Wall Street Journal
By Francis Rocca and Felicia Schwartz
February 18, 2016
An
extraordinary dispute between Pope Francis and Donald Trump broke out
Thursday after the pontiff said the Republican presidential candidate’s
immigration stands make
him “not Christian,” prompting Mr. Trump to retort that questioning his
personal faith was “disgraceful.”
The
exchange began when the pope, an outspoken supporter of immigrants’
rights, weighed in on a debate that is at the heart of the Republican
primary.
In
wide-ranging remarks during a news conference aboard his flight back to
Rome after a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border, the pope also touched on
the sensitive topics
of birth control and gay marriage. He said the use of contraception
could be justified in regions hit by the Zika virus. And when asked if
Catholic politicians must vote against same-sex unions, he said they
should “vote according to their well-formed conscience.”
In
response to a question about Mr. Trump’s proposal to build a wall to
keep illegal immigrants from entering the U.S., the pope said: “A person
who thinks only about
building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not
Christian.” He added, “We must see if he said things in that way, and in
this I give the benefit of the doubt.”
Campaigning
in South Carolina before Saturday’s primary, Mr. Trump said, “For a
religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful.” He also
suggested the pope
had been manipulated by the Mexican government—a charge officials there
denied.
Later,
in a televised event Thursday night on CNN, Mr. Trump called Pope
Francis a “wonderful guy” and said “I don’t think this is a fight.” Mr.
Trump added he would meet
with the Pope “anytime he wants.”
Immigration
has been the subject of some of the most heated rhetoric of the
Republican campaign and debates, with Mr. Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen.
Marco Rubio all calling
for stronger security on the U.S.-Mexico border.
In
the 2012 general election, about 25% of U.S. voters identified
themselves as Catholic, according to exit polls. President Barack Obama
won 50% of Catholic voters, who
included many Hispanics, and 48% backed Republican candidate Mitt
Romney.
In
South Carolina, the key GOP voting bloc is not Catholics but
evangelicals, with about 65% of Republican voters identifying as
born-again or evangelical in 2012 exit
polls. This election cycle, Mr. Trump won the majority of evangelicals
in New Hampshire and Mr. Cruz won them in Iowa.
Joanna
Horres, a homemaker who led the crowd in pro-Trump chants at the event
in Kiawah Island, S.C., said she has backed him since he declared he
would run for president,
and she still does.
“It
makes my opinion of him even stronger,” she said. “He’s not afraid to
speak up to anybody, even the pope. He’s obviously a Christian who is
secure in his salvation;
he doesn’t need the approval of the pope either.”
Mr.
Trump’s opponents tried to steer clear of the controversy on the
campaign trail on Thursday. “Listen, that’s between Donald and the pope.
I’m not going to get in the
middle of that,” Mr. Cruz said, declining to take questions about the
matter.
Mr.
Rubio said the U.S. has the right to control who comes into the U.S.
and when and how people do that. “There’s a balance here between being
compassionate and also
being responsible, especially in a world where, today, radical
jihadists are seeking to use the immigration laws of countries to
infiltrate killers and fighters into foreign countries,” Mr. Rubio said
on CNN.
Mr.
Trump is no stranger to controversial comments, but his clash with the
pope raises new stakes and moves both men into uncharted waters.
John
C. Green, an expert on religion and politics at the University of
Akron, said the moment is an unprecedented one. Religious leaders
sometimes criticize policies and
ideas put forth by politicians, but he said he couldn’t recall a time
when a leader leveled a personal broadside.
“It’s
not that uncommon for religious leaders to argue with politicians over
politics, where a Catholic leader might say so-and-so’s position on
abortion or climate change
is not consistent with the church’s teachings. But I’ve never seen
anything like this,” he said.
Conversely,
he said, when a politician comes in for criticism from a religious
leader, he or she typically simply acknowledges a disagreement. “It’s
not a confrontational
reaction,” said Mr. Green.
In
his comments Thursday, Mr. Trump told the crowd that he is a Christian
“and proud of it.” He suggested that the pope, whom he has previously
called “political,” was
unduly influenced by the Mexican government and saw only “one side” of
the story. “He said negative things about me because the Mexican
government convinced him that Trump is not a good guy,” Mr. Trump said.
A
spokesman for Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said Mr. Trump’s
proposal for a border wall was not a subject that came up in talks
between the pontiff and Mr. Peña
Nieto.
Mr.
Trump, a Presbyterian, also re-aired a dire prediction he had made last
year: that the Vatican is a top target for Islamic State terrorists,
and he would be the best
commander in chief to keep it safe.
“If
and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which, as everyone knows, is
ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would’ve only
wished and prayed that
Donald Trump would’ve been president,” he said Thursday.
Mr.
Trump has drawn particular ire from critics over his call for deporting
millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, and his labeling of
Mexican immigrants as drug
traffickers and rapists.
In
interviews after the rally, about a dozen Trump supporters said the
businessman’s forceful rebuke bolstered their support for him.
Larry
DiCenzo, a retired school principal who lives in Charleston, said he
was shocked the pope would criticize Mr. Trump’s religion. Mr. DiCenzo, a
Catholic, said the
feud wouldn’t change the way he voted on Saturday.
“I
liked Trump’s response, it was to the point, which is the reason why I
like Trump, because he says it as it is, and he is truthful,” Mr.
DiCenzo said. “It astounds
me that [the pope] would say that and I disagree with him.”
Liberty
University President Jerry Falwell Jr., a Trump supporter, told CNN on
Thursday that the pope’s comments went too far. “Jesus never intended to
give instructions
to political leaders on how to run a country,” Mr. Falwell said.
Los
Angeles Archbishop José Gómez, an immigrant from Mexico who has
publicly pushed for changes to U.S. immigration law, said Thursday that
the pope doesn’t see immigration
as a political issue. “It’s about people, not economics or politics,”
Archbishop Gómez said, while waiting for his flight back to Los Angeles
in the El Paso, Texas, airport. He had attended Mass the day before in
Juarez, Mexico. “What the pope is saying is
it’s a global issue, let’s find a solution,” he said.
Archbishop
Gómez declined to comment specifically on the pope’s words or Mr.
Trump’s reaction, because he hadn’t read the full transcript of the
pope’s remarks. But he
said: “If you follow the Bible, you have to be open to people
migrating. The Bible says clearly you have to welcome the stranger.” He
added that “security at the border is still important.”
Some
Mexicans said they were grateful the pope spoke out. “Is there a more
hated person in the world right now than Donald Trump?” asked Oscar
Tello, 31, a tennis coach
in Mexico City. “I’m glad the pope pointed out that Mr. Trump is not
acting like a Christian.”
Mari
Rojas, 37, who sells tacos on the street, said the dislike for Mr.
Trump is not entirely about his proposal to build a wall between both
nations—or even to have Mexico
pay for it. “It was the way he described Mexicans as rapists and
criminals. He is not a good man, and our pope is just saying that Jesus
would not approve.”
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