Trump will be out of place at Pope Francis’s funeral

Be a Francis, not a Trump

Donald Trump, who never likes to miss a chance to show off his mug at an international event, announced he is going to Pope Francis’s funeral on Saturday. It’s an odd choice for a president whose policies Pope Francis abhorred and routinely denounced. In particular, Trump’s assault on anti-climate change measures, immigrants, and freedom of conscious were the antithesis of this pope’s world view.

“In 2015, [Pope Francis] penned the first-ever papal encyclical focused solely on the environment,” the New York Times reported. This “sprawling call to action… recognized climate change as both a social and environmental crisis, and emphasized that its greatest consequences were shouldered by the poor.” At the signing of the Paris Agreement that year, “at least 10 world leaders made specific reference to the pope’s words during their addresses to the United Nations climate conference.”

Trump has since pulled out of the Paris Agreement, rolled back anti-climate change actions, curtailed scientific study, installed ideological know-nothings at the EPA, and fawned over the fossil fuel industry. (For now, he seems to have retreated from a plan to yank environmental groups’ nonprofit status.)

Trump’s assault on immigrants’ rights likewise highlights the moral gap between the most xenophobic modern president and the pope most attuned to the plight of migrants. The Pope’s death came in the midst of the most egregiously unconstitutional and cruel anti-immigrant dragnet launched by a U.S. president. He and his toadies have consigned legal U.S. residents to a hellhole gulag in El Salvador, smeared a Maryland father as an MS-13 gang member, and rousted students off the streets without warning, under the flimsy guise of fighting antisemitism.

In stark contrast, the Pope repeatedly and sharply condemned mistreatment of immigrants. His death continues to be widely mourned among immigrant rights organizations (e.g., “The International Organization for Migration (IOM) expresses its profound sorrow at the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis, whose pontificate was marked by unwavering moral leadership in defense of human dignity and the rights of migrants and the most vulnerable”).

His first trip as pope was to Lampedusa, an island waystation for immigrants to the EU. Pope Francis denounced Trump’s xenophobia in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, declaring, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel.”

Just this past Sunday, his Easter message implored Christians: “I would like all of us to hope anew and to revive our trust in others, including those who are different than ourselves, or who come from distant lands, bringing unfamiliar customs, ways of life and ideas! For all of us are children of God!" He exclaimed, “How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants!”

Pope Francis was also a consistent champion of freedom of conscience, press, association, and speech. With regard to labor unions, he said in 2022, “There is no union without workers, and there are no free workers without a union,” and “You have to make noise to give a voice to those who have no voice.” During his 2015 visit to Philadelphia, he declared in front of Independence Hall:

The Declaration of Independence stated that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that governments exist to protect and defend those rights. Those ringing words continue to inspire us today, even as they have inspired peoples throughout the world to fight for the freedom to live in accordance with their dignity….When individuals and communities are guaranteed the effective exercise of their rights, they are not only free to realize their potential, they also, through their talents and their hard work, contribute to the welfare and enrichment of society as a whole.

In his final message, Pope Francis declared, “There can be no peace without freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and respect for the views of others.”

No, Pope Francis would not have countenanced singling out lawyers, universities, media companies, unions, and other pillars of democratic society for retribution. He would not have endorsed the motivation for this behavior: that Trump doesn’t like their advocacy, independence, or work on behalf of immigrants, workers’ rights, the planet, and other humane causes.

In sum, Pope Francis left no doubt as to our collective obligations in his ultimate message to the faithful:

I appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear, which only leads to isolation from others, but rather to use the resources available to help the needy, to fight hunger, and to encourage initiatives that promote development. These are the “weapons” of peace: weapons that build the future, instead of sowing seeds of death!

You may recall the famous headline announcing federal rejection of aid to New York: “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.” The 2025 version would read: “TRUMP TO HUMANITY: DROP DEAD.” Trump’s decision to go to the funeral should remind us that his actions not only defy U.S. law and the Constitution, but also contravene the most fundamental precepts of the world’s great religions.

Trump, aided and abetted by moral delinquents in Congress, propagandists in rightwing media, and the legions of self-interested MAGA dark money groups that want no competition in the market of ideas, perfectly encapsulates the choice democracies face between freedom and tyranny, science and superstition, and decency and cruelty. For the rest of us (Catholic or not), the task is simple:

In a broken world, Be a Francis, not a Trump.