Making sense of the pope versus Donald Trump

The pope’s comments on Trump’s religion were more nuanced than many media outlets reported. Trump’s response was, of course, a nuance-free zone. What have we learned from this latest campaign firestorm?

There’s often a double standard when it comes to “liberal” religion and “conservative” religion. I use quotation marks because religious teachings don’t cut cleanly across the secular American left-right political lines. But the reaction to the pope implicitly criticizing Trump on immigration is different than what we’d likely see if he criticized Nancy Pelosi — or even Trump — on abortion.

This was apparent in the press coverage of Pope Francis’ address to Congress last year. Even explicitly liberal publications jeered Republicans’ differences with the pope on global poverty initiatives and climate change in a way they probably wouldn’t have written about disagreements with the Democrats on abortion or same-sex marriage.

A similar tone was taken in much of the mainstream media. “The pope’s pleas to take action on climate change will fall on deaf ears with many Republicans when he speaks before a joint session of Congress,” reads the lede of a Politico story. Substitute “take action on climate change” with “protect the sanctity of innocent human life” and you’ll see why this is noteworthy.

There also seems to be a greater tolerance for questioning Trump’s religious commitments than the faith of liberal political figures, though in the billionaire’s case a Hindu or Buddhist might call it karma.

When I was growing up in the predominantly Catholic commonwealth of Massachusetts, a Boston columnist used to fret about the separation of church and state when the bishop publicly opposed abortion. When he testified against cuts in social welfare spending or reinstating the death penalty, the same columnist would urge Bostonians to listen to their moral leader.

There seems to be a comparable dynamic at work here.

It’s not 1960 anymore. There was a time when being attacked by a pope before a primary in a Southern state might have been beneficial. Now it’s more complicated. South Carolina is predominantly Protestant, but Catholics and white evangelicals have for decades made common cause on social issues and religious liberty.

Many conservative Protestants admired Pope John Paul II. Pope Francis is a more controversial figure among evangelical conservatives, for political and social more than theological reasons. He also has his share of critics among conservative and traditionalist Catholics, whose problems with him are more doctrinal in nature.

So being attacked by a pope won’t necessarily produce an outpouring of fundamentalist support in a Republican primary in 2016. But being criticized by this pope, who is seen by many conservatives as a liberal or even radical, might not be as damaging politically as if either of the last two popes had spoken similarly of Trump’s candidacy.

Trump doesn’t talk to the pope much differently than his primary opponents. Trump didn’t mince words, calling the pope’s statement “disgraceful” and saying Francis would regret someone else being in office if the Islamic State attacked the Vatican.

Catholics are certainly willing to tolerate a disagreement between Trump and the pope, but some may not appreciate this kind of language. At least Trump didn’t him a liar or have his lawyer send a cease-and-desist order (yet).

Catholic teaching on immigration is complex, the call to love thy neighbor is straightforward. Catholics aren’t really called to some kind of open-borders ideology, as Trump supporters are likely to point out. And the pope didn’t actually say it was illegitimate to build border walls. He said Christians should only be focused on building walls at the expense of building bridges, a metaphor as much as a reference to literal, physical walls.

But Christianity does have a lot to say about how you treat or talk about other people. Trump’s rhetoric is frequently vulnerable to criticism on that front. And the state’s legitimate duty to guard its borders or control migrant inflows don’t absolve moral duties to treat human beings with dignity.

Whatever Trump’s faith, he is not running as a standard-issue Christian conservative. Trump has moved to the right on abortion and other social issues. Trump identifies as a Presbyterian, accepts endorsements from Jerry Falwell’s son and praises evangelist Billy Graham.

But Trump isn’t mainly appealing to evangelicals on the basis of shared values. He is saying he will “protect” conservative Christians and their religious liberty. That’s rhetorically different from the way the Falwell-era Christian right talked about politics. And Trump’s evangelical supporters may be calculating that if their religious freedom is really at risk, maybe they’d be better served by a friendly Roman.