally differed with Trump on the surroundings, writing an encyclical calling for local weather motion, in distinction to the president’s push to carry again fossil fuels. Francis additionally staunchly opposed the loss of life penalty, one thing Trump helps.
Stylistically, Trump’s huge persona additionally contrasted with Francis’ extra self-deprecating and welcoming tone, immortalized by his “Who am I to judge?” response to a query about homosexual monks.
Trump and Francis did share some coverage objectives on points akin to abortion and spiritual freedom, and U.S.-Vatican relations contain greater than two individuals, mentioned Steven Millies, director of the Bernadin Middle on the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
“But the alignments were at the diplomatic level more than at the personal or political level, of course,” mentioned Millies, a professor of public theology.
“They were profoundly different people — one who’d been formed by Jesuit spirituality and lived his life in deepening faith that he shared with the world, the other who mangles Scripture quotations, sells Bibles for personal profit, and uses Christian faith like a brand identity in a market competition.”
