Odds on Peter: Trump vs. the Pope

Anyone who reads me regularly knows I am not the sort of Catholic who grabs the smelling salts for every seeming insult or ignorant remark made about the Church.

Ever since Madonna danced before a burning cross, I’ve judged most of the controversial “scandals” against Catholicism to be weak broths that turn to mere water in the face of a supernatural Church that has watched the last 2,000 years of governments, political movements and infant nations parade by its Petrine seat before disappearing from sight.

Even the recent, so-called “Avignon threat” reportedly made by the Trump administration didn’t light my fire. Given the known temperament of the administration, the whole truth of the matter being unknowable and the Christian world being in the midst of the octave of Easter, I chalked it up to the devil having his usual frolic during our holiest days and was content to let social media burn itself out in the entertainment outrage to which it is addicted.

Then, of course, on the day Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter – and it is crucial for all of us to remember we are still living the Easter season and should be considering all we think we know and all we cannot begin to imagine – President Donald Trump let loose an unhinged diatribe against the Vicar of Christ, whom he seems to imagine is an ordinary politician and ideologue.

The catalyst for his rant appeared to be Pope Leo XIV’s Easter discourses, where he proclaimed for peace, humility and dialogue and against pride and intemperance.

Unsurprisingly, our rather self-referential president saw the pope’s lessons as big fat missiles aimed solely at him and, after his rant, topped it off by releasing a gaudy image of himself seemingly portrayed as Jesus Christ, healing the United States.

I mean, even a temperate girl like me is appalled.

Christ has big shoulders, and He can take that nonsense, but the blasphemous image – even if only meant to troll – tells us something troubling about the mindset of the president (who has since said that he thought the image depicted himself “being a doctor”) and those who made excuses for him. It tells us that he (and they) are comfortable with making golden calves of their ideology.

And they can’t handle the pope not falling in line with their idolatry.
Ideological idolatry is a true spiritual sickness – one that, increasingly, we’re all falling into, no matter where on the political scale we find ourselves – and it is madly encouraged by social media.

A spiritually sick society can quickly go into both spiritual and corporeal sepsis because its weakened immune system cannot effectively battle evil thoughts, destructive actions and mindless sputterings of rage broadcast like bullets from a tommy gun, their effects broad, wild and indiscriminate.

Pope Leo is right to preach “blessed are the peacemakers.” Peace should be humanity’s daily quest, and we establish armies and guards in order to help preserve peace from what is malevolent and unnatural, yet connected to the very first sins in Eden.

We need popes to keep reminding us that peace is the prize, even though guards and armies must be in place. Jesus Himself served soldiers’ requests (Luke 7:9), healed them, declaring “no more of this!” (Luke 22:51) and showed them mercy (Luke 23:34). It was a centurion who stood at the foot of the cross and proclaimed Jesus “the son of God!” (Matthew 27:54). They are necessary, but we pray not needed.

Catholics will always be loyalty suspects in the United States of America. We love our country, but we will not (and should not) put it before Christ or His Church or the successors to His apostles. Movements move on. Even the most storied countries lose their way. Governments sometimes completely evaporate, replaced by new ones and again administered (like the Church) by faulty humanity. Yet, Christ and His Church remain.