POPE FRANCIS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Two close associates of Pope Francis have accused American Catholic ultraconservatives of making an alliance of ‘hate’ with evangelical Christians to back President Trump, further alienating a group already out of the Vatican’s good graces.
The authors, writing in a Vatican-vetted journal, singled out Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, as a ‘supporter of an apocalyptic geopolitics’ that has stymied action against climate change and exploited fears of migrants and Muslims with calls for ‘walls and purifying deportations.’
The article warns that conservative American Catholics have strayed dangerously into the deepening political polarization in the United States. The writers even declare that the worldview of American evangelical and hard-line Catholics, which is based on a literal interpretation of the Bible, is ‘not too far apart’ from jihadists.
It is not clear if the article, appearing in La Civiltà Cattolica, received the pope’s direct blessing, but it was extraordinary coming from a journal that carries the Holy See’s seal of approval. There has apparently been no reprimand from the pope, who is not shy about disciplining dissenters, and La Civiltà Cattolica’s editor has promoted the article nearly every day since it was published in July.
The article and the backlash to it — accusations of anti-Americanism have been rife, and one prominent American prelate likened the authors to ‘useful idiots’ — have highlighted the widening distance between Francis and American Catholic conservatives.”
-Jason Horowitz, “A Vatican Shot Across the Bow for Hard-Line U.S. Catholics,” The New York Times online, Aug. 2, 2017