From the November election of Donald Trump to the February speech of JD Vance in Munich, the pace of history has accelerated. And now Pope Francis has fallen ill…
By Christopher Hart-Moynihan
Pope Francis, who found common cause with Joe Biden’s administration on issues like migration, now faces failing health and a new world situation with the ascendancy of Donald Trump as US president, and with his vice-president, JD Vance — marking a seeming “Trump Reset”
Forget the “Great Reset.” After just a little more than 30 days since Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration as the 47th president of the United States, the “Trump Reset” is already well underway.
And already this has prompted a concerned reaction from an aging Pope Francis, 88, who in mid-February was hospitalized for bronchitis (he remains in hospital under round-the-clock care as I write this article). What is the “Trump Reset” all about? And what does it portend for relations between the Holy See and the United States of America?
An “immutable” order is changing
The post-World War II global international order, seen by many as an unchangeable, immutable fact of international relations, was thrown into doubt on February 14, and the reason was a simple 19-minute speech.
The speech, given at a Munich, Germany security conference by U.S. Vice President JD Vance – a Catholic convert – shocked an audience of European government officials into silence, as much by what Vance didn’t say as by what he said.
Vance spent his speaking time highlighting what he termed “the threat from within: the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values” – barely mentioning the 3-year-old war in Ukraine. This was an abrupt shift from the policies of the Biden presidency.
As specific examples of this “retreat,” Vance mentioned: (1) the December 2024 annulment of an election in Romania that resulted in the controversial victory of a “far-right” candidate, Călin Georgescu; (2) the United Kingdom’s new “Buffer Zones” law, a law which, Vance stressed, “criminalizes silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person’s decision within 200 meters of an abortion facility.” Vance went on to claim that (3) the Scottish government had begun “distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law.” (This claim was disputed by the drafter of the law, MSP Gillian Mackayit, who claimed the letters Vance cited spoke only about activities that could be seen “outside the home,” such as displaying posters or banners or protesting in a front garden.)
Vance’s February 14 speech was an earthquake. It marks a seismic shift in U.S.-European relations, with current American political leadership openly questioning whether the two sides do truly share common values and strategic interests, despite Vance’s assurance that “I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team.”
Indeed, Wolfgang Munschau wrote in a piece entitled “The End of the Transatlantic Alliance” in Unherd on February 17 that: “There is no longer any doubt that Europe and America are parting ways. The death of the transatlantic relationship was foretold many times, but at the Munich Security Conference this weekend, it finally ended.”
Dramatic words.
And Ukraine?
His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halych and Head of the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine.
The fact that Vance’s speech occurred several days after an interview given by U.S. President Donald Trump in which he stated that Ukraine’s population “may be Russian some day, or they may not be Russian some day,” made it clear that a possible realignment is underway, with the United States beating a rhetorical, and perhaps literal, retreat from three years of blank-check support under Democratic President Joe Biden for Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion that began in February 2022.
And, just as I write this, it is being reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will begin meeting tomorrow, February 18, in Saudi Arabia, to prepare for a direct meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin of Russia perhaps before the end of February(!).
So things are now moving very fast.
Munschau in his Unherd piece writes: “The Ukraine war must end because Ukraine has lost. It’s as simple as that. Russia has shifted to a war economy, and outproduces the West in military gear and ammunition by a large margin.
There’s no way it can lose now. A Ukrainian victory would have required the US and Europe to have taken different policy decisions early on: a complete oil and gas embargo on day one, a total cut-off of all Russian banks from international financial networks, an immediate increase in defence industrial investments, and a readiness to make sacrifices. Ukraine needed brave supporters. It got cheerleaders instead.”
And Gaza?
Pope Francis meets with President of the State of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas in the Private Library of the Apostolic Palace.
While Trump and Vance seem less and less concerned with restoring Ukraine’s lost territory and more and more likely to seek to strike some kind of compromise with Russian President Vladimir Putin, they are taking a very different tack with respect to the conflict in Gaza, the latest iteration of which began with the horrific killings on October 7, 2023, a year and a half ago.
In a joint press conference with Jordanian King Abdullah II on February 11 in Washington D.C., Trump made comments alluding to a potential ceasefire agreement in which the United States would “own” Gaza, and the Gaza Strip’s residents would be resettled in communities in Egypt and Jordan. “The Palestinians, or the people that live now in Gaza, will be living beautifully in another location,” the U.S. President said. “I believe we’ll have a parcel of land in Jordan. I believe we’ll have a parcel of land in Egypt. We may have someplace else, but I think when we finish our talks, we’ll have a place where they’re going to live very happily and very safely.”
However, it is unclear how such a plan could be implemented without violating established international law against forced resettlement and ethnic cleansing. And many Arabic and Muslim nations in the Middle East have expressed outrage at the suggestion that nearly 2 million Palestinians would simply be permanently removed from Gaza.
One consequence of the Gaza conflict is now playing out in Lebanon, where a greatly weakened Hezbollah seems to have lost some of its iron grip over the country’s politics. On January 9, Joseph Aoun, a Maronite Catholic and former head of Lebanon’s Armed Forces, was elected as the President of Lebanon, breaking a political stalemate which had seen the country fail to form a functioning government for more than two years. The rise of Aoun is connected to the waning of Hezbollah’s influence after suffering various strategic defeats at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces since the beginning of the Gaza conflict.
And another consequence has been the ouster in Syria of longtime President Bashar al-Assad. After more than a decade of bloody civil war, in November of 2024, a coalition of Syrian rebels mounted several offensives with the intention of ousting Assad. On the morning of December 8, 2024, as rebel troops first entered Damascus, Assad fled to Moscow and was granted political asylum by the Russian government.
A watershed
These major shifts on the part of the new US administration — the criticism of Europe’s progressive values, the abrupt de-prioritization of Ukraine, and the full-throttle support for the way Israel has conducted the Gaza conflict under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — mark a watershed, with major, immediate consequences for American-European relations, for Ukraine, and for Israel and its neighbors. But what about relations between the Holy See and the new Trump-Vance-Elon Musk-Marco Rubio administration?
Of course, it is difficult to predict the future, but the signs are many that this relationship may be a complex and sometimes rocky one, and the uncertain health of Pope Francis may only increase the uncertainty of the institutional relationships.
Will Francis “move to protect his legacy”?
A February 17 article in Politico by Ben Munster is entitled “Pope Francis, sensing he is close to death, moves to protect his legacy” and adds: “The battle to succeed Pope Francis is likely to be highly politicized, particularly given the pontiff’s recent clash with Catholic US Vice President JD Vance.”
Like many observers, Munster took the Pope’s hospitalization on February 14 with bronchitis (three days ago as I write) as a signal to look beyond this present moment, writing: “Pope Francis is seriously worried about his health after being hospitalized with severe bronchitis, and is rushing to tie up loose ends ahead of the battle to succeed him… According to two people familiar with the matter, Francis has been suffering from intense pain and has privately expressed fears that he won’t make it this time.”
Munster added: “The Pope initially resisted going to hospital but was told in no uncertain terms that he was at risk of dying if he stayed in his room in the Vatican, the second person added.”
Munster continued: “On February 6, before he was hospitalized, he extended the term of the Italian cardinal Giovanni Battista Re as dean of the College of Cardinals, a role that will oversee some preparations for a potential conclave…. The move was intended to ensure that the process plays out according to Francis’s wishes, the people said. Re’s continuation in the role will also see him deliver funeral rites for Francis should he die. The Pope has privately joked that Re will be ‘kinder’ to him than other candidates, a second person added.”
But what clash with JD Vance is Munster referring to?
Before his health took a turn for the worse, on February 10, Francis issued an unusual public rebuke of United States Vice President JD Vance. In an open Letter to the US Bishops, Francis criticized Vance’s theological use of the concept of “ordo amoris” (“the order of love”) as a justification for President Donald Trump’s proposed policy of massive deportations to deal with illegal immigration.
Greg Sargent addressed this in The New Republic on February 12 in an article entitled “Pope Francis’s Stunning Rebuke of JD Vance Exposes MAGA’s Dark Soul,” and subtitled “The vice president took a stab at theology to defend the administration’s rank cruelty. Then a higher authority weighed in.”
“The other day,” Sargent wrote, “JD Vance sought to reconcile President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ vision with the tenets of Christianity. Vance argued for a ‘Christian concept’ that orders our ethical obligations in a series of concentric circles, starting with love of family, then out to love of neighbor, then to community and nation, and only then out to the rest of the world.
“Vance claimed the left has ‘inverted that,’ casting Trumpism as more faithful to the allegedly Christian notion he’d outlined, because it puts ‘American citizens first.’ This was sharply criticized online, leading Vance to defend it by citing the concept of ‘ordo amoris.’ That means ‘order of love’: Even if we are called upon to love all people, the practical limitations on the help we can offer others directs us to prioritize aid to those nearest to us.
“Now another authority of sorts has weighed in on Vance’s defense of Trumpism: Pope Francis. In a remarkable letter, Pope Francis condemned the Trump administration over ‘mass deportations’ and even indirectly criticized Vance’s use of ordo amoris to defend Trumpist nationalism… In his response, Pope Francis recognizes that nations and communities must defend themselves from serious or violent criminal migrants. But he condemns the broad conflation of undocumented status with ‘criminality,’ a clear rebuke of Trumpists who tar all migrants who illegally cross our borders as criminals by definition.”
The papal pushback triggered anger from the White House, which raises the prospect, Munster writes, “of a highly politicized succession battle should Francis die.”
Munster even suggested that the Trump-Vance administration might seek to… influence the next papal election… to arrive at a Pope less “confrontational” than Francis.
Munster concludes: “Even if Francis survives his latest illness, observers see this as a likely turning point as Francis shifts focus from making headway on reform to locking it in. ‘He may not die now but of course he eventually will,’ said one Vatican official. ‘We all die — and he’s an 88-year-old man with lung problems.’”
“What I Worry About Is The Threat From Within”
Speech in Munich – February 14, 2025 (Excerpts)
By JD Vance, Vice-President of the United States
The February 14 Munich Conference where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (front left) finds himself facing, without strong support from the Europeans, the arguments of the Trump administration, represented by US Vice President JD Vance (front right)
We gather at this conference, of course, to discuss security. And normally we mean threats to our external security. I see many, many great military leaders gathered here today. But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine – and we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defence – the threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor.
What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values: values shared with the United States of America.
I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don’t go according to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.
Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. For years we’ve been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defence of democracy. But when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say ourselves, because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team.
We must do more than talk about democratic values. We must live them.
(…)
And unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the cold war’s winners. If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.
I look to Brussels, where EU Commission commissars warned citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest: the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be “hateful content.” Or to this very country where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of “combating misogyny” on the internet.
(…)
And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs. A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith Conner, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an Army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 metres from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own. After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply, it was on behalf of his unborn son he and his former girlfriend had aborted years before.
The officers were not moved. Adam was found guilty of breaking the government’s new Buffer Zones Law, which criminalises silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person’s decision within 200 metres of an abortion facility. He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution.
Now, I wish I could say that this was a fluke, a one-off, crazy example of a badly written law being enacted against a single person. But no.
This last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish government began distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law. Naturally, the government urged readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty of thought crime in Britain and across Europe.
Free speech, I fear, is in retreat and in the interests of comedy, my friends, but also in the interest of truth, I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe, but from within my own country, where the prior administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation.
(…)
So I come here today not just with an observation, but with an offer. And just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds, so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite, and I hope that we can work together on that.
In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town.
And under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square.
Now, we’re at the point, of course, that the situation has gotten so bad that this December, Romania straight up cancelled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbours. Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections. But I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective. You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage, even.
But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.
Now, the good news is that I happen to think your democracies are substantially less brittle than many people apparently fear.
To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice. And I really do believe that allowing citizens to speak their mind will make them stronger still.
(…)
I believe deeply that there is no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people. Europe faces many challenges. But the crisis this continent faces right now, the crisis I believe we all face together, is one of our own making. If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump. You need democratic mandates to accomplish anything of value in the coming years.
(…)
And of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. Today, almost one in five people living in this country moved here from abroad. That is, of course, an all time high. It’s a similar number, by the way, in the United States, also an all time high. The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone. And of course, it’s gotten much higher since.
(…)
But what no democracy, American, German or European, will survive, is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief, are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.
Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There is no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don’t. Europeans, the people have a voice. European leaders have a choice. And my strong belief is that we do not need to be afraid of the future.
(…)
To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice. And if we refuse to listen to that voice, even our most successful fights will secure very little. As Pope John Paul II, in my view, one of the most extraordinary champions of democracy on this continent or any other, once said, “Do not be afraid.”
We shouldn’t be afraid of our people even when they express views that disagree with their leadership.
Thank you all. Good luck to all of you.
God bless you.
The Pope’s Letter to the US Bishopes (Excerpt)
February 10, 2025
Pope Francis presides over the Holy Mass on February 9, 2025 — 5 days before he was hospitalized. The Pope, at age 88, suffering health problems, faces an increasingly complicated international political climate
Dear Brothers in the Episcopate,
(…)
I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality. At the same time, one must recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival. That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.
5. This is not a minor issue: an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized. The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all — as I have affirmed on numerous occasions — welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable. This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration. However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.
6. Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity. Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation. The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception. [3]
(…)
10. Let us ask Our Lady of Guadalupe to protect individuals and families who live in fear or pain due to migration and/or deportation. May the “Virgen morena,” who knew how to reconcile peoples when they were at enmity, grant us all to meet again as brothers and sisters, within her embrace, and thus take a step forward in the construction of a society that is more fraternal, inclusive and respectful of the dignity of all.
Fraternally,
Francis
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