Dem
47
GOP
53
There aren't too many presidential slogans more famous that Theodore Roosevelt's "Speak softly and carry a big stick." Donald Trump does not seem to have heard about it, though, because he and his team seem invariably to take the polar opposite approach: "Bluster loudly and carry a small... stick."
This certainly applies to the "negotiations" with Iran that have taken place in the last month or so. It's a shame that Google trends does not pay attention to capitalization, because we'd bet that the use of "taco" is steady these days, but the use of "TACO" is way, way up. However, this item isn't actually about the Trump Administration vs. Iran. Nope, it's about the Trump Administration vs. the Catholic Church.
We had an item earlier this week about how the members of the Trump administration are embracing a perverse and extreme form of Christianity, and how that has put the White House in conflict with the Catholic Church and with Pope Leo XIV. Boy, was that timely, as it turns out, thanks to a story first reported by the Free Press.
This administration is very used to evangelical leaders abiding by whatever marching orders that Trump or his underlings might give. It would seem that Team Trump thought the same would work with Catholic leaders. So, in January, they summoned Cardinal Chrisophe Pierre, then the Holy See's ambassador to the U.S., to lay down the law. The administration was displeased with some of things Leo was saying about THAT month's war—the one in Venezuela. According to sources who were present at the meeting, Trump officials told Pierre that "the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world," and warned him that "the Catholic Church had better take [our] side." Reportedly, at least one Trump underling even went so far as to mention the Avignon Papacy, a situation in the 14th century where a succession of popes lived in France, and took their marching orders from the French crown.
The White House has pushed back at this reporting, calling it "exaggerated." There is no doubt, however, that it's largely or entirely true. First, "exaggerated" is not the same thing as "never happened." Second, VP J.D. Vance, who thinks he's running for president, and who will need Catholic votes as part of that effort, tap danced like Fred Astaire when he was asked about the news, so as to avoid taking a position. Third, there are too many weird details here that nobody could plausibly have made up, like the Avignon thing. Fourth, shortly after the meeting, and without explanation at that time, the Vatican canceled a planned papal visit scheduled to coincide with the United States' 250th anniversary celebrations.
The members of the Trump administration are clearly drunk on power. This appears to have caused them to forget that Trumpism is a movement that has lasted a decade or so, and is not likely to last much longer. Compare that to the Catholic Church, which has been a going concern for the better part of 2,000 years. The Pope's power comes from sources that go beyond the ones that power Trump (or any other U.S. president), and he is not going to be cowed by a secular leader's idle threats.
That said, there certainly is a political dimension to the papacy, especially today. So while Leo apparently has no interest in meeting with Donald Trump or any of his minions, he did just have a nice sit-down with Obama Administration insider David Axelrod. This is widely being interpreted as a prelim for a papal meeting with Obama himself, sometime in the near future. Who knows what the long-term result of that meeting might be (joint appearances?), but if it does happen, and if the news becomes public, Trump is going to blow a gasket.
The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last took a look at this situation in yesterday's column. JVL, who is Catholic, has an awareness of pretty abstruse doctrinal issues that don't exactly come up in everyday conversation, and because he strongly takes the Catholic side of the Catholic vs. Trump-vangelical fight. But the main argument of the piece is the same one we put forward (backed by the lion's share of the readers, as it turned out): The Trump administration is not actually religious, they are political actors who are just using a very corrupted version of their "religion" as a cloak. That is going to be a problem for people who are actually religious, like the pope.
Given the festering wound that has presented itself, Newsweek did a rundown of the relevant polling. There's not a lot of it, but there is some, and two themes come through. The first is that Leo is far more popular with Americans than Trump is. The Primate of Italy has a net approval of +34, while the primate at Mar-a-Lago is hovering around -20. And the gap between them is getting larger, not smaller.
Meanwhile, there aren't too many pollsters specifically asking Catholics how they feel about Trump, but Pew Research Center is doing so. In the 2024 election, 62% of white Catholics voted for Trump, while 40% of Latino Catholics did so. His job approval is dropping rapidly with both groups; in a poll taken right before the Iran war commenced, only half of white Catholics approved of Trump (it was still in the low 60s as late as the end of January) while only 23% of Latino Catholics did (down from the low 30s in late January). It is not probable that the messy Iran war, and the calls for genocide against the Iranian people, are going to improve these figures.
And so, we say again, this bears watching. Republicans very much need Catholic votes. And they are counting on Catholic Latinos, in particular, in Texas and Florida, in particular. If Catholics vote Democratic in much larger numbers than in 2024, or even if they just stay home rather than voting, that could spell disaster for the GOP in November. (Z)