Trump, the Pope and the perils of mixing faith with politics

I’m uneasy when politics, especially party politics, gets mixed up with religion. Commonly it is religion that suffers. Yet the Church has an imperative to speak out on social justice and moral issues. These thoughts were on my mind as I observed the rather bizarre goings on last week, widely covered in the media – President Trump criticising Pope Leo, reposting images that showed Jesus embracing him or showed him as a Jesus figure – he claimed, unconvincingly I thought, he was shown as a doctor, but who knows.

On Times Radio Breakfast (Tuesday) Stig Abel interviewed Joseph Arlinghaus, founder of Valor America, a Trump supporting group. A Catholic, he played down the controversy – “a minor tempest in a tea pot in my world”. He thought Trump’s criticism of the Pope was ‘gentle’ for Trump who was usually ‘brutal’ to his enemies, critics and opponents. Asked if the Pope was entitled to speak out as he did, Arlinghaus said “the Pope’s a big boy … he can handle it”. He was somewhat presumptuous – “We Catholics, especially devout Catholics like myself, are pretty sophisticated about these kind of issues”. Hmm… He described the Pope as “a religious leader whose advice is important” – something of an understatement for a Catholic I would have thought. He said the Pope wouldn’t have the information that a President or Prime Minister would have and was “not the right person to make important military decisions”. Fair enough, but I doubt if the Pope was presuming to do that! He admired the way Trump had drawn together a ‘peculiar’ working class conservative coalition, feared Iran “marching towards a nuclear weapon”, but accepted that the assault on Iran “could be the worst decision ever”. Over all he would give the President “leeway on stupid comments and stupid tweets”.

The issue was still being covered by Thursday morning. On Today with David McCullagh (RTÉ Radio 1) the host had an interesting interview with Mike Mulvaney, former acting White House Chief of Staff in Trump’s first term. He ran a group called ‘Catholics for Trump’! He did not care for Trump’s recent ‘religious’ antics, wondering what possible kind of voter the President could be appealing to – “I don’t think that voter exists”. The Catholic vote wasn’t monolithic – he said it was a swing vote – could go Democrat, Republican or maybe, in the fallout from the current controversy, stay at home next time. He wondered if anyone had told the President that this stuff was a bad idea. He didn’t care for Trump’s criticism of the Pope and said that it didn’t help the Republican vote, in fact that it was “politically, a very stupid thing to do”.

Oliver Callan (RTÉ Radio 1, Thursday) also highlighted the controversy, in a satirical way. The host said Trump’s only “quibble” was with – “the Pope’s outrageous call for peace and humanity”! More seriously, he called the Pope “a very dignified man who was rightly ignoring the President and getting on with his own job” – in this case a pastoral visit to Africa. He quoted from ‘MAGA Bishop’ Joseph Strickland – who said he stood with the Holy Father and his call for peace. The bishop had said it was “very dark when religion is used to justify immoral behaviour – using religion to justify especially dropping bombs is contradicting what the faith was about”.

The story was still on the go by Friday. On The Last Word (Today FM) there was reference to Pete Hegseth using a garbled scripture quote that had in fact figured in the film Pulp Fiction, all about vengeance and wrath, and about how his tattoos suggested that God approved of what the USA was at in the Middle East. It gets more surreal as time goes on.

News in Depth (EWTN, Friday) provided a useful roundup of the controversy up to that point. We heard Trump saying “I’m all about the Gospel but I can’t allow, as President of the United State, Iran to have a nuclear weapon”. Bishop James Masa, Chair of the Committee on Doctrine of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he cringed hearing Vice President J.D. Vance urging the Pope to be careful when talking theology (as he, Vance, would be when talking about politics) and he gave a very comprehensive outline of Just War Theory.

If only they’d all stop fighting and study that, or do some gardening.

Pick of the week

NATIONWIDE RTÉ One, Saturday, April 25, 8.15am Forty years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Colm Flynn looks at the Irish humanitarian response in the aftermath and in the years since.

SONGS OF PRAISE BBC One, Sunday, April 26, 2.15pm Modern Hymn Writers: The Rev Kate Bottley explores the art of hymn writing, meeting some of Britain’s foremost Christian worship leaders as they craft new songs using modern-day language.

EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND Channel 4, Friday, May 1, 8.15 am The Sister: Debra’s hippy sister shows up unexpectedly and announces that she’s decided to become a nun. Touching and believable. (S4 Ep6)