source : the age
President Donald Trump’s formal statement was very brief. “Rest in Peace Pope Francis! May God Bless him and all who loved him!” At the Easter Egg Roll on the lawns on the White House, Trump said, “I felt very bad for the Catholics. We love you all. We’re with you all. They were with me during the election, as you know.”
On Tuesday morning, Trump called Francis a “very good man who loved, loved the world, and he especially loved people that were having a hard time, and that’s good with me”. Trump could say that because his intersection with Pope Francis was marked by an upheaval that changed American politics.
US President Donald Trump and Pope Francis at the Vatican on May 24, 2017, during Trump’s first presidential term.Credit: AP
Just two days before he died, Francis attacked Trump directly for his harsh policies on immigration. “The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” the Pope wrote.
“What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.”
The treatment of immigrants was the constant theme in the relations between the president and the Pope. In 2016, Trump’s run for the presidency changed the character of the Republican Party. Trump took on all the establishment candidates – Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, among others – and dispatched them with ease as his populist base was formed and took hold.
Francis took note as Trump was gaining strength to become the Republican presidential nominee.
On his plane back to Rome from Mexico – the country Trump called out months earlier in his campaign launch as the source of “rapists and criminals” flooding into the United States and said that he would make Mexico pay for a wall to keep the migrants out – the Pope chose to express his views on the presidential race.
A member of the faithful holds an image of Pope Francis during a Mass for his passing at the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City.Credit: Getty Images
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said. Within hours, Trump replied. “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful. 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. No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith.”
Trump went further. “So if and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’ ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president.”
This was a shocking moment in American politics. Until that day, it was inconceivable that a presidential candidate could attack the Pope and survive.
This became a guardrail in America’s political culture after John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic president in 1961. Kennedy’s triumph redeemed the defeat of New York governor Al Smith in 1928. Smith was the first Catholic presidential nominee of a major political party. Smith’s defeat meant, for decades, that a Catholic could not be elected president.
But Trump was not eviscerated for his attacks on Francis. Trump won the Republican nomination and the 2016 election. Why? How could he do it?
Trump exploded presidential politics into hyper-partisanship. In American politics today, it is the end that matters now – not the means. It is whether you win – not whether your political champion is of the soundest character. As long as Trump delivered the goods to his supporters, he had their votes.
To win the vote of religious conservatives, Trump was determined to shape and win the culture wars. Abortion is as powerful a social issue as any in America. As long as Trump kept his word that he, as president, would do all in his power to ensure that the right to life would be protected – if not by Congress then by the courts and all the way up to the Supreme Court – it did not matter what was the quality of Trump’s personal character. Trump would win the issue and be rewarded by his voters with the presidency.
Trump says he will attend the funeral for Pope Francis.
Bruce Wolpe is a senior fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. He has served on the Democratic staff in the US Congress and as chief of staff to former prime minister Julia Gillard.
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