Pope Francis and Donald Trump: A chasm in character

It’s not news that Pope Francis is a revolutionary pope who lives, thinks, and acts unlike previous others. Sunday night the CBS program 60 minutes broadcast excerpts from an extraordinarily revealing documentary about Francis by the celebrated director Wim Wenders. It showed, among other things, how unique this man is and how totally different from the man who sits in the White House today.

Start with the fact that, according to Wenders, Francis gave him carte blanche to ask any question on any topic. The filmmaker did, and received an answer to every question, including ones about sexual abuse by priests. That’s an amazing level of transparency for the leader of any institution, much less the Catholic Church. Although there were tough questions, at no time did Francis assume an adversarial posture toward Wenders, whose role in this project was much closer to journalism than to the avant-garde films he is known for.

Compare this with the spectacle characteristic of the Trump administration, which reveals as little of the truth as possible, conceals or distorts reality constantly through lies and disinformation, attacks those who ask the hard question or who confront the contradictions in the various accounts the White House often puts out on a single subject.

What irony: a pope is supposed to be infallible on matters of doctrine; a president is not, on any matter. Yet Trump talks and acts as if he thinks he is infallible and Francis does not.

Listening to what the Pope said on film in the Wenders documentary, how he said it, his calm, quiet tone and easy body language, and the content of his ideas, the words that flash to my mind are sincerity and grace. Those are qualities that define character and qualities our president has never been suspected of possessing.

Wenders said two very illuminating things to the CBS reporter. One is that the best actor in the world could not fake the kind of openness and conviction the Pope conveyed under the glare of Wenders close-up lens. The second is that for Wenders, Francis is the most courageous man he has ever met.

None of this is coming from a place of deep Catholic conviction, not on Wenders part, I believe, and certainly not on mine. With no disrespect to those who authentically live the faith in word and deed like Francis and millions of others, when people ask me about my religion I sometimes joke that I was brought up Catholic but got over it.

The views of Trump and Francis on immigrants, on economic inequality and moral responsibility toward the poor, on war and peace, could not be more antithetical. Trump sees immigrants and the poor as losers, weak of will, parasites on the body politic. Trump displays a chilling lack of charity or empathy. Francis radiates it.

Francis talks the talk and walks the walk too, and arguably so does Trump. But how differently these two leaders speak and stride. Trump can’t stop himself from bragging about his money and magnificence. He lives immersed in the symbols of wealth and power: his name on huge buildings, his brand on countless products, a trophy wife. When he became pope, Francis got rid of the expensive cars popes usually ride in, moved not into the usual regal residence but into modest accommodations, came down on bishops who tried to live like royalty.

Trump, in sum, is an ego grown grotesquely big and fat. In contrast, Francis told Wenders that he likes a prayer which asks God for a good digestion and for something to digest. For Francis, a sense of humor is a most important thing. Trump is as humorous as a hungry crocodile.

Francis said in the film that the poorest being in the world is the Earth itself. He went on passionately and at length as to how we humans have despoiled and destroyed large parts of Mother Earth.

Trump is a world-class global despoiler, probably the worst in history. Bring on the fossil fuels, roll out the gas-guzzlers, watch impassively as Greenland melts and Florida drowns.