As I scrolled through my Facebook newsfeed last Thursday, I came across a Catholic Meme (yes, they are a thing) shared by a friend of mine. “Brace yourself” it said, “Pope Francis gave an interview on the airplane again”. Immediately, I was intrigued. The last time the Pope gave an interview on a plane, it was on his return flight from Philadelphia to Rome in September 2015, and he touched on such provocative topics such as annulment and conscientious objection. Pope Francis was returning from his first trip to Mexico, where, among other things, he had visited the U.S./Mexico border and blessed undocumented immigrants. Whatever he had to say on the plane, it was going to be good.
And sure enough, Pope Francis did not let us down. When a reporter asked the Pope what he thought of Trump, Pope Francis said “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” referring to Trump’s notoriously hard stance against immigration and his plan to build a wall separating the U.S. from Mexico. While the Pope did not outright condemn Trump, nor did he endorse any other presidential candidates, he made it very clear who he wasn’t endorsing.
But it gets better. Apparently, Donald Trump, who has managed to offend the majority of America, was offended by the Pope’s comments. “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful”, Trump said in a press release. As he read directly from his script, eyes glued to the paper (my Public Speaking teacher would have been horrified by his form), Trump seemed indignant at the Pope’s remarks.
The saga did not end there. By Friday, Trump had tried to smooth the conflict over. At a GOP town hall meeting in South Carolina, Trump first insinuated that the Pope’s comments were the product of his meeting with the Mexican government, saying that he had only considered one side of the story. He then moved on to compare the wall he plans to build between Mexico and the U.S. to the wall surrounding the Vatican- although the moderator quickly pointed out that people come and go relatively freely through the wall surrounding the Vatican. Finally, he said that he “didn’t like fighting with the Pope”, and announced that he thought the Pope’s comments were not nearly as harsh as what the media initially reported.
Donald Trump, in his first press release responding to the Pope’s comments, stated he was proud to be a Christian. The Pope stated that Trump was not a Christian because of his plan to exclude people from the country. Although Trump responded to the Pope’s accusations, he did not address the human aspect that drove the Pope to take a stance against Trump and his wall. He addressed the Pope’s comments on the grounds that the Pope had spoken against him, but did not try to negate Pope Francis’ main point: that Trump was trying to divide people rather than connect them, and that he was trying to exclude and alienate people rather than help them. Christians are called to do the opposite of what Trump has endorsed thus far in his campaign. Christians are called to welcome people, and to help those in need. As a Catholic myself, I agree with Pope Francis: those who seek to build walls where they could build bridges are not Christian, regardless of whether they, like Trump, believe themselves to be.
