Blasphemy is coming to St. Peter's Square as Trump tries to hijack Pope Francis's funeral to feed his ego

Yahoo

23-04-2025

It is an abomination that Donald Trump will set foot in St. Peter's Square on Saturday under the pretense of honoring Pope Francis. He is not there to grieve. He is not there to represent the United States in any meaningful way. He is there because the cameras will be.
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Trump will be there for the same reason he rudely pushed Montenegro Prime Minister Dusko Markovic out of the way at the 2017 NATO summit. He will be there for the same reason he posts bizarre rants at 3 a.m. on his Truth Social. He will be there for the same reason he's playing a game of chicken with countries around the world with on-again, off-again tariffs. And on and on and on.
The only reason Trump is attending the funeral of Francis is to hog the spotlight, to feed the bottomless void of his ego, and to turn a moment of global mourning into another grotesque sideshow, all about Trump.
The eyes of the world will be on St. Peter's Square on Saturday, and Trump wouldn't miss this colossal media event for anything in the world. And there isn't a reason in the world that Trump should be there. I think Pope Francis tried to love everyone, and I also think Francis could spot a phony — and a blatant sinner — a mile away, and he no doubt saw the despicable Trump for who he really is.
If you look at the famous 2017 photo from the meeting between Francis and Trump, the pope is noticeably not happy, and if I dare say, angry that he had to stand next to the insidious Trump. If a picture speaks a thousand words, then the rumors that Francis strongly disliked Trump are real and visceral in that photo.
It doesn't take a religious scholar to determine that Trump is the antithesis of everything Pope Francis stood for. The thought of seeing Trump walk into the massive chapel makes my skin crawl and also makes me think of ruinous thoughts about Trump that would keep me in a confessional for months on end.
Where Pope Francis lifted up the poor, Trump pushes them down. Where Francis preached love, Trump shouts cruelty. Francis, known as the 'People's Pope,' opened Vatican doors to migrants, refugees, and the LGBTQ+ community, including transgender people; in fact, he told a group of transgender women they were 'daughters of God.'
Trump, meanwhile, has tried to erase trans Americans from public life and civil rights law. He banned them from serving in the military in his first term, and after President Joe Biden lifted that ban, Trump is at it again, trying to gut their health care protections and using them as punching bags to rile up his base.
Francis reminded us that God loves all people. Trump reminds us daily that he loves only himself.
The pope condemned Trump's treatment of immigrants more than once. In 2016, he pointedly said, 'A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.'
Just this year, Pope Francis slammed Trump's renewed push for mass deportations as 'a disgrace,' insisting, 'It's the poor wretches who have nothing who pay the bill.' These weren't veiled criticisms. They were full-throated moral indictments from the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics. And they remain true.
Trump's policies have been a war on the vulnerable. His draconian tariffs have hurt working-class Americans. His persistent efforts to slash Medicaid and Medicare threaten the health and dignity of the elderly, the disabled, and the poor.
His tax cuts padded the pockets of the ultra-rich while leaving crumbs, if anything, for the rest. He leads not with conviction or conscience but with vindictiveness, pettiness, and revenge.
Pope Francis spent his papacy humbling power in service of justice. Trump uses power to punish. Francis kissed the feet of refugees and washed the feet of prisoners. Trump jails the poor and mocks the afflicted. Francis gave voice to the voiceless. Trump silences the press, threatens dissenters, and treats truth as an inconvenience to bulldoze.
And yet on Saturday, this very man, this blustering despot of hubris, cruelty, and fraudulence, will march into Vatican City as if he belongs there. As if he deserves to stand shoulder to shoulder with world leaders to celebrate the life of a man who rebuked nearly everything Trump has ever done.
Trump is not attending the pope's funeral as a statesman. He's attending as a showman. This is political theater covered in the cloak of mourning. Trump does not represent the American people, not the ones who believe in decency, in mercy, in solidarity with the suffering. He is not our moral ambassador. He is a walking perversion of this solemn moment.
There was a word my great-grandmother used frequently when she saw something that betrayed her faith: 'blasphemy.' It is blasphemy, pure and simple, that this man, whose every instinct is inhumane and every motive is self-promotion, will attempt to desecrate the memory of Pope Francis with his presence.
But the majority of the people watching the pope's funeral are not fools, and Trump's presence will show the world the striking and stark contrast between good and evil.
If Pope Francis was the shepherd, Trump is the wolf. If Francis brought light, Trump deals in shadows. Well, that's too kind. He deals in a dense darkness. If this funeral is meant to honor a life spent in the service of love, then Trump's presence is an act of vandalism. And the world will recognize it as that.
And when Trump dies, and someday he will, his legacy will not be one of love or humility. He will most certainly not be mourned in St. Peter's Square. He will be mourned, perhaps, by sycophants and enablers, by the world's fellow dictators and murderers, but not by the poor he punished or the communities he terrorized.
If anything, his fitting resting place would be in the prison where he once sought to put those without power, a final, ironic reckoning for a man who spent his life worshipping it. And Trump being buried in a prison, again, seems too kind.
Trump may strut into St. Peter's Square with gold cufflinks and grievance, but no amount of spectacle can drown out the quiet, radical gospel of mercy that Francis lived. Let the cameras catch not the bluster of a man desperate to be seen but the bowed heads of the poor, the meek, the brokenhearted, and those whom Francis never stopped seeing.
On Saturday, may humility speak louder than hubris. And may the world remember which of the two truly walked in the shoes of the fisherman.
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