The election manifested deep division among Catholics. But is a Trump presidency really incompatible with Catholic ideals?
By Regis Martin
The President of United States, Donald Trump, meets Pope Francis in the Private Library of the Apostolic Palace in May, 2017, while visiting the Vatican during Trump’s first term. Despite differences between them on topics like illegal immigration, Trump policies tend to follow a general bias toward the traditional morality, peace and religious freedom also championed by the Pope (Vatican/Pool/Galazka)
What are Catholics to make of Donald Trump? Now that the election is over and a second Trump presidency looms before us—made possible in no small part by great numbers of Catholic voters—will we continue to support him? Since self-identified Catholic voters split 56 to 41 in favor of Trump, it seems likely that the enthusiasm will continue on at least into the first months of the new year.
But should it? For some Catholics, the real question is not whether there will be support for Trump in the future, but whether Catholics ought to have been supporting him at all. And while the number of the disaffected remains statistically slight, there are many noise makers among them, whose voices have been shrill and strong, joining the echo chambers of the hard hysterical left. That their views appear to be almost indistinguishable from the usual secular suspects, where insanity increasingly reigns, does not inspire a great deal of confidence in their capacity to discern the signs of the times.
Take, for instance, the folks over at AMERICA magazine, the Jesuit flagship, where the flame of protest burns brightest. And while it was once a place where one could safely go, knowing that the tablets of truth were reliably being kept in good working order, that is no longer the case. In fact, as I write this, I’m looking over the latest issue, the post-election edition, in which we are reminded that, yes, we are people of hope and so we must not despair, but in the meantime let us continue our bitter lamentation lest anyone forget how perfectly odious Donald Trump truly is, and that it remains morally unthinkable that a man so vile should have been re-elected to run the country.
Notice that it is not a matter of mere policy differences that drive their editorial engine. Were it only that then the two sides could plausibly find common ground on which to work out those differences. But with Trump, alas, there is nothing to work out, no room for decent and godly men to maneuver. The disagreements are far too intractable and profound, involving such imputations of benightedness and bigotry that no compromise appears possible. Any more than one could countenance an exchange with Adolph Hitler on just how many Jews he proposed to liquidate. One does not argue with fascism, one wages war against it. It is a fight to the death.
In short, Donald Trump is totally beyond the pale and people who voted for him are, if not morally compromised themselves, completely misinformed about the dangerous threat he poses to the nation and the world. Period. Full stop.
Although Melania Trump, wife of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, is a baptized Catholic, she has publicly stated that she supports abortion, something official Church teaching opposes. Here she places flowers at a statue of Mary as she visits Bambino Gesù Hospital in Rome May 24, 2017 (Photo: Bambino Gesù Hospital)
Not surprisingly, I reject that reading. And I do so, not simply as an American patriot, who loves his country and longs to see it restored to greatness, but as a believing Roman Catholic, for whom the centerpiece of my faith and life is Jesus Christ and His Bride, the Church. And thus, for all that Catholics of a certain mindset will vehemently object to my saying so, I see very little incompatibility between the two. In fact, why would any Catholic not welcome fewer taxes, safer streets, a secure border, less government interference, lower prices at the gas pump and the grocery store? Not to mention a little more stability around the globe? On what planet are we living where benefits like these are seen as inconsequential owing to the guy delivering them?
For the purists out there, those fastidious few who will not cast their pearls before swine, let me assure you that, prescinding from the state of his own soul, which I leave to God to sort out, I have not found anything remotely swinish about his policies. Indeed, the sum total of the good he has already done, plus the good he promises to do, fill me with great hope for our nation’s future. Not divine hope, mind you, which only God can give — and, praise God, I’ve managed to hang on to enough of it to survive four years of Joe Biden. But the human variety, which — one would have to be an imbecile not to notice — has taken a steep nosedive for many of us during the last four disastrous years.
In the meantime, I am not unmindful of the Scriptural admonition: Put not your trust in earthly princes. Or that only God can be “loved through and through,” to quote that wise and brave Catholic statesman, Sir Thomas More, who spoke it to his grieving daughter while awaiting death at the hands of a true tyrant, Henry VIII. But I am not a fideist, who takes no account of the counsels of prudence, rooted in right reason and respect for the order of nature. And what these counsels tell me is that the best and most beneficial thing that has happened to this country in recent weeks is the election of Donald Trump. We Catholics, along with everyone else, will have much to be grateful for in the next four years. And if you like, you may throw in another eight, on the happy assumption that J.D. Vance will follow suit. So, let it be MORNING IN AMERICA for as long as we can keep it.
Still, the horizon is not entirely without clouds — witness the terrible blight of abortion, which continues to defile our nation’s bright promise of liberty and justice for all. But here, too, one must be a realist. And while I cherish the hope that someday all children will be seen as a blessing — including the ones we cannot see owing to the disguise they wear in their mother’s womb — even after a half-century’s struggle to secure constitutional protection for every child God sends us, that time has not yet come to pass.
This is, without question, a terrible stain on our nation’s character; it is a sin for which we are all culpable, some more than others. But, again, I leave to God and His Angels to sort out the iniquities surrounding the continuing slaughter of the unborn. However, it must be said that no President has done more to hasten the day when unborn babies will be allowed to be born than Donald Trump, thanks to a series of splendid appointments to the Supreme Court.
To be sure, so much more needs to be done, including the conversion of a culture fixated upon death. But that will be the result, not so much of politics, but of prayer, and of giving witness to the joy of life, of openness to the gift which is life. And here is where we Catholics ought to be at our best, with or without Donald Trump.
*Regis Martin, Ph.D., is Professor of Theology and Faculty Associate with the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.
