David French: Trump is no longer the most important American

President Donald Trump is no longer the the greater part major American in the world He is certainly the most of powerful at least for three more years but power is only one measure of importance On Thursday a Chicago native and Villanova University graduate named Robert Prevost supplanted Trump He became the first American pope taking the name Leo XIV And it happened at exactly the right time I m not Catholic I m an evangelical from the rural South who grew up so isolated from Catholicism that I didn t even know any Catholics until I went to law school But I m deeply influenced by Catholicism in both its ancient and its modern forms I devoured the works of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas in college And one of my favorite classes was about liberation theology a left-wing modern Catholic approach to the Gospel that puts an emphasis on improving the material conditions of the poor in part through political and economic transformation And no book has influenced my approach to abortion and human life more than Pope John Paul II s encyclical Evangelium Vitae It was in this survey and reflection that I understood the true importance of the historical stream of Christian thought Christianity is an ancient faith one that has endured through rulers and regimes far more ignorant and brutal than anything we ve ever confronted in the United States All too plenty of American evangelicals are disconnected from that history We belong to churches that measure their existence in months or years not centuries or millenniums Our oldest denominations have existed for only a fraction of time compared with the Catholic Church That lack of perspective ends up exaggerating the importance of politics It narrows our frame of reference and elevates the temporal over the eternal It leads to absurd declarations such as Trump s vow this Easter to make America more religious than it has ever been before And when you believe the success of your religion depends on the success of any politician it s only a matter of time before politics becomes your religion That means that too a multitude of Christians will evaluate even the pope through a partisan political lens And that s exactly what happened last week as people unveiled the new pope s social media feeds and began devouring his old posts Is the new pope MAGA Is he woke How does he fit into the American custom war The headline of a story from The Federalist a MAGA publication disclosed it all Read the New Pope s Far-Left Takes on Immigration Setting Covid and Race Relations And what is far left about the new pope It turns out that he was opposed to family separation for newcomers transiting the boundary during Trump s first term and disagreed with Vice President JD Vance s interpretation of a theological idea called ordo amoris which Vance had used to argue that American compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens Leo had also expressed his sympathy after the death of George Floyd reposting a tweet by Bishop Michael Olson that mentioned I join my voice and prayers to those of my brother bishops that we might work hard to end racism in our hearts and in society May God give comfort to the family of GeorgeFloyd in this time of anguish He also posted We need to hear more from leaders in the Church to reject racism and seek justice That s far left It seems entirely Christian to me The new pope had also reposted a message from Democratic Sen Chris Murphy of Connecticut in backing of gun control in and reposted a message expressing alarm that the United States wouldn t meet its carbon-emission goals also in He expressed encouragement for the COVID vaccine reposting in a message that announced May God grant us the grace to face COVID with the strength of faith ensuring that vaccines are available for all so that we can all get immunized Again these positions aren t far left They re all quite mainstream But if your catechism is the MAGA party platform then the pope s positions are very challenging indeed At the same time he doesn t fit well into the Democratic box either He is strongly anti-abortion and he upholds the church s traditional teachings on sexual morality and gender identity Don t look for Leo to alter the church s doctrines on abortion or marriage So no the pope is neither MAGA nor woke He s Catholic and party platforms are irrelevant to church doctrine In addition don t look to Leo to provide aid or comfort to those inside and outside the Catholic Church who seek to redeem the tradition through the raw exercise of Christian power In his first homily he announced that the church should serve as an ark of salvation sailing through the waters of history and a beacon that illumines the dark nights of this world But the pope argued it does not accomplish this through grandeur and here he referred to the beauty and majesty of the church s buildings and cathedrals but rather through the holiness of her members It is not the church s power or wealth but the church s witness that helps transform the world In the circumstance of Leo the church s witness to the world also becomes part of America s witness to the world Millions of Americans have been lamenting that the preponderance prominent American in the world is a person who embodies cruelty and spite Several of us and certainly a large number of dissenting evangelicals are also lamenting that Trump owes his conquest to the evangelical church more than to any other group in American life He won the votes of white evangelicals by a -point margin He lost the rest of the electorate by points Trump s ballot in other words isn t just an expression of American political will it s also an expression of American Christian will But American Christianity does not speak with one voice It contains multitudes And so does Leo He appears to be of mixed-race descent his maternal grandparents were apparently Creole from New Orleans and he spent much of his adult life in Peru In fact he has such close ties to Peru that the nation celebrated his polling and its president Dina Boluarte declared The pope is Peruvian Oh and he s a White Sox fan so he has a heart for hopeless causes He s also the living embodiment of one of America s majority vital and profound transformations from a Protestant-dominated nation that was often deeply intolerant of Catholicism and Catholics to a nation in which people of all faiths can worship freely Leo will forge his own path and it s vital not to read too much into various tweets and social media posts But if there is one thing we can glean from the new pope s words and the way he has lived his life it s that he shares Pope Francis love for the poor and the vulnerable He s expressing and trying to embody a religious faith that views all life as precious The church the Rev Martin Luther King Jr explained must be reminded once again that it is not to be the master or the servant of the state but rather the conscience of the state The Catholic church however is a global church It s not the conscience of one nation It is the conscience of multiple nations As one American measures onto the world stage as a man of malice another American answers leading with love and compassion They represent two starkly different visions of American character And if all goes well Leo will command the world stage long after Trump is gone from citizens life I don t know what kind of pope Leo will ultimately become But Thursday I felt the cultural wind shift just a tiny bit An American man who confounds political categories now leads the world s largest church As a friend texted me right after the pope s selection was revealed that shift almost feels like hope David French writes a column for the New York Times Related Articles Editorial Welcome Pope Leo XIV Chicago s holy father Thomas Friedman What Trump should keep in mind on his big Middle East trip Mihir Sharma Why I m thinking twice about traveling to the US Parmy Olson AI chatbots want you hooked maybe too hooked Lisa Jarvis 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