The Pope Bedevils Trump

Opinion Columnist, reporting from Washington

I might have to go back to church.

My mother always told me that the Catholic Church was greater than the men running it.

But I grew so disillusioned with the men running it while I was covering the sex abuse scandals that I could no longer stomach going to Mass.

The church that had helped form my sense of right and wrong as a child suddenly seemed blind about right and wrong.

But Pope Leo XIV, or Pope Bob, as the first American pope is sometimes affectionately called, may win me over.

President Trump has been rampaging around the globe like Grendel at dinner time, a rapacious, feral creature. Who could stand up to him?

The soft-spoken, humble Leo, who strives to unify, squared off against the bombastic, solipsistic Trump, who strives to divide. And watching the saintly pope school the amoral president is a blessed sight.

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Maureen Dowd is an Opinion columnist for The Times. She won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. She is the author, most recently, of “Notorious.” @MaureenDowd • Facebook

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