ROME – President-elect Donald Trump and Pope Francis are leaders with such vastly different agendas and perspectives that it’s tempting to imagine the two men right now being involved in a high-stakes game of chess, as both prepare for “The Donald” to take the oath of office a second time.
Trump opened the chess game on 20 December by moving his knight – naming Brian Burch his new ambassador to the Holy See. Burch is a veteran political operative and cultural warrior whose advocacy group, CatholicVote, is credited with helping Trump reconquer a majority of Catholics in 2024 after splitting them roughly down the middle with Joe Biden in 2020.
