Pope trumps Donald

Donald Trump has not been known to fear treading into uncharted territory in his bid to be the Republican candidate for the US presidency. But even he may have gone a bit far in criticising the Pope as the pontiff was merely putting compassion above national boundaries in the matter of international immigration, which for centuries has been driven by war or famine, and in more recent times by economics and climate change too. Criticising the Pope for questioning his faith on the premise that putting up a wall against Mexican migrants is a crime against humanity, Trump may have made the hard political calculation that the US conservatives may not mind his diatribe against the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics, particularly since the nomination battle is shifting now to the southern states.

The issue here, however, is not so much to do with the personality of the rabble-rousing, thrice-married billionaire Trump. The Pope’s point is about compassion and how acting against migration in the light of what is happening in West Asia is a challenge to the collective human conscience. The Pope could be said to act in the interest of his flock, known to be in high numbers in Central and South America. But it is not as if he is a person who would be intervening in the race to the White House, however terrible a personality like Trump — with an Enoch Powell-like mindset on immigration — can seem to be for a possible occupant of the White House. It would be fair to conclude that Trump’s animus against migrants sticks out like a sore thumb at a time of global turmoil.