Light On Dark Water

A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel…. I say only that [Donald Trump] is not Christian if he has said things like that. And please let me know if there is anything else I can do to assist Trump toward the Republican nomination, because I'm pretty sure either Democrat will beat him like a rented mule.

–Pope Francis, remarks to reporters, Feb. 18 2016

(Note: the last sentence is not in the official transcript

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68 responses to “”

  1. Craig

    These off-the-cuff remarks are better kept under wraps.

    Reply
  2. Mac

    I often look at Google News to see what’s happening in the world, and at one point it listed no less than three stories from the New York Times alone pushing this story. It made me think of the title of a Smiths song: “Bigmouth Strikes Again.”

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  3. Stu

    Although I have mixed feelings about immigration, I don’t mind the Holy Father pointing out that it is very non-Christian to forcefully exclude desperate people. He should be making us uncomfortable in the same way that Jesus made people uneasy. Good for him. The Republican response to immigration is shameful. The Democrat response is only marginally better. Politicians are self-serving.

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  4. Paul

    Even I have seen this story twice, but neither version provided the question, which is the only way to make sense of the reply (especially given that the reply leaves open whether the un-Christian views in question have accurately been attributed to Trump).

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  5. Janet

    I have let myself get into this really stupid conversation about this on Facebook–stupid because obviously the woman has some kind of chip on her shoulder that has nothing to do with what is actually going on and I could talk until the cows come home and it would do no good. Why do I do this?
    I would say that I am of two minds regarding immigration, but I think it’s probably more like 6. It’s just not simple.
    AMDG

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  6. Mac

    Yeah, that’s the whole thing. If the question were as simple as “forcibly excluding desperate people”, as Stu says, there would be no big controversy.
    I think I’ve made it sufficiently clear that I think Trump is very bad news. But the pope’s remark was just as simple-minded as Trump’s posturing. It’s unworthy of the office. It would be better suited to a Facebook meme, and that it is almost as harsh a thing as I could say about it. Moreover, it had the effect of making Trump look good, probably revving up his supporters, and the Church look bad, probably revving up anti-Catholic sentiment. Just what we need.

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  7. Mac

    Here’s the full text of the exchange (transcript of the whole conversation here). Obviously the reporter was fishing for pretty much what he got. At least Francis did add that he would give Trump the benefit of the doubt, though it doesn’t sound very convincing after what he says first.
    Phil Pullella, Reuters: Today, you spoke very eloquently about the problems of immigration. On the other side of the border, there is a very tough electoral battle. One of the candidates for the White House, Republican Donald Trump, in an interview recently said that you are a political man and he even said that you are a pawn, an instrument of the Mexican government for migration politics. Trump said that if he’s elected, he wants to build 2,500 kilometers of wall along the border. He wants to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, separating families, etcetera. I would like to ask you, what do you think of these accusations against you and if a North American Catholic can vote for a person like this?
    Pope Francis: Thank God he said I was a politician because Aristotle defined the human person as ‘animal politicus.’ At least I am a human person. As to whether I am a pawn, well, maybe, I don’t know. I’ll leave that up to your judgment and that of the people. And then, a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt.

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  8. Janet

    You are seeing something that I don’t see. I wish I knew precisely what it is.
    AMDG

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  9. Mac

    What do you mean?

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  10. Janet

    I don’t get the “unworthy of the office” statement. Or the simple-minded for that matter.
    AMDG

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  11. Janet

    And it seems to me that when the Pope gets these leading questions from the press, he knows what they are doing to some extent and he uses their questions to say something that he believes to be true and important. So when he says that if a person acts in such-and-such a way, that’s not a Christian way to act, I think he is speaking about a universal truth rather than a specific person. What I’m saying very clumsily is that I think he used the whole situation as a vehicle to say something about immigration.
    I mean, he could have defended himself against what Trump said, but he wasn’t interested in that at all.
    So, whether or not I agree with what he said about the walls, etc., I don’t have a problem with him saying it.
    The real problem to me is in saying that a person is not a Christian instead of saying that they are not acting in a Christian way, or that a Christian does not act in a certain way. I wonder about the translation or the nuance in the translation.
    AMDG

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  12. Paul

    He as good as says, “You’ve described an un-Christian position, but I’m not taking your word for it that this is Trump’s position.” To turn that into “Pope blasts Trump” (as the headlines do) looks to me like partisan journalism.

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  13. Mac

    It is, but then I don’t think they’re too much exaggerating what he said, either. He didn’t say “This is not a Christian position.” He said “This man is not a Christian.” Very different flavor, even if qualified.
    I’m not sure what to say about “simple-minded”, Janet. That’s just how it looks to me. “I think he used the whole situation as a vehicle to say something about immigration.” It’s the “something” that I think is simple-minded. The remarks have two components, one about immigration and one about Donald Trump. I think the first is meme material, and the second ill-advised. If you can show me where he expelled other people from the Christian fold, it might soften my reaction to this instance.
    Franklin Graham made an amusing comment on this: “Maybe the pope should think about building bridges with Donald Trump.” Which he probably would be willing to do.

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  14. Janet

    Okay, well I’m just not sure that what he was doing was expelling Trump from the Christian fold. Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t think so. It would be so at odds with what he generally says.
    What Craig says is, I think, pretty on the mark. It’s always these reporters-in-the-airplane-after-a-busy-trip questions that seem to cause the most trouble.
    Is he speaking Spanish there? I have to find somebody here to translate it for me and see what they think.
    Anyway, we need to pray for him. I told myself that I was going to say a prayer for him every time I wrote something about him before I wrote it, but I never remember, so I just looked up the prayer on my blog.
    AMDG

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  15. Stu

    Pope Francis would like us to pray for him, while Donald Trump would like us to pray to him.

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  16. Janet

    Well, at the rate things are going, we better pray for Trump, too.
    AMDG

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  17. Mac

    Maybe pray for deliverance from him first.
    That’s very funny, Stu, and all too apt.

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  18. Mac

    I think the paragraph of this piece that’s headed “He’s Not Exactly Communicator of the Century” sums up what I see as the problems with Francis’s remarks. In a way it’s a waste of time to try analyzing in detail this type of off-the-cuff remark. In some other context Francis would probably discuss Trump in a very different tone. Unfortunately that’s what happens when the pope talks, and unfortunately Francis sometimes makes me think of that old joke, which I can’t remember exactly, about making sure the brain is engaged before putting the mouth in gear, or something.

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  19. Paul

    To me it seems pretty clear that saying “a man who says this isn’t Christian” is much closer to saying “this is an un-Christian thing to say” than to “this man is hereby expelled from union with Christians for having said this”.

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  20. Mac

    Arguably, yes. But the statement as a whole doesn’t really bear precise analysis–as Mollie Hemingway says, the first sentence is a straw man. Which would be ok–it’s an impromptu remark, let it go. But he’s the pope, so every word he says is treated as important. It may not be fair but the world is going to treat a response to a reporter’s trolling the same as it treats an encyclical. Does he realize this and understand the effects? I honestly don’t know. But he essentially made a campaign contribution to Donald Trump. Not a significant one, I hope.

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  21. Janet

    I think that first statement was supposed to be a joke–a way of taking insults to himself lightly.
    Whenever we have one of these discussions about what Pope Francis has said, it seems like the most important issue to you is how it affects politics–American politics–and how the press is going to twist what he says. Why is that even an issue? You are measuring with the wrong yardstick.
    And as for the presidential election. I’m almost positive that we are going to get the president that we deserve and God save us. I don’t see any hope that this election will be anything but a disaster no matter what the Pope does or doesn’t say.
    I do wish that he would not answer these questions on airplanes because I know what I’m like at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon at which time I could not give you a sensible answer about how I’m going to get to the car and drive home.
    AMDG

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  22. Mac

    “it seems like the most important issue to you is how it affects politics–American politics”
    I don’t think that’s true. It is largely true in this case because the subject is politics. More often it’s concern about the effect some of his statements (not just the off-the-cuff ones) have on the state of the Church.
    I think we’re talking about two different “first sentences.” I’m referring to the first one I quoted, the one about walls and bridges. That doesn’t sound like a joke to me. It sounds like a Facebook meme. Maybe I’ve seen more of those than you have, since you say you don’t see that much political stuff on Facebook, and am correspondingly more fed up. Are you referring to “Thank God he said I’m a politician”–yes, I think that’s clearly humorous.
    But like I said I think we’re asking too much of the whole statement to parse it in detail, as if it were carefully crafted.
    I will admit that I’m over-reacting to it. I doubt it will have any measurable effect on the election. I thought the remark was irritating in itself and bad in its probable effects (as I said before, firing up Trump supporters, making the Church look bad, giving a boost to conservative Protestant anti-Catholicism). But it was basically fairly trivial.

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  23. Janet

    Yes, I was talking about the politician thing.
    Maybe you don’t talk about the politics as much as I think, but it’s been enough to make an impression on me.
    Anyway, I do think it was pretty trivial. I see it firing up Trump supporters, but I think they are fairly fired up anyway. I think the anti-Catholic protestants are probably more on board with Cruz, not because he’s anti-Catholic, but because he suits their kind of Christianity.
    I’m glad you say you are over-reacting. 😉 And I think it’s interesting that this comes along in your Lenten Project where you are trying to focus on what’s best about the pope. 😉 It’s kind of like the donuts that my boss was trying to push on me yesterday.
    AMDG

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  24. Mac

    Actually I intended my editing of Francis’s remark to be semi-funny, especially in light of the whole point of the series, but I guess it didn’t come off that way.

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  25. Janet

    I guess I was over-reacting. 😉
    AMDG

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  26. Marianne

    It made me smile, Mac. Especially that “I’m pretty sure either Democrat will beat him like a rented mule”.

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  27. Mac

    I can’t claim the phrase, as you probably know, but I’m glad you enjoyed it. I did.

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  28. Louise

    “Pope Francis would like us to pray for him, while Donald Trump would like us to pray to him.”
    Heh!

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  29. Louise

    To get into American politics for a minute – I was judging speech and debate events for Christian home schoolers and many of the speeches were excellent. One was on the alarming influence of Ayn Rand on the culture and specifically with regard to various presidential candidates. I have to say, I found this very alarming, though not surprising. “Atlas Shrugged” has been a far more popular and influential book than I had realised.

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  30. Mac

    It’s very surprising, distressing, and puzzling. Or at least it used to be surprising–I’m accustomed to it now. There have been several discussions here about that. Apparently even some (many?) Christians hear AS’s message of individual striving and responsibility and ignore the self-above-all views, the atheism, etc.

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  31. Janet

    One of my best friends thinks that Rand is great–and he is an excellent Catholic. I just don’t get it.
    AMDG

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  32. Paul

    Growing up in a pretty book-loving environment in Europe, she’s someone who just wasn’t on the radar. I’d never even heard of her until I started paying attention to the US (which is really only after I got to know Janet). I suppose it’s a cultural thing. There must be British household names that literate Americans have never heard of, although I can’t think of any name that would fit. Jeffrey Archer maybe?

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  33. Mac

    I recognize Archer’s name but can only guess as to what he’s known for. Novelist?

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  34. Paul

    Yes, he writes novels in the “blockbuster” style. I don’t think he’s had much of a cultural impact, certainly nothing compared to Rand’s, but everybody in the UK knows who he is.

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  35. Louise

    I don’t get the appeal of AS either.

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  36. Marianne

    This Ayn Rand thing came up during the 2012 election when we learned that House Speaker Paul Ryan, then the VP candidate, thought she was great, and that he’d even given copies of her books as Christmas gifts. He’s Catholic, even attended Catholic schools as a boy. I’m with Janet — I just don’t get it. I picked up one of her books when I was a youngster in college and found her ideas appalling.

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  37. Janet

    Okay, so since we are talking roughly about novels–Wall Street Journals just name The Moviegoer one of the Five Best Novels of Despair–#2 in fact. What do y’all think about that?
    AMDG

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  38. Rob G

    A lot of conservatives like Rand for her anti-statism. Thing is, they don’t need to go to her to get good ammo for that. There are some very successful anti-statist thinkers who don’t carry all the baggage that comes with her thought.
    (Mises isn’t one of them, btw. Her ideas are like his, but on steroids.)

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  39. Mac

    Here’s the thing I wrote about AS back in 2008. I’m not sure how many of y’all were reading back then, but either this post or a follow-up came to the attention of some Randians and a very boisterous discussion ensued. Unfortunately those were on the old Haloscan commenting system and are now gone with the wind.
    Yes, the anti-statism is a really big part of it for free-market-oriented people.
    But I always keep coming back to the more fundamental problem: why do people seem to enjoy the story, as story, so much? I can see, to some extent, the enthusiasm for freedom, individuality, etc. But I found it an extremely dull read.

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  40. Mac

    It’s been a long time since I read The Moviegoer, but I don’t think it’s accurate to call it a novel of despair. I mean, despair isn’t the last word in it.

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  41. Stu

    Oh my goodness, in my concerns about the weather later today I have missed all of this Ayn Rand discussion! :-O
    I have nothing to add. I’m with Mac, don’t really get her. Read AS in High School for some reason, maybe to just walk around with it for several weeks.
    Do not in any way ascribe to her philosophy and certainly do not understand Christians who heartily embrace it.

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  42. Janet

    I had forgotten that those Rand people came to visit. 😉
    I don’t think despair, either.
    AMDG

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  43. Paul

    I read The Moviegoer last year and think anyone who classifies it as a novel of despair has completely missed the point.

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  44. Paul

    It starts with despair and moves forwards. Presumably whoever so listed it, read it as moving backwards.

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  45. Mac

    That’s the way I remember it. And although it’s been many years since I read Moviegoer, I have poked around in some of his other works recently enough to have a sense of what he’s about.

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  46. Don

    Was the great Objectivist influx really 2008?

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  47. Louise

    “I’m not sure how many of y’all were reading back then, but either this post or a follow-up came to the attention of some Randians and a very boisterous discussion ensued.”
    I remember. Was it really that long ago? Heck!

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  48. Mac

    I know, it’s hard to believe. Closer to ten years ago than five.

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  49. Mac

    “Do not in any way ascribe to her philosophy and certainly do not understand Christians who heartily embrace it.” (Stu)
    I don’t really understand how they do it, but they seem able to ignore an awful lot of what she plainly states, and just take what they like. It’s sort of an illustration of how inconsistent people can be in their thinking.

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  50. Janet

    August 2008, so right between 5 and 10. I just can’t believe it. I hadn’t been here but about a year at that time. I find this entirely shocking.
    AMDG

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  51. Mac

    I was doing round numbers (16 -8). 🙂 This blog had been in operation as a blog about two years at that point (since mid-2006). From Dec 2004 till then it was a non-blog web site.

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  52. Rob G

    Dreher had a post up the other day mentioning the 10th anniversary of Crunchy Cons. It was that book that (eventually) brought me here, so that time frame seems right. Still hard to believe that the Great Objectivist Invasion occurred only two years in!

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  53. Janet

    Alas,I guess that means all their comments were lost in the Great Migration.
    AMDG

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  54. Mac

    Yes, unfortunately. There was no way to migrate Haloscan comments to TypePad. There was a way to link to Haloscan comments, and that’s why you see the words “PreTypePad” at the end of some posts–it was followed by the word “comments” that was a link. But then Haloscan itself shut down.
    I didn’t realize, or didn’t remember, that you found this blog via Crunchy Cons, Rob. Interesting. An uneven book, I thought, though of course I was happy to be mentioned in it.

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  55. Rob G

    I said on Rod’s site that think it was an important book in that it was one of the first works of the period to push back, from a conservative pov, against the liberal/libertarian mess that the neocons had made of the conservative movement.
    Also an acquaintance of mine, blogger Jeff Martin, wrote :
    “Crunchy Cons was, in a small way, a warning flare sent up to signal that Conservatism, Inc. was not slouching, but hastening to the abyss, preferring the abyss to the humbling admission that – gasp! – truly cultivating the permanent things might require alignment with liberals, on any number of issues.”

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  56. Janet

    When I first read about the book in an article somewhere, I was really excited about it, because I was in sympathy with a lot of what he was saying–although I never liked the name–so I ordered the book right away, but I had trouble getting through it. I didn’t even get to the Maclin part.
    AMDG

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  57. Janet

    I was looking around the blog, trying to figure out if I first heard of Crunchy Cons here–I don’t think so–and I found two things. One was a September, 2013 post called How Much Damage Did the Pope’s Interview Really Do? Which is rather amusing in a wry sort of way considering the past week, but what I really couldn’t believe was that he was already Pope in September of 2013! I still think of him as just arriving.
    The other post was one about Rod Dreher’s perfect Valentines dinner, which made me giggle.
    AMDG

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  58. Mac

    I’m sorry you missed the best part of CC, Janet.
    Although time slips by me in so many ways, for some reason I always remember that Francis became pope in 2013. I also remember that my first or nearly-first impression has been confirmed continually since then.
    Here’s the Rod Dreher post and its comments. Pretty interesting. From the time Rod first started posting his CC ideas at National Review, I’ve been struck, as in almost dumbfounded, by remarks like this one: ‘Most importantly it made me realize that I could enjoy “crunchy” things without worrying that I was on a slippery slope leading to liberalism.’ I guess it’s my hippie background, but it always shocks me that people actually think (or feel) this way. But I guess it’s also an indicator of the fact that I’ve never really felt myself to be a part of the mainstream conservative movement.
    One reason I was rather underwhelmed by the book was that so many of those basic insights were and are more or less second nature to me. A lot of the points had been made in Caelum et Terra.

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  59. Janet

    Well, a couple of years ago (or maybe more, who knows anymore?) I was looking at the book for some reason I can’t fathom, and I found you in there. I was trying to remember at that time whether I had known you were there before or not.
    AMDG

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  60. Rob G

    “But I guess it’s also an indicator of the fact that I’ve never really felt myself to be a part of the mainstream conservative movement.”
    Yeah, that’s the thing — for those of us who were part of it but had our doubts, the book was a huge breath of fresh air. For me, who’d long given up political reading other than W. Berry, it made the connection for me between his type of agrarian conservatism and the lost stream of political conservatism that came down through Kirk, Weaver, et al.

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  61. Mac

    I can see that. Similarly, though: although I fit Dreher’s “crunchy” model and admire Berry, Kirk, et.al., I’m also impatient with the denunciations of the neo-cons that come from that community (for want of a better word). Too often it seems like the easy complaining of those who are not in charge–armchair generalship. And I really don’t see much future in what often seems to be a project of undoing the modern world. If that happens, it isn’t going to be pretty. I don’t even like the word “neo-con” except as applied to the originals (Podhoretz ‘n’ them). Conservatism seems to me more of a spectrum. Those who are called neos are more engaged with the political system, and I guess by that token more hopeful about it. But there are certainly sincere admirers of Kirk, Weaver, et.al.–maybe not Berry so much–among them. It’s just not at all clear how or even if you can act politically on those ideas under current conditions, but I don’t fault them for trying.
    By the way, I had no idea what “crunchy” meant in this context when Dreher first starting talking about the idea, which is part of the reason why I didn’t like the title.

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  62. Janet

    I don’t think that knowing it was granola made it better. 😉
    AMDG

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  63. Mac

    No, it went from puzzling to silly.

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  64. Mac

    I just read over my segment of the book. I don’t think I’d change anything I said.

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  65. Rob G

    I don’t even like the word “neo-con” except as applied to the originals (Podhoretz ‘n’ them). Conservatism seems to me more of a spectrum.
    Right. In some ways it’s become a devil term. But on the other hand, there are quite a few contemporary writers, bloggers, etc., who self-define as “neo-conservative,” but who have more in common with the current Weekly Standard sort of conservatism than with that earlier generation. When I refer to neo-cons it’s generally those current folks I have in mind.
    In general I don’t fault them so much for their political engagement, as for their inability to see that their commitment to corporate/finance capitalism undermines their otherwise morally traditional intuitions (faith, family, etc.)

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  66. Mac

    Yes! That’s been from the beginning the single biggest reason why I always keep a certain distance from the conservative movement. That, and the militarism.
    But then as I have mentioned several times my favorite political blogger is Neo-neocon. She fits the technical definition, as it says on her blog header: “Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I’ve found myself slowly but surely leaving the fold and becoming that dread thing: a neocon.” But she’s not a free-market cheerleader at all. Her focus is on the constitutional system itself, and its defense against leftist attack. And on Islamist aggression–it was the shock of 9/11 that got her re-thinking her liberalism.

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  67. Louise

    I didn’t know you had a section in CC, Maclin.

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  68. Janet

    For a minute I thought you said he had a C-section.
    AMDG

    Reply

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