FEBRUARY 19, 2016
Photo: AP
The Pope? Really?
It’s as if it’s a game for Donald Trump. After he paid little price for calling undocumented workers from Mexico “rapists,” it appeared that Trump wanted to see just how far he could push it before he crossed the line. Saying that John McCain wasn’t a war hero? His numbers went up! Mocking the disability of a reporter? His numbers went up! Falsely claiming that he saw thousands of Jersey City Muslims cheering as the World Trade Center towers fell? Numbers, up!
I suppose that if it this was really a game for Trump, the ultimate test of his invincibility would be to attack a revered religious leader, perhaps even…The Pope. But the Pope would never attack him, right?
Cut to Thursday morning.
In a response to a reporter’s question as to whether a good Catholic could vote for Trump, Francis replied:
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt.”
It’s interesting to note that the Pope was not doctrinaire about this, as he gave himself some wiggle room in not telling Catholics how to vote. That hardly mattered to Trump, and the billionaire was ready to pounce:
“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. ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians…
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. They are using the Pope as a pawn and they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so, especially when so many lives are involved and when illegal immigration is so rampant.”
If Donald Trump considers himself a leader (and who can doubt that he does?), isn’t it interesting that just last week Trump himself questioned another man’s religion and faith, tweeting,
“How can Ted Cruz be an Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest?”
Trump’s hypocrisy aside, what do you want to bet that his attack on the Pope will just cause Trump’s numbers to go up again? It probably won’t matter in tomorrow’s South Carolina primary, since the state has among the fewest numbers of Catholic voters (just 8%). What will be fascinating, though, is whether Trump’s words will come back to haunt him in upcoming swing states with larger Catholic populations, such as Michigan and Ohio.
The most common defense of Trump from his supporters is that the Pope should mind his own business — that he should stick with religion and leave the politics to the candidates and heads of state. What they forget is that Pope Francis is a head of state as the leader of the country known as Vatican City, and he would be remiss if he did not comment on an injustice he sees in another part of the world. That’s his duty when he’s wearing his head-of-state hat, which admittedly is not as gorgeous as his Pope hat.
It would be funny (if it wasn’t so scary) to watch a political party that has wrapped itself in the Catholic Church on social issues suddenly attack the leader of that Church when other Catholic teachings don’t go their way.
