More on The Pope and The Donald

So the more I consider the words of Pope Francis in regard to Donald Trump last week, the more I'm glad that the papacy is no longer considered "infallible" even in his own church.  Because, as I wrote Friday, the current pope is reaching some new heights of fallibility.

Take a look at what he said, as he tried hard to castigate Donald Trump (who is not, it should repeatedly be pointed out, a Catholic) for his positions, specifically in regard to constructing a wall to protect our southern border against unfettered, illegal immigration by people avoiding the legal, due-process process to come to the USA.

Pope Francis described wanting to build walls (actually, "thinking only about building walls and no bridges") as being decidedly not Christian and "not in the Gospel", in his words.

Well, I have read the Gospel, perhaps not as often as a professional like the pope, but often enough, and I have spent enough Sundays in Sunday School to have learned that there absolutely is, in my humble opinion, a part of the Gospel that applies to this situation and lands, unfortunately for the pope, on Mr. Trump's side.

I point, as you may not have thought, to the familiar story about paying taxes that appears, at least, in Mark 12:17 and Matthew 22:21.  That's the one that quotes Jesus as saying "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and render unto God's that which is God's."  It is intended as a message with multiple meanings, but one of them, as I have always been taught, is a "separation of church and state" principle -- that taxes are a part of the governments on earth that man has created for himself, and are distinct from one's spiritual obligations.

That is particularly relevant to the statements of the pope, particularly as he appears to comment on the border between the USA and Mexico.  You see, to find that building a wall is "un-Christian", as he said, means that he thinks that the USA is supposed to take care of every single person in the rest of the world.  Is there another reading?  Clearly he doesn't think that the Vatican is supposed to, else there wouldn't be a 40-foot wall around it.

The problem for His Holiness is that the USA, like every other country, is not a separate, inhuman entity with its own resources.  It has only the resources that it has gained by levying taxes against its residents.  So to take the opinion that he should not castigate the Mexican government for running a country so inhospitable that its citizens want to leave, rather than castigating Americans for wanting our taxes to take care of us first, well, that is simply wrong.

It is not up to the USA to feel any obligation to the rest of the world's countries that fail at taking care of their citizens.  We do it, when we do, because it is a generous thing to do.  But you cannot mandate generosity as the pope seems to think.  Eventually, you would have to say that all people worldwide should have the same, earn the same, and be the same.  That is called extreme socialism.

If the pope is an extreme socialist, and feels like he has the right to tell us that the entire rest of the world should be accommodated in our borders and be paid for by those already here, well, he is free to those opinions (there are some pretty poor areas right here in the USA that might not agree).

But let us render unto Caesar ourselves, and take care of our own ourselves.  His church could probably take a lesson or two in generosity from the USA and what Americans already have done.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu.