Francis and Trump: Populist Leaders Preaching Divergent Messages
Seen from Europe, Mr. Trump is an amplified version of angry populists like Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader in France, playing to fears about migrants, Islam and economic stagnation.
.. “It expresses a resentment and hatred towards the ‘foreigner’ born of fear and economic insecurity,” Mr. Franco added. “Trump becomes the metaphor of an egotistical and racist Christianity, which for the pope represents an unacceptable oxymoron.”
.. “Francis’ walls are between the north and south of the world, and that’s why they bother him,” Mr. Vian said in a telephone interview. “His reactions are moral, not political.”
.. While populists like Mr. Trump and Ms. Le Pen partly blame foreigners for inequities, Francis points to structural inequities deriving from the global capitalist order. His speeches about the excesses of capitalism, often sprinkled with Old Testament fury, divide the world between exploiters and the exploited.
“God will hold the slave drivers of our day accountable,” Francis said in a speech to workers and business owners in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, as he called for greater Christian ethics in business. “The flow of capital cannot decide the flow and life of people.”
.. More than anyone, Mr. Trump symbolizes the excesses of capitalism
.. His economic critique is also a moral one, as he laments a “throwaway culture” in which poor people and migrants are collateral damage. By contrast, Mr. Trump likes to divvy people up as winners and losers.
.. God sent a messenger, Jonah, to warn people and the local king that they must change how they treat one another or the city would be destroyed. The king listened, and Ninevah was saved.