Trump’s Blasphemy Is a Warning |
Trump’s Blasphemy Is a Warning
Let’s analyze the world’s latest church-and-empire fracas, the open conflict between President Trump and Pope Leo XIV, in terms of three concentric circles, bringing us from the general realities of Catholic politics to the intense specifics of this case.
At the general level, there is nothing about a conflict between a secular authority and the Roman pontiff that should have Catholics reaching for the smelling salts. Nothing in Catholic teaching says that popes are free from error about public policy, and the historical record offers copious proof that they make profound mistakes. As such, when popes engage in politicking, it’s not impious for politicians to disagree with them, and such beefs are not inherently liberal and secular and modern. If anything, they’re medieval and extremely “trad.”
In the current zone of controversy — the arguments pitting the pope or the Vatican or leading cardinals against nationalist conservatism — the conservatives........