The Vatican distances itself from the "messiah" Donald Trump

RomeDonald Trump's arrival at the White House has not only shaken trade relations with the EU, but also revived the tensions Washington maintained with the Vatican during the tycoon's first term.

Trump's deputy, Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, traveled to Rome this week with his family to celebrate Easter. On Saturday, he was received by the Vatican's Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin. According to the Vatican statement, the meeting "included an exchange of views on the international situation, especially with regard to countries affected by war, political tension, and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners." And this morning, he briefly greeted the Pope at his official residence, Casa Santa Marta. In his traditional Easter message, the Pope lamented the "contempt for the weak, the marginalized, and migrants.".

The letter sent by the Pontiff to the American bishops asking them to speak out against the deportations of migrants just a few weeks after Trump's inauguration was one of the first signs. Church historian and professor at Villanova University in Philadelphia, Massimo Faggioli, explains to ARA that Pope Francis addressed this letter to the bishops "to support them," but also "to remind them of their duty to warn Catholics against a certain social message of hatred toward immigrants and the insistence... Vance suggested that the American bishops' opposition to the deportations of immigrants was related to the income they receive through Church-linked organizations like Caritas. "Are they really worried about migrants or about their budgets?"

Faggioli, recently published essay Da Dio on Trump. Catholic Crisis and American Politics [From God to Trump: Catholic Crisis and American Politics], he asserts that in the United States there exists "a Catholicism that has culturally aligned itself with Trumpism, which sees the Vatican and Europe as a corrupt world. There are some figures who have had no problem saying so openly." And he adds: "One of them has been appointed United States ambassador to the Holy See."

One of Trump's first decisions upon arriving in the White House was to propose Brian Burch, president of the influential ultraconservative group Catholic Vote and a known detractor of Pope Francis, to head the diplomatic delegation to the Holy See. "Brian is a devout Catholic, the father of nine children. He represented me well in the last election, and I received more Catholic votes than any presidential candidate in history," said the American president.

The Pontiff—who could have vetoed the appointment, but didn't—responded a few days later by choosing progressive Cardinal Robert McElroy, a strong critic of Trump's immigration policy, as the new archbishop of Washington, one of the most important dioceses in the country.

In Rome, this poker game between the White House and the Vatican was interpreted as a clear message from Francis to distance himself from the American president, who has become a kind of messiah for many of his voters after surviving an attack during the election campaign. "Burch has a very different profile from her predecessor Sara Greengrass, who was a very skilled ambassador," analyzed the former head of the CIA in Italy, Robert Gorelick, at a conference in Rome. "Trump chose conflict with the Vatican and the Pope chose McElroy," added Gorelick.

This isn't the first time Francis has stood up to Trump. In 2020, during the Republican's first presidential term, the Pontiff refused to meet with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo following the US administration's criticism of the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Beijing and the Holy See. Five years later, the situation is more serious, with a Pope in a slump due to health problems but above all due to the failure of Vatican diplomacy in Ukraine and Gaza.

The historian believes there is "a European superiority complex" that has led to the underestimation of these new Catholics in the United States, such as Vice President JD Vance. "But they've returned to the White House; they must be taken seriously," he warns.

The end-of-pontificate climate experienced during the Pope's recent hospitalization highlighted how the most conservative current within the Church is already mobilizing to influence the choice of Francis's successor. Accompanied by a network of far-right propaganda media outlets that spread their messages and have their epicenter in the United States, Trump's arrival in the White House has strengthened them, provoking a shock to their aspirations. "They want to rewrite history, for example by saying that the war in Ukraine was started by the Ukrainians, but also the future," Faggioli concludes.