What might a Trump presidency mean for Catholics — and the world — this time around?
By CNS/ITV staff
President of United States Donald Trump with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, during Trump’s visit to the Vatican in May, 2017. The relations between the Trump administration and the Holy See were very good in Trump’s first term, and they are expected to be so again in his next 2025-28 term (Vatican/Pool/Galazka)
The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said two days after the November 5 U.S. presidential election that his prayer for Donald J. Trump is that God would grant him wisdom “because that is the main virtue of those who govern according to the Bible.”
Asked by reporters November 7 about Trump’s victory and second term as president, Cardinal Parolin said, “I think he has to work above all to be president of the whole country and therefore overcome the polarization that has occurred and is very evident.”
“We also hope he can be a factor for détente and pacification in the current conflicts that are bloodying the world,” the cardinal said. “He said he will end the wars. Let’s hope so. But, of course, he doesn’t have a magic wand either.”
As for Trump’s repeated vow to “launch the largest deportation program in American history” and to severely limit all immigration, Cardinal Parolin said the Vatican supports a comprehensive and “wise policy toward migrants so that it does not go to these extremes.”
Pope Francis has recognized the right of nations to regulate immigration but also has insisted those policies promote an attitude of welcoming people seeking safety and a better life, accompanying them as they settle in and helping them integrate. Cardinal Parolin told reporters, “I think this is the only way to deal with the problem and to solve it in a humane way.”
The cardinal said he is not worried that U.S.-Vatican relations will suffer under Trump’s leadership.
“We maintained relations with the president during his previous term and will continue to do so.”
“As always,” he said, “there are elements that bring us closer and elements that differentiate and distance us, and this will be an opportunity to exercise dialogue and to try to find more points of consensus for the benefit of the common good and world peace.”
Opposition to abortion is one common position, and Cardinal Parolin said he hoped Trump would work on a broader understanding of the defense of human life and do so in a way that will bring people together “and not let it again become a policy of polarization and division.”
What Catholics might expect
“Polarization and division” became veritable watchwords of the seemingly ubiquitous anti-Trump sentiment expressed throughout popular culture during the presidential campaign. So it is not surprising that Cardinal Parolin would bring them up as well.
What has been surprising, though, is the extent to which a significant amount of that sentiment has seemed to melt away so quickly since the defeat of Trump’s rival for the presidency, Kamala Harris.
In fact, as Catholic commentator Kennedy Hall (photo) noted just weeks after the election, “Trump is becoming a pop-culture phenomenon… the change in conversation and the relief in tension is palpable.”
And Catholics were sure to note that it was Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, who attended the historic reopening of the previously fire-wracked Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris in December.
Whatever level of popularity Trump is able to achieve, the fact remains that any American president wields a certain amount of power, for good or for ill, affecting countless human beings around the globe. Catholics in particular possess a guide to what constitutes principles of good and of evil — the Church, Scripture and Catholic Tradition — even if particular policy decisions remain in the realm of prudential judgment. So how might a Donald Trump presidency comport with those principles?
That was the question we asked a selection of Catholic thinkers, with a view to their various areas of interest and expertise.
Their answers follow.
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