Trump v. Francis: No contest

Donald Trump is close to running out of people and populations to offend. His latest target: Pope Francis.

It’s one thing to belittle Jeb Bush or attack Ted Cruz. But, by taking on Francis, Trump has met way more than his match while shooting himself in the crotch.

The overwhelming majority of Catholics in the United States love and admire the Pope, as was obvious during his visit to this country. Catholics represent a key swing vote. Historically, they have tended to split their vote down the middle between Democrats and Republicans, but they sometimes lean one way or the other.

The Republicans, who can count on a massive African American vote for the other side, and who can forget about the Latino vote after demonizing immigrants during two consecutive election cycles, need the lion’s share of the Catholic vote to have even a prayer of winning the White House. But American Catholics are not pleased or amused with Trump’s comments about the Pope, in which, among other things, he qualified the Pontiff’s words as “disgraceful.”

What does Donald Trump know about grace? The dictionary defines grace as “a sense of what is right and proper; decency.” Pope Francis embodies these qualities in every fiber of his being. You can’t miss it. I am an atheist, and I have no doubt that this Pope exudes grace. Nor do I have the slightest doubt that Trump is utterly lacking in that virtue. A couple of weeks before the incident regarding the Pope, the New York Times published a list of all the people and groups Trump has insulted. It is too long to reproduce here, and now there is an additional entry. That is disgraceful.

Trump as a person and as a political candidate is the antithesis of grace. As a Catholic, he is the antithesis of Francis. In the past, popes would excommunicate a Catholic for much lesser insults. Francis did not to do that. Instead, he spoke about giving “the benefit of the doubt.” That is grace.

Indeed, the very words the Pope spoke in Mexico in answer to a very pointed question calculated to provoke him to denounce Trump are touched with characteristic nuance and grace. Here is the best press account I found among innumerable articles. Google yielded 10,500,000 hits. The source for the material quoted below is from the Last Word column in the Daily Beast. A single quote denotes material quoted by the Daily Beast from another source. We thank the Daily Beast for their excellent reporting.

“According to the English language translation put out by the Vatican press office, which is the official word on the pope’s words, the pope did answer a question specifically about Donald Trump, but did not actually say the words ‘Trump is not a Christian.’

“The question asked by Phil Pullella of Reuters was, ‘Today you spoke a lot and eloquently about the problem of immigrants. On the other side of the border there is an electoral campaign that is rather hard. One of the candidates for the White House, Donald Trump, in a recent interview said that you are a political man, and indeed perhaps a pawn of the Mexican Government when it comes to the policy of immigration. He said that if he were elected president he would build a 2,500-km wall along the border. He wants to deport 11 million illegal

immigrants and, in that way separating families and so on. I would therefore like to ask, first of all, what you think of those charges against you, and if an American Catholic could vote for a person like this?’

“The Pope responded, ‘Thank God he said I am a politician because Aristotle defined the human person as an animal politicus [a political animal]. So at least I am a human person. As to whether I am a pawn, well, maybe, I don’t know. I’ll leave that up to your judgment and that of the people.’

“He then went on to say, ‘And then, 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 says things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt.’

“As we know, Trump did say ‘things in that way,’ so the benefit of the doubt won’t take him very far. But, still, the pope’s remarks are a far cry from many of the headlines, and they probably were meant to focus on the call for a wall rather than the man making it.

“The Vatican spokesperson, Father Federico Lombardi, on Friday, also offered his own clarification during an interview on Vatican Radio which was, of course, in Italian.

“The official English language translation from the Vatican of that comment is as follows. “But the Pope said what we all know, when we follow his teaching and his position: that we should not build walls but bridges. He [the Pope] has always said this, continuously, and he has said this about the issues of migration in Europe, many times. So it is not a specific issue, limited to this case. This is one of [the Pope’s] general attitudes, very consistent with what is a courageous

following of the Gospel of welcome and solidarity. Of course, this was then raised, but it is not that the Pope wishes to be, in any way, a personal attack nor an indication of voting.’

“Lombardi then went on to say, ‘The Pope has made it clear that he would not enter into the [Presidential] election campaign in the United States and he has also said— which was not reported by many—if it were correct and true what he was told—he would give the benefit of

the doubt over what had been reported about the Republican candidate’s expressions.’

“‘Therefore the key point is welcome—the building of bridges instead of walls – that is characteristic of this Pontificate. It must be interpreted and understood in this way.’”

That is grace.