Biden and Catholicism, by Massimo Faggioli: on Foreign Policy


Mike Pompeo: Criticized Vatican for renewing outreach with China

The Trump presidency introduced tensions unprecedented in the history of relations between the US and the Vatican; this was an index of divergent long-term trajectories. Pope Francis's particular attention to building bridges with Islam, and the pivots towards Asia, are part of a long-term vision for global Catholicism.

Newt Gingrich and Steve Bannon forged relationships with prelates who opposed Francis in a political project aimed at subverting the establishment order both in Europe, and in the Catholic Church. The idea was to introduce the pathogen of Trumpism into the symbolic and administrative heart of Catholicism, to make Rome the parallel capitol of a new anti-European and anti-Francis continent. That project, undertaken between 2018 and 2019, failed. Its epitaph was the extraordinary attack in October 2020 by Secretary of State Pompeo against the diplomacy of the Holy See for the renewal of the provisional agreement of September 2018 with China [on supporting Catholicism in China].

Source: Biden and Catholicism, by Massimo Faggioli, p. 69 Jan 20, 2021

Pope Francis: Trump visit to Vatican more about detente than armistice

Pope Francis's particular attention to building bridges with Islam, the environmental issue, the pivots towards Asia, the Church's witness on immigration, and other social issues are part of a long-term vision for global Catholicism. While Trump's interactions with Francis during his May 2017 visit to the Vatican with First Lady Melania Trump followed protocol, even projecting a sense of diplomatic normalcy, on the Vatican side, that visit was an attempt at "detente" rather than armistice.

The idea was to introduce the pathogen of Trumpism into the symbolic and administrative heart of Catholicism, to make Rome the parallel capitol of a new anti-European and anti-Francis continent. That project, undertaken between 2018 and 2019, failed. Its epitaph was the extraordinary attack in October 2020 by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo against the diplomacy of the Holy See for the renewal of the provisional agreement of September 2018 with China [on supporting Catholicism in China]. .

Source: Biden and Catholicism, by Massimo Faggioli, p. 69 Jan 20, 2021

Pope Francis: Focuses on a global view rather than a pan-American one

Donald Trump's election in 2016 helped to clear up a misunderstanding that is often part of the narrative about Francis on the other side of the Atlantic--namely that Francis would be a Pope who embodied the entire American continent, from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego, and for this reason would have better relations with American Catholics than his predecessors. Even apart from the question of his complex relationships between different cultural and national identities within Central and South America and the specificities of Argentina within Latin America, is a clear [signal] that both Trump and the leadership of Pope Francis reveal a continent of tensions that make it unrealistic, even from a Catholic point of view, to speak on any sort of Pan-Americanism.
Source: Biden and Catholicism, by Massimo Faggioli, p. 71 Jan 20, 2021

  • The above quotations are from Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States
    by Massimo Faggioli.
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