✣ Pope Francis clashes with Donald Trump
What happened? During a press conference on his flight back from Mexico, Pope Francis was asked about US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall along America’s southern border. The Pope said: “A person who thinks only of building walls anywhere, rather than building bridges, is not a Christian.” Francis said he hadn’t heard exactly what Trump said and would give him the “benefit of the doubt”. Trump said the Pope’s words were “disgraceful”. What the British media are saying Many media outlets around the world picked up and commented on this story, noting that Trump’s combative response probably appealed to many of his supporters. John Sopel at the BBC wrote: “The one thing we’ve learnt about Donald Trump since he entered the presidential race is that turning the other cheek is not his style. Ever. He’s lashed out at his critics and bullied his opponents. He has mocked the disabled and had protesters bundled out of his rallies.” Writing for the Telegraph, under the headline “Donald Trump v Pope Francis? Trump wins”, Tim Stanley wrote: “The kind of Americans backing Trump won’t care that he’s had an argument with a Pope they brand a ‘social justice warrior’.” What US Catholics are saying Two columnists suggested Donald Trump and Pope Francis had more in common than you might think. Matthew Schmitz at The Washington Post said they were both “outsiders shaking up their establishments”. While Trump attacks Republican elites and party orthodoxy, Francis “challenges a hidebound Vatican bureaucracy and flirts with revising Catholic doctrine”. Both deploy similar rhetoric, said Ross Douthat at The New York Times: “Trump calls people ‘low energy’, ‘liar’ and ‘loser’, while Francis prefers ‘Pharisee’ and ‘self-absorbed Promethean neo-Pelagian’.” While they both promise “deliverance” from their institutions, he said, they downplayed the “rules, customs and traditions protecting people from the rule of novelty and whim”.
