Getting the best free publicity money can buy, 69-year-old real estate mogul Donald Trump got denounced from President Barack Obama Feb. 17 and today from Pope Francis. Injecting himself into the hotly-contested South Carolina primary, Barack said he didn’t think Trump would become president. “I continue to believe that Mr. Trump will not be president,” said Obama, more cognizant than most that Trump leads by a wide margin in South Carolina and nationally. Hazarding an opinion isn’t too presidential for Obama, beginning, like many Democrats, to watch the same kind of excitement over Trump that existed in 1980 when former Calif. Gov. Ronald Reagan swept the nation and upended President Jimmy Carter. While locked out of politics and confined to the Oval Office, Obama can only sit on the sidelines, helpless to change the 2016 outcome.
Obama’s foray into the 2016 campaign, practically endorsing Democratic front-runner former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, backfired, giving Trump more free publicity and galvanizing the GOP. With the Trump phenomenon getting worldwide press, Pope Francis chimed in telling the faithful it “is not Christian” to talk about building walls and deporting illegal aliens. “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” said Francis, knowing that Trump doesn’t “only” think about defending the U.S. border and protecting national security. Speaking to reporters on his papal jet back to Rome from a visit to Mexico, Francis mirrored the anti-American sentiment so deeply ingrained in the Southern hemisphere. Hailing originally from Argentian, the land of Ernest Ché Guevara, Pope Francis identifies with socialism.
Championing the cause of eradicating poverty around the globe, especially growing up in Argentina, Pope Francis, like others from poor continents, unfairly blames the U.S. for not doing enough. Francis knows the drug smuggling and illegal immigrations problem faced by the U.S. at the Mexican border. Trump’s campaign started June 16, 2015 promising to shore up the border, build a wall and defend U.S. sovereignty. “He doesn’t know me,” said Trump, responding to the Pope’s remarks, calling the comments “disgraceful.” Overstepping his boundaries, Francis meant well but stepped into the hotly-contested GOP race. While Trump’s not Catholic, 56-years-ago, a Catholic presidential candidate, John F. Kennedy, said, “the Church does not speak for me.” Whatever tensions exist in Latin America with the U.S., the Pope doesn’t influence U.S. foreign policy.
Evangelical Protestant voters committed to Trump or other GOP candidates in South Carolina won’t take the pontiff’s words too seriously. Getting razzed by the Pope only ups Trump’s status, knowing he’s getting global attention. If anything, the Pope’s remarks raise questions about Catholic candidates like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) or former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whose Catholicism could be seen by voters as a problem. Only two days before the South Carolina primary, the Pope’s remarks could put pressure on Rubio and Jeb to denounce the Pope’s comments or face questions about their independence from the Vatican. Today’s GOP, especially religious conservatives like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texa), raises questions about the separation of church and state. Kenndy made it clear to Protestant ministers Sept. 12, 1960: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute . . ”
When former President George W. Bush was in office [Jan. 20, 2001 to Jan. 2009] he routinely held bible study at the White House, violating the “absolute” separation Kennedy talked about. Religious conservatives, like Cruz, want to implement prayer in public schools, despite the Constitution’s “separation clause,” keeping that wall, as Kenney said, absolute. Chiming in to the 2016 presidential race, the pontiff defended his political involvement. “Thank God he said I was a politician, because Aristotle defined the human person as a ‘animal politicus.’ So at least I am a human person. As to whether I am a pawn—well, maybe, I don’t know. Ill’ leave that up to your judgment and that of people,” said Francis, reacting to Trump’s past comments that he’s too political. Heading the Vatican, the Pope is considered a head-of-state, making him by his own terms political.
Since Trump doesn’t “only” think about building walls, the Pope can’t question his Christianity. Getting into the world’s dialogue, Trump should be thrilled that two of the world’s most influential leaders, Obama and Pope Francis, have commented about his presidential run. Unlike the Pope, whose term lasts until he expires, Obama has 11 months left as a lame duck, confined to the sidelines while the nation picks its next president. Wanting to get back in the headlines, Obama hopes his trip to Cuba or last battle with the GOP-led Congress over his Supreme Court pick get him back in the news. “The Pope only heard one side of the story,” said Trump, responding to Francis’s concerns about immigrants. “He doesn’t understand it,” said Trump, referring to the risks of terrorism from a porous U.S. border. Whatever the controversy, Trump continues to dominate media coverage.
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