Trump’s attack on the papacy is likely to backfire

[Shadow Wolf]

Hey, I thought liberals espoused separation of church and state. Now there is a religious test for the Presidency?

The article is not about liberals, and has nothing to do with liberals. Rather it is about Trump and his relation to Catholics and how it partains to the poltics of the Vatican and, how there is a split in the Vatican between thise who support Trump and the Pope (with the two being opposed to each other).
You only needed read the OP to know this, and the discourse of the thread would have been more apparent.

 

[columbus]

Hey, I thought liberals espoused separation of church and state. Now there is a religious test for the Presidency?

There is and always has been.
Imagine an open atheist running for President.
Or even a Jew or Muslim.

Tom
ETA ~Trump has lowered the bar for Christian morality and behavior so much that he might have done serious damage to that religious test. If his lifestyle and values are Christian then why would anyone care any more?~

 

[Shaul]

The article is not about liberals, and has nothing to do with liberals. Rather it is about Trump and his relation to Catholics and how it partains to the poltics of the Vatican and, how there is a split in the Vatican between thise who support Trump and the Pope (with the two being opposed to each other).
You only needed read the OP to know this, and the discourse of the thread would have been more apparent.

Oh, well, allow me to amend my comment. I thought all fair open minded anti-Trumpers want separation of church and state. So do they now have a religious test of the Presidency?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Oh, well, allow me to amend my comment. I thought all fair open minded anti-Trumpers want separation of church and state. So do they now have a religious test of the Presidency?

If you'd carefully read through, that really isn't a part of what is being discussed.

 

[Shaul]

If you'd carefully read through, that really isn't a part of what is being discussed.

Back at you. The very name of this thread is “
Trump’s attack on the papacy is likely to backfire” In other words, attacking the Pope (a religious test) disqualifies someone from the Presidency.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

There is and always has been.
Imagine an open atheist running for President.
Or even a Jew or Muslim.

Tom
ETA ~Trump has lowered the bar for Christian morality and behavior so much that he might have done serious damage to that religious test. If his lifestyle and values are Christian then why would anyone care any more?~

I suppose we could have fun trying to decide which circle of Hell Dante would have come across Trump in. Would he be boiled in the blood of his aggressiveness and shot at by minotaurs with arrows for his encouraging violence? Eternally deprived of satisfying his endless greed and contending against hoarders and wasters? Blown around and tossed about forever by the winds of lust? His body twisted and contorted in the Malebolge? Or eternally frozen for his betraying the trust of those who is supposed to serve, instead condemning thousands to their deaths?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Back at you. The very name of this thread is “
Trump’s attack on the papacy is likely to backfire” In other words, attacking the Pope (a religious test) disqualifies someone from the Presidency.

To clarify things for you, that is not a request for a test of religion. It is discussing the potentials effects Trump's tweets and Vatican politics may have on the election. You only assumed this religious test thing and this criticism disqualifying someone.

 

[columbus]

In other words, attacking the Pope (a religious test) disqualifies someone from the Presidency.

No.
It's about Trump attacking Christian morality and values.
That doesn't disqualify him from the presidency, just makes his Christian supporters look like flaming hypocrites.
Tom

 

[Yazata]

The pope has been trying to provoke President Trump and inject himself into American domestic politics for some time now.

Pope Francis Says Donald Trump Is 'Not Christian'

So it's only to be expected that the President would eventually return the pope's fire.

The President did so in a very restrained manner. He merely liked and retweeted a letter from one of the pope's critics inside the Catholic hierarchy. He didn't directly attack the pope, the way the pope has repeatedly attacked him.

The idea that the President's tweet praising one of the pope's opponents inside the church will somehow dramatically change the relationship between the President and conservative American Catholics, is just wishful thinking on the part of some foreign blogger. Many American Catholics won't even be aware of this little manufactured controversy. And if they are aware, most of them will probably side with the President.

I get the impression that while conservative American Catholics support the institution of the papacy, they don't necessarily like its current occupant. They don't imagine the pope to somehow be above all criticism, since they freely criticize the pope themselves.

 

[Vouthon]

He merely liked and retweeted a letter from one of the pope's critics inside the Catholic hierarchy.

Former-catholic hierarch.

Vigano retired as an archbishop in 2016.

I get the impression that while conservative American Catholics support the institution of the papacy,

The latest papal favorability poll ratings actually indicate that Francis enjoys broad support as Pope from American Catholics, much much higher than approval ratings for Trump:


Three-quarters of U.S. Catholics view Pope Francis favorably, though partisan differences persist

About three-quarters of Catholics (77%) now view the pope favorably.​

Naturally, ultra-traditionalists would disagree but they are a proportionately small number of even conservative Catholics.

 

[sun rise]

if they see the president attack the Pope they may not be happy.”

Thanks for the perspective and info on the Catholic voice.

Trump’s attack on the papacy is likely to backfire” In other words, attacking the Pope (a religious test) disqualifies someone from the Presidency

How does reporting on how Trump's support of a controversial Catholic and the impact that has on the Pope and American Catholics constitute a "religious test" unless you are complaining that Catholics paying attention to this are using a Catholic religious test.

If you want to argue that no one should use a politician's views on topics a believer holds dear in deciding how to vote, that would be consistent. But I doubt you are doing that.

 

[Mindmaster]

https://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/1485/trump-s-attack-on-the-papacy-is-likely-to-backfire

With a single tweet, President Donald Trump has put the relationship between the United States and the Holy See under strain while potentially jeopardising his support among Catholics.
​

Not as I see it... Catholics love their religion at the moment, but seriously have issues with the leadership. They didn't lose their faith in God or Jesus, but because of all the pedo problems, they're really disenchanted with the church as an organization. Many aren't even attending church as a sort of soft protest against the wrongdoings.

Catholics, as a whole, have largely been drone-voting Democrat for decades so it's not like this has any effect on Trump's voting base at all. But, the real elephant in the room is polling -- you just can't trust it anymore. It's not used to accurately sample voter thoughts, but rather to construct narratives. There are absolutely zero of them that you can trust.

 

[Twilight Hue]

https://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/1485/trump-s-attack-on-the-papacy-is-likely-to-backfire

With a single tweet, President Donald Trump has put the relationship between the United States and the Holy See under strain while potentially jeopardising his support among Catholics.

Yesterday the US president highlighted an endorsement he received from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal envoy to Washington DC who in 2018 took the extraordinary step of calling on Pope Francis to resign.

Trump told his 82 million followers about an “incredible” letter written by the archbishop which argues the Black Lives Matter protests and the Coronavirus lockdowns are part of an apocalyptic campaign by the “children of darkness” against the “children of light.”

There are two immediate implications arising from the president's support for Viganò. The first is the difficulty it poses for the US relationship with the papacy and the headquarters of the world’s largest religion.

Although the president and the Pope have had disagreements, the Holy See has always kept good channels of dialogue with Trump administration and have worked with them on issues such as freedom of religion.

But where does the latest development leave US Ambassador to the Vatican, Callista Gingrich, if her boss has backed someone who doesn’t think the Pope should be in office? Does the president expect her to convey his support of Viganò to the Holy See?

Then there is the ambassador’s husband, Newt Gingrich, who is one of the president’s most vocal cheerleaders. The former house speaker scrupulously avoids Vatican politics, but his consistent support for Trump becomes something of an elephant in the room in the Holy See now that the president is all in with Viganò.

The Viganò tweet was not the first time the president has attacked the Pope on Twitter: in 2013 Trump (then just a businessman and reality TV star) criticised Francis for paying the bill at the guesthouse he stayed in before the conclave. "It's not pope-like!" the future president said. Tensions reached a fever pitch ahead of the 2016 election when the Pope said the plan by the then-presidential candidate to build a wall between the US and Mexico was "not Christian".

The Vatican has made no official comment on the latest tweet, although Fr Antonio Spadaro, the editor of the journal the Holy See-backed La Civilta Cattolica, linked to a 2017 article he co-authored with Marcelo Figueroa on how Catholic and Evangelical groups were advancing an “ecumenism of hate.” It argued faith was being used to push a right-wing political agenda and that President Trump had tapped into this by promoting “apocalyptic geopolitics.”

Although that article came under heavy criticism when it was published, with one senior US prelate describing it as “wilfully ignorant”, the Viganò letter, and the president’s promotion of it, makes that 2017 intervention now look prophetic.

Figueroa, a Protestant pastor who the Pope asked to oversee the Argentine version of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, responded to Trump by tweeting a part of that 2017 article: “this mingling of politics, morals and religion has taken on a Manichaean language that divides reality between absolute Good and absolute Evil.”

The second implication of this latest episode, and perhaps more concerning for the president, is what backing Viganò means for Trump’s US Catholic base. Although it was white Catholics in swing states that handed the president his extraordinary 2016 election victory, polls show he is losing support. Any attempt to weaponise Viganò and his theories to go after the papacy and Church leaders during the 2020 campaign is likely to trouble the consciences of Catholics who have previously supported the president.

“Trump is on dangerous terrain with white Catholics,” says David Gibson, Director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture. “Catholics who support him may not love Francis, but if they see the president attack the Pope they may not be happy.”

A number of high-profile Catholics who have thrown their support the president are also in an awkward position. How can they now claim to be loyal to the papacy and Trump?

More troubling still is that the president’s Viganò tweet came a day after he suggested that a Catholic peace activist, shoved to the ground by police, was an “Antifa provocateur.” Two officers were later suspended and charged with assault.

“This is more about the Catholic advisers around Trump. The fact people are feeding him information from Lifesite news shows you where he gets his view of the Catholic Church,” the Fordham director explained.

Any glance at the history of the papacy shows it is littered with conflicts and entanglements with the worldly powers of the day, from the early Popes who were martyred to the disputes with the French crown which led to the Avignon popes. Despite crises and attacks that should have overwhelmed it, the Chair of St Peter has survived.

“The republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy and the republic of Venice is gone – but the Papacy remains,” wrote Lord Macaulay (Thomas Babington), an English protestant historian in 1840.

Before he launches any further salvos against the 266th Successor of St Peter, President Trump may wish to consider the durability of the office that he is being encouraged to attack.​

Let's put it this way. Catholics and religious in general are no big fans of the left. Considering the way the left has treated religious in the past few decades, I don't think Trump really has anything to worry about no matter what he says.