Papal Bull: Why Is Francis Trying to Smackdown Trump?

Jacob Heilbrunn

Politics,

Rome has weighed in on the Republican primary.

With Pope Francis essentially condemning Donald Trump as unchristian, the U.S. presidential race has taken another bizarre turn. The Pope had already held a Mass at the border between Mexico and America. Next, while flying back to Rome, he goaded Trump further. He said that the true gospel is that “building walls” is “not in the gospel.” He added, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.”

That’s true enough, I suppose, for Israelis whose wall has effectively stanched terrorism emanating from West Bank. But the truth is that when it comes to the American election, this is nothing but papal bull. Since when does the Vatican get to determine how Americans should vote?

Of course Francis says that a smackdown of Trump isn’t really his aim and that he’ll “give him the benefit of the doubt” (not that Trump seems to be asking for it). “As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that,” Francis said.

But what Edward Gibbon referred to in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as the “blast of the ecclesiastical trumpet” was surely unmistakable. Few declarations since Pio Nono announced the infallibility doctrine have created as much of a furor, at least for the length of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, thereby demonstrating just how far the presidential race has degenerated into name-calling. Indeed, now that Rome has weighed in on the Republican primary, it only seems appropriate to invoke Cicero’s famous lament: O tempora! O mores!

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