Will the president outdo the pope when it comes to pomp, pageantry and purpose?
Probably not. Nothing compares to the pageantry of a papal election, not the coronation of a British monarch, a presidential inauguration or a Russian World War II military victory parade.
Rome rules, as it did when Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, an American, became Pope Leo XIV, the 267th pope in a 2,000-year history of succession.
But that will not stop Donald Trump, the 47th president in the nearly 250-year history of the United States, from trying.
The AI-generated image of Trump dressed as the pope shouldn’t be read as foreshadowing. It was a joke anyway, or so Trump said. “They can’t take a joke,” he said of critics in the media. “The Catholics loved it.”
Instead, Trump is planning a huge Washinton military parade around June 14, which is Flag Day as well as Trump’s birthday along with the anniversary of the U.S. Army.
You can rest assured that Trump’s showmanship will be on full display.
It is estimated that the parade will be made up of some 7,000 soldiers, 150 military vehicles, helicopters and likely everything else the army can come up with. Howitzer cannons are on the planning list, for example.
And it will be topped by a massive fireworks display and a festival on the National Mall.
Trump would probably even invite the pope to the parade if he thought he would come, even though he appears not to be Trump’s kind of pope.
You can tell by the way the usually secular and anti-Catholic left have embraced Pope Leo for his past criticism of Trump over his immigration policies.
This includes criticism of Trump for sending MS-13 gangbanger, alleged wife beater and illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, now a poster boy for Democrats, to prison in El Salvador over the objections of Democrat progressives.
“Do you not see the suffering?” the new pontiff, sounding like a Democrat who has forgotten the victim, wrote on X. “Is your conscience not disturbed. How can you stay quiet?”
The Democrats love Pope Leo for “standing up” to Trump.
Which recalls Soviet Union dictator Joe Stalin’s response to warnings to avoid conflicts with the Catholic Church. “How many divisions does the pope have?” Stalin allegedly responded.
The next thing you know, the leaderless and divided Democrat Party could propose that Pope Leo run for president. He is, after all, from Chicago, where he is registered to vote.
If elected, he would not only be the first American to become pope, but he would also be the first pope to become president.
While there is no precedent for such a thing, there is precedent for priests serving in government. Jesuit priest Fr. Robert Drinan of Massachusetts was elected to Congress in 1970 as a pro-abortion, anti-Vietnam War Democrat.
Drinan served for 10 years before Pope John Paul II demanded that all priests withdraw from elective politics. Drinan complied.
Speaking of popes standing up to governments and leaders, it was Pope John Paul II, the “Polish Pope,” who helped bring down the Soviet Union’s communist rule of Poland, and other East European countries, during an historic visit in 1979.
His words were more than just words; like Trump’s, they led to action
He appears to have been Trump’s kind of pope.
And like Trump in Butler, Pa, an assassin shot and wounded Pope John Paul II as he entered St. Peters’ Square on May 13,1981. He recovered like Trump did. He died in 2005.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com
