Pope Francis in Biden and Catholicism, by Massimo Faggioli
On Foreign Policy:
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
On Foreign Policy:
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
On Immigration:
Both Church and world in process of global resettlement
On the epochal crisis of our time--migrants and refugees--there is a visible convergence, between the visions of the U.S. Bishops and Francis, except for implications of the implicit support of some Bishops for Donald Trump['s anti-immigrant policies].
But there are deeply rooted cultural differences. For Francis, as a Latin American Jesuit, the church and the world are in a process of global resettlement. If the American establishment sees a world of settlers and a nation colonized by Christians,
Francis looks and sees a world of re-settlers. In Francis's moral imagination, the language of "dialogue" is far more useful than that of identity. Francis's embrace of migrants and refugees also means the acceptance of some other types of "migrations"
(cultural, theological, and moral) in the church and in the public square, with important consequences for the framing of other theological forms and "public" issues, like the meaning of religious freedom in a multicultural and multireligious world.
Source: Biden and Catholicism, by Massimo Faggioli, p. 74-75
Jan 20, 2021
On Principles & Values:
Resides with clergy instead of separate papal apartment
Pope Francis has placed his pontification and the Roman papacy in a new position with respect to both global political scene and the globality of the Catholic Church in the contemporary
world, thanks to a new inculturation of the papacy that goes far beyond logistics and more visible aspects such as, for example, the choice of living in the Vatican's hotel for clergy (Casa Santa Marta) rather than in the papal apartment.
Source: Biden and Catholicism, by Massimo Faggioli, p. 71
Jan 20, 2021
Page last updated: Nov 25, 2021