Who started the Trump 'feud' with the Pope?
The Pontiff isn't neutral, but the latest attack on Trump was launched from Washington
Responding to my analysis of confrontation between Pentagon officials and Cardinal Pierre, @MarkSimonHK wrote on X that “Lawler is more open than I am about the role of @Pontifex…” (This was before Trump’s personal assault on the Pope on Truth Social.) Actually I didn’t hold the Pope responsible for the leaked stories about that Pentagon meeting, although I agree with Simon that it was “a planned political hit” on Trump.
That is, I don’t hold the Pope responsible except insofar as he sits at the top of the Catholic hierarchy, and the buck stops there. I doubt that the Pontiff ordered or approved the “hit,” nor do I think that he signed off on the neatly timed follow-up, in which three American cardinals teed off on Trump on Sixty Minutes. I’ve commented elsewhere about the Pope’s criticism of the war in Iran. But this particular attack, I am convinced, was planned and executed in Washington.
Still since all signs point to the office of the papal nuncio as the source of the rumors, and the nuncio is the Pope’s representative in the US, the episode did highlight the mounting tensions between the Vatican (and thus the Pope) and the Trump administration. Trump himself deliberately escalated those tensions with his characteristically intemperate rant on Sunday. Pope Leo’s own comments have to date been couched in diplomatic language. The more personal attacks on Trump have been launched from this side of the Atlantic.
Apparently Trump now perceives some political advantage in picking a fight with the Roman Pontiff. That perception is very wrong. The President will alienate many faithful Catholics—members of a key “swing” constituency—while pleasing only those who are already fully behind him. He is likely to pay a heavy price for this mistake in the midterm elections.
Trump could have countered the criticism from the four cardinals (Cupich, McElroy, Tobin, and Pierre) more effectively, and avoided giving offense to pious Catholics, if he had concentrated on those prelates who carried the political hit. And sure enough, that direct and more diplomatic approach might have involved some indirect criticism of the Pope as well. Because the problem is not so much what Pope Leo has said and done himself, as what he has allowed others to say and do.
The three American cardinals who held forth on Sixty Minutes were all promoted by Pope Francis. They do not represent the mainstream thinking of the US bishops’ conference. But they do represent the leftward lurch of the previous pontificate, which Pope Leo has done little to correct.
More to the point those three cardinals were all closely aligned with the late “Uncle Ted” McCarrick, and their rise through the ecclesiastical ranks bespeaks the corruption of the Catholic hierarchy— which, again, Leo has done little to correct.
Readers may recall how, under Pope Francis, the Vatican ordered the American bishops to scuttle their plan for a thorough investigation into McCarrick’s influence, promising instead that Rome would produce full disclosure— and then issued an anodyne report with no detailed information about whose money and whose influence had furthered McCarrick and his friends, a report that seemed designed to conceal rather than to reveal.
And in recalling the disappointment of that McCarrick report, readers might also remember that last October the Vatican announced that judges had finally been selected for the new trial of the notorious Father Rupnik, two years after Pope Francis ordered that trial, and in November our new Pontiff said that the trial would being soon. “We hope this process will bring clarity and justice for everyone involved,” the Pope said. We’re still waiting.
At first glance the lingering evidence of the sex-abuse scandal would seem unrelated to the current dispute about the war in the Middle East. But the corruption that was laid bare more than twenty years ago did grave and lasting damage to the credibility of Catholic leaders. That corruption revealed the enormous influence of prelates who think and act in worldly terms— as political activists rather than spiritual leaders. The concerted political attacks on President Trump represent the priorities of the past pontificate. The sooner Pope Leo can establish his own leadership style, the sooner the world will listen to his own more measured appeals for peace.
There is no doubt that Trump's speech can be bombastic. Let's compare it though to the smooth speech of the three Cardinal Bishops, Cupich, McElroy and Tobin, who appeared on TV Sunday. These are three of the most liberal bishops in the United States, and they chose to appear on one of the most liberal networks, on one of the networks most liberal shows, given softball questions by a liberal reporter. They smoothly regret that Hispanic Mass attendance is down 30% due to fear (not mentioning that these are illegals afraid of deportation), they proclaim the U.S.action categorically as an unjust war, without mentioning that the catechism says that the responsibility for determining such are those responsible for the common good (Laity). For all of the talk about the importance of the laity, our episcopal leaders feel is is their prerogative to tell us we must get an untested vaccine, we must accept their decision on so called man made climate change, that to control our borders is to not welcome the stranger, and more.
Someone wrote recently that Pope Leo holds all of the same positions as Pope Francis, but he is smarter and a. smoother talker, and therefore more dangerous.
Hopefully not, time will tell. But after one year, I am not encouraged.
Thanks, Phil. One of your best.