ANALYSIS: The two world leaders have clashed on migration but could find common ground on a push for a negotiated peace in Ukraine.
Former President Donald Trump’s election to a second term in office means, among many other things, the resumption of his often-tense relationship with Pope Francis.
Dealings between the U.S. and the Holy See are of particular interest to Catholics, of course, but given the papacy’s role as the world’s most prominent religious authority and a widely recognized advocate for peace and social justice, the relationship between Washington and Rome is also of interest to the entire international community.
Much of the tension between Pope Francis and Trump is likely to focus again on migration, over which they have clashed publicly in the past. Trump vowed in his latest campaign to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, a policy that the Pope recently described as a grave sin “against life.”
Yet the Vatican and the White House could also find common ground during a second Trump administration, particularly on an issue that has emerged since Trump last held office: Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Pope Francis and Trump were at odds on migration even before the latter assumed the presidency. The Pope told reporters in February 2016 that the then-candidate’s promises to deport millions of immigrants and build a wall along the southern border were the plans of someone who was “not Christian.” Trump responded that it was disgraceful of the Pope to question his religious faith.
The two have been closer on the subject of abortion, which Trump firmly opposed in his first term, naming three of the Supreme Court justices who went on to strike down the 1973 decision Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to abortion. The Pope has frequently denounced abortion in forceful terms, including by likening the procedure to the hiring of a hitman.
Trump has taken a more liberal line on abortion since he left office, stating during his latest campaign that as president he would veto a federal abortion ban. He has also stressed his support for in vitro fertilization, a procedure that usually involves the destruction of human embryos and is prohibited in Catholic moral teaching.
One potential area of convergence is opposition to what Pope Francis calls “gender ideology … a troubling ideology of our time,” which he says erases differences between men and women. Earlier this year, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith stated that “any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.” Transgender issues, including the question of transgender athletes in women’s sports, were also prominent in Trump’s campaign. The matter is a delicate one, however, since the Pope takes a highly pastoral approach to transgender individuals, whom he has met with on a number of occasions at the Vatican.
Environmental policy is another area where Pope Francis and Trump are at odds. In his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si (Care for Our Common Home), the Pope called for reduced use of fossil fuels to combat global warming, which he described as a major threat to life on earth. Trump has promised to boost the production of fossil fuels.
Yet the area of starkest disagreement between the Pope and the president-elect remains migration. In September, Pope Francis told reporters that the former president’s policy of “sending migrants away, denying them the ability to work and refusing them hospitality is a sin, and it is grave.” Comparing this position with Vice President Kamala Harris’ support for legalized abortion, the Pope said that the election presented American Catholics with the need to choose the “lesser evil,”though he left it up to each voter’s conscience to decide which that was.
The realm of foreign policy has also been a source of friction between the Pope and the incoming president. The Vatican protested when the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel during Trump’s first term. Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later accused the Vatican of ignoring violations of human rights in China as it pursued a rapprochement with Beijing. Those areas of the globe are likely to be neuralgic points in U.S.-Holy See relations over the next four years.
However, there is one geopolitical issue, on which both Pope Francis and Trump have taken controversial stances, that could prove an area of cooperation and even harmony between them.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Pope Francis has unceasingly lamented the suffering of Ukrainians and called for an end to conflict. Yet he has avoided directly blaming Russia or President Vladimir Putin for the war, which he has suggested may have been provoked by eastward expansion of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization). He has also criticized arms spending in response to Russia’s aggression and the use of sanctions against Moscow. This neutral stance has dismayed many Catholics, including members of the hierarchy, in Ukraine and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. The Pope has said that the Vatican’s neutrality on political, commercial and military matters is necessary for its credibility as a potential mediator.
Trump, who has spoken admiringly of Putin, has said that he could end the war in a single day, a feat which would presumably entail concessions from Kyiv. Vice President-elect JD Vance has put forth a peace plan that would allow Russia to keep territory it has conquered and guarantee Ukraine’s neutrality, ruling out the membership in NATO to which the country aspires.
If the U.S., which is Ukraine’s single largest foreign supporter, adopts such a policy under the next administration, could it turn to the Vatican for moral support of its position? Would Pope Francis or his diplomats endorse such a plan, explicitly or otherwise?
Such an alliance might seem unlikely, but international politics has known stranger bedfellows
Francis X. Rocca
Francis X. Rocca is senior Vatican analyst for EWTN News. He has covered the Vatican since 2007, most recently for The Wall Street Journal, where he also reported on global religion. He has written for Time, The Times Literary Supplement and The Atlantic, among other publications. Rocca is the director of a documentary film, “Voices of Vatican II: Participants Recall the Council.”
