By Peter Smith and Michelle L. Price, Associated Press
Washington (AP) – The day before his death, in his last public speech, Pope Francis expressed a message of Easter Sunday unit and a call for marginalized and migrants. “All of us,” he proclaimed, “are children of God!”
In a radically different message on Sunday, President Donald Trump published an Easter position with an insult wishing a happy Easter to his opponents, in particular “Radical Left Lunatics”, “weak and ineffective judges and responsible for the application of laws” and former President Joe Biden, “Our worst and most incompetent president”.
Some of the fundamental differences between the American president and the deceased pope – not only their divergent styles, but their positions on migration, the environment and poverty – will be highlighted while Trump will travel to Rome on Friday for the funeral of Francis, which will be held on Saturday morning on the Saint -Pierre square.
David Gibson, director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University in New York, said this: “Obviously, it was a difficult relationship.”
The relationship was eroded
Things were not excellent between Trump and the Pope during the first term of Trump, from 2017 to 2021. But, says Gibson, “Trump II was even worse with the Vatican due to the greatest aggressiveness at all levels, against migrants, against international aid.”
The Argentinian pontiff and the American president clashed very early on immigration. In 2016, Francis, alluding to the candidate of the time, called anyone who built a wall to prevent migrants from “non -Christians”. Trump described the commentary as “shame”.
Despite the differences of the former billionaire reality star over the years with Francis, who was known for a humble style, Trump’s support has gradually increased among American Catholics. He courted them during his last presidential campaign, and many influential bishops are among his supporters.
Trump, who identified himself as a “non -confessional Christian”, has long counted Christians, in particular evangelical Christians, among his main blocks of support. His policies on abortion, including his role in the appointment of three of the five judges of the United States Supreme Court who canceled national abortion rights, have deepened his support for Christians, including many conservative Catholics.
His policy is also closely aligned with many conservative American Catholic bishops, who were often in contradiction with Francis’ more progressive approach to direct the Church.
The republican president implored Catholics last year to vote for him. In October, when he approached Al Smith’s Charity Dinner in New York, which collects millions of dollars for Catholic charities, Trump said: “You have to go out and vote. And Catholics, you have to vote for me.”
Many Catholics have done so. During the 2024 elections, Trump won the Catholic vote, according to the vote, a survey of more than 120,000 voters. In 2020, the Catholic vote was also divided between Joe Biden, but in 2024, 54% of Catholic voters supported Trump and 44% supported Kamala Harris.
For Trump, the support of Catholics has not won Francis’
But while Trump may have won the Catholic vote, he never conquered Francis.
Vice -president JD Vance, a Catholic who briefly met Francis the day before his death, rejected the pontiff’s disagreements with the administration, telling journalists this week that the Pope was “a much wider figure” than American politics – a man who led a church with 1.4 billion members in the world.
“I am aware that he had disagreements with some of the policies of our administration,” said Vance. “He also had a lot of agreements with some of the policies of our administration. I will not lower the heritage of man by speaking of politics. ”
Trump also met once with Francis, during a largely cordial meeting in the Vatican in 2017. But their differences persisted.
In February of this year, Francis sent a letter to the American bishops who was similar to his comments on immigration almost a decade earlier. He denounced the Trump administration which embarks on mass expulsion plans and noted that in the Bible, the infant Jesus and his family were themselves refugees in Egypt, fleeing a threat to their lives.
Some leading bishops have applauded some of the new Trump administration initiatives on the “choice of school” and policies defining sex as determined at birth. Francis, while respecting the teachings of the Church on sexuality, took a more tolerant position towards LGBTQ +people.
Other eminent bishops, named by Francis, are more sympathetic with his priorities. They include the new Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Robert Mcelroy.
Catholics are a diversified group and act accordingly
But the Catholic vote is not monolithic. John Fea, professor of history at the University of Messiah in Pennsylvania, said many conservative Catholics, even if they respect the Pope’s office, “do not like his progressive opinions” on immigrants and his authorization for blessings for same -sex couples.
“The views of many conservative American Catholics with Trump’s populism brand: strong boundaries, pro-life on abortion, concern for the critical theory of race in schools, etc.”, Fea, author of “believe me: the evangelical road to Donald Trump,” said email.
On the other hand, he hypothesized that many progressive Catholics who share the problems of social justice of Pope Francis probably did not vote for Trump.
In addition to migration, Francis also differs from Trump on the environment, writing an encyclical call for climate action, unlike the president’s push to bring back fossil fuels. Francis also firmly opposed the death penalty, which Trump supports.
Stylistically, Trump’s great personality also contrasts with the more self-deprecating and welcoming tone of Francis, immortalized by his “Who am I to judge?” Answer to a question about gay priests.
Trump and Francis have shared certain political objectives on issues such as abortion and religious freedom, and American-vatican relations involve more than two people, said Steven Millies, director of the Bernadin Center of the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago.
“But the alignments were more at the diplomatic level than at personal or political level, of course,” said Millies, professor of public theology.
“They are deeply different people – those who had been trained by Jesuit spirituality and lived his life by deepening the faith he shared with the world, the other that mangle the quotes of the scriptures, sells Bibles for a personal profit and uses the Christian faith as a brand identity in a market competition.”
Smith, a religion writer for the Associated Press, reported to Pittsburgh.
Originally published:
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