Damn
Pope Francis. He keeps making history
faster than I can write history. I have
at least two more postings on Sacred space and he has to go and say that Donald
Trump isn’t a Christian if he (Trump) wants to build a wall to keep people
out. What is really interesting,
however, is Mr. Trump’s response. In the
first place “The Donald” says: “For a religious leader to question a
person’s faith is disgraceful.” Is
it? In our Catholic tradition it is
precisely the role of religious leaders to challenge us to an authentic
discipleship. If Pope Francis—or any of
his predecessors—said that Barack Obama is not a Christian, the krazies would
stand and cheer. Remember how outraged
they were when Cardinal O’Malley came down from the altar to greet the
President at Senator Kennedy’s funeral?
And those same people were furious that Kennedy was given a Catholic
funeral. But let the Pope remind us of
Matthew 25:43, and the same people start screaming—maybe because they get the
implication that in the opinion of the Pope they, like Mr. Trump, aren’t really
disciples of Jesus Christ.
But the key insight in Mr. Trump’s response was in his off
–the-cuff remarks where he insisted that he was a “nice person” and wasn’t
happy with the Pope questioning his niceness.
This is a problem about which I agree with the krazies. We can’t water down being a Christian to
being a nice person. There are plenty of
nice people who are not Christians.
Don’t confuse being nice with being Christian. Jesus said that we would be recognized as his
disciples by that we love one another.
Loving others and being nice often coincide but they are not the same
thing. We can’t reduce discipleship to
being nice. We must be faithful.
I don’t know Donald Trump.
I do know that much of what he is promoting is not consistent with the
teachings of Jesus in the Gospel. On the
other hand, my issue is not whether Donald Trump is a Christian but am I faithful
to the teachings of Jesus in the Gospel? When it comes down to the heart of the matter, to quote Pope Francis:
who am I to judge? And, in the end, few voters take their faith into the voting
booth with them. Maybe that is something
where we should all feel Francis’ sting.
