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.
Donald Trump Calls Pope’s Criticism ‘Disgraceful’
Donald J. Trump said it was “disgraceful” that Pope Francis questioned his faith on Thursday and suggested that his presidency would be the answer to the Vatican’s prayers because he would protect it from terrorists if elected.
.. “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful,” Mr. Trump said.
“If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened,” Mr. Trump said.
.. And Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University and a supporter of Mr. Trump, said that the pope had crossed a line.
“Jesus never intended to give instructions to political leaders on how to run a country,” Mr. Falwell told CNN.
Who Are We?
It’s an outrage that we can’t control our border, but both parties have been complicit — Democrats because they saw new voters coming across and Republicans because they saw cheap labor coming across. But we can fix the border without turning every Hispanic into a rapist or Muslim into a terrorist.
How Cruz beat Trump
By targeting evangelicals and libertarians from the very start, he dominated from the two most reliable Iowa voting blocs.
Meanwhile, Cruz’s father, Pastor Rafael Cruz, boosted his son’s name identification as he kept up an intense schedule of church visits across the state. Other campaigns were miffed that at Christian conferences over the past several years, there were often two entries under the Cruz name. But Rafael Cruz was a key entry point for pastors, whom he urged at church gatherings over the summer to take a hard look at his son.
“It’s one thing to meet a senator, it’s another thing for a pastor to meet and talk with a pastor, a guy who speaks your language, knows your heart, knows your struggles,” said Pastor Mike Demastus, who is backing Cruz. “There’s a connection point with Pastor Rafael Cruz. He’s one of us, he knows who we are. He has been, pardon the pun, a wonderful secret weapon for Sen. Cruz.”
.. Cruz put on an elaborate event in Des Moines in which he played part preacher, part therapist as he sat onstage with people who ran into legal problems over, for example, refusing to do floral arrangements for a gay wedding. Meanwhile, his campaign continued recruiting pastors.
.. After the Paris terrorist attacks of Nov. 13, national security issues damaged the political outsider image that initially pushed the pediatric neurosurgeon to the forefront, creating an opening for someone with more experience. Cruz pounced, playing up at every turn his knowledge of foreign affairs and pushing legislation to bar most Syrian refugees from coming to the United States, as conservatives grew increasingly fearful that those migrants could pose a threat.
.. “If I’m going to let Rubio redefine Cruz … we’re going to end up with open borders and cultural suicide, a mirror of what we’re seeing today. That was the galvanizing piece that brought it together.”
.. “Strap on the full armor of God,” Cruz told supporters in a New Year’s Eve conference call.
.. The voters open to Trump and Rubio received negative, contrasting information, but the Cruz campaign offered only positive messages to those also looking at Carson in the days leading up to the caucuses.