Amazing.
The traditional release of white smoke signaled that the Catholic Church had a new pope. And it didn’t take long to break the stunning news that for the first time in history, the pope is, yes indeed, an American.
And it didn’t take long either in this age of social media to learn that Cardinal Robert Prevost had been out there criticizing President Trump.
Over at The Hill, one reads this headline, bold print for emphasis supplied: “New Pope previously shared criticism of Trump administration on social media.”
The story reports:
Cardinal Robert Prevost, who became the first American pope on Thursday, frequently used social media to subtly push back on the Trump administration and its policies, a review of his previous posts on the social media platform X shows.
Prevost, now known as Pope Leo XIV, shared columns that disputed Vice President Vance’s interpretation of Christian “ordo amoris,” ranking order of love, in February; linked to an article that lambasted Trump’s “anti-immigrant rhetoric” as dangerous in 2015; and reposted messages against the death penalty, migrant deportations and Congress’s inaction on gun laws after deadly shootings.
“Social media can be an important tool to communicate the Gospel message reaching millions of people,” Prevost said. “At the same time, the world today, which is constantly changing, presents situations where we really have to think several times before speaking or before writing a message on Twitter, in order to answer or even just to ask questions in a public form, in full view of everyone.”
“Sometimes there is a risk of fueling divisions and controversy,” he added.
….Trump wrote in a social media post shortly after the new pontiff’s introduction that he looks forward to meeting the first American pope.
“It will be a very meaningful moment!” the president wrote.
So, what to make of this?
The easy, obvious answer is that it is way too soon to make a judgment of any kind.
It is certainly safe to say that a meeting between the president of the United States and the first American pope would indeed be, as the president suggests, “a very meaningful moment.”
But history records that the relationship between a pope and an American president can be incredibly important.
Our own resident editor of The American Spectator, historian Paul Kengor, has written a decidedly important book in this area. That would be A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century.
Paul refers to the president and the pope, decidedly anti-Communists both, as Kindred Spirits, Kindred Souls and describes in detail the two coming together in a fashion that wound up ending the Cold War.
The open question now is what will be the relationship that is fostered between this American president and the first American pope?
For that matter, looking down the road, Trump will be leaving the presidency in 2029 and be succeeded by some other American, presumably Republican or Democrat. When that moment arrives, presuming Pope Leo is still pope, there will be a need for a new relationship between the pope and the new president. A situation that will be repeated with successor presidents until the American Pope Leo ascends to the heavenly home for popes and everybody else.
President Trump has had and will continue to have his share of unique opportunities to bring peace to the world. But out of the blue comes an unexpected, decidedly unprecedented, opportunity for an American president to work with an American pope to bring peace to the world.
What comes next?
No idea. But it is surely safe to say that this very, very unique moment presents both the American president and the American pope a real opportunity to leave this world of God’s children better than they found it.
Stay tuned.
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