Donald Trump may have got his front row seat at Pope Francis’ funeral, but the Pope rebuked him from beyond the grave anyway.
The posthumous criticism came after Trump was mobbed by a group of world leaders including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral.
The pressure from the European leaders appeared to pay off after Trump sat down briefly with Zelensky before the funeral, and then the White House said he would meet again with him afterwards.
However it was Trump’s signature first term policy of building a border wall that appeared to draw papal ire in the funeral eulogy. The policy was much criticized by Francis in his lifetime, and Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who delivered the homily, made sure that the late Pope’s hostility to the policy was not forgotten.
Re said: “Pope Francis incessantly raised his voice imploring peace and calling for reason and honest negotiation to find possible solutions… ‘Build bridges, not walls,’ was an exhortation he repeated many times.”
Trump and Francis had clashed repeatedly over the years, beginning in early 2016 when Francis criticized Trump’s plan to build a border wall, saying that anyone who thought only of building walls and not bridges “is not Christian.”
Trump responded angrily, calling it “disgraceful” for a religious leader to question his faith and accusing Mexico of manipulating the Pope. The bitter and very public exchange saw Trump label Francis as “a very political person.”
The homily may only have been an implicit rebuke, but after such a public clash over building walls there can be no mistake that it was a deliberate and pointed one from the Vatican in front of millions watching around the world.
Trump and the Pope had a cordial meeting in 2017 despite the public barbs that had been thrown, but tensions simmered beneath the surface. Francis continued to speak out against Trump’s policies, condemning his withdrawal from climate agreements and his rhetoric on immigration. Trump and his supporters, in turn, painted Francis as a political operator meddling beyond his spiritual role.
On Trump’s return to office, their feud exploded back into public view after Francis denounced Trump’s plans for mass deportations as “a disgrace,” accusing him of punishing the vulnerable.
Trump’s allies hit back, mocking the Pope’s criticisms by pointing to the high, secure walls around Vatican City.
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