5 things to know about Trump, Pope views on wealth, values and why MAGA worries

Yahoo

10-05-2025

The American president and the American pope both have their eyes fixed on the late 19th century, but they seem to be drawing very different, if not clashing, lessons.
President Donald Trump has recently waxed nostalgically about the period from 1870 to 1913 in defending his imposition of across-the-board tariffs. Cardinal Robert Prevost, in choosing the papal name Pope Leo XIV, follows in the footsteps of Leo XIII who set forth the concept of Catholic social teaching in 1891.
While theologians point out the two views are not necessarily contradictory, some in the MAGA-verse were ringing alarms louder than the tolling bells in St. Peter's Square after white smoke heralded the selection of a new pontiff on Thursday.
Firebrand Lara Loomer denounced Prevost as "pro-open borders" and Catholics for Catholics President John Yep said he viewed Prevost's election with "great concern."
Here are five things to know.
Trump speaks of the era as one in which America was at its "richest."
Certainly a clique of industrialists and others profited mightily from the country's industrial boom at the time. This was the so-called Gilded Age in U.S. history, in which Manhattan's richest families, such as the Vanderbilts, Astors and Morgans, built palatial estates in Newport, Rhode Island.
But for the vast majority of America, life was a very different experience. Many moved to urban centers in search of work and found jobs in factories where the hours were long and the wages minimal. Labor unrest ensued, sometimes turning violent. Immigrants and others working in factories lived in squalor.
"It was not uniformly a period of strong growth. The analogies to the 1890s are extremely weak," said Edward Alden at the Council on Foreign Relations in an April interview. "If you're learning lessons from that era, they are going to be the wrong ones for sure."
The Progressive Era of American politics ushered in safety protocols, a 40-hour week, anti-child-labor laws and many other workplace reforms.
In calling for broad duties on imports, Trump has extolled the nearly 50 years that spanned the last centuries of the past millennium.
"You know, years ago, 1870 to 1913, we didn't have an income tax. What we had is tariffs," Trump said in one speech. "And the tariff system made so much money. It was when we were the richest — from 1870 to 1913. … It was when we were the richest."
The president has often alluded to wealth, telling Americans he will make them more affluent than ever. He has said he will usher a "golden era" and even redecorated the Oval Office with gold trimmings.
'You see the new and improved Oval Office,' Trump said to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney during their May 6 meeting. 'As it becomes more and more beautiful with love — you know we handle it with great love — and 24-karat gold, that always helps too.'
As pope, Leo XIV has not mentioned the era nor drawn lessons from it, but has alluded to faith and wealth.
In his first homily as pontiff on May 9, Leo XIV cited from the Gospel of Matthew a conversation between Jesus and the disciples in Caesarea Philippi, a place the pontiff said was marked by "luxurious palaces" but "also a place of cruel power plays and the scene of betrayals and infidelity."
There, Jesus was a "completely insignificant person," the pope noted, and once this 'world' saw him as a source of irritation, it opted to "eliminate Him." Others there saw Jesus, Leo XIV said, as a courageous "upright man," similar to other great prophets, but at the moment of "danger," they turned away and abandoned him in disappointment.
"What is striking about these two attitudes is their relevance today," the pope concluded. "Even today, there are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power or pleasure."
Sister Maryanne Stevens said the choice of Leo has several messages.
Stevens noted Leo I, also called Leo the Great, worked for peace and kept Attila the Hun from entering Italy. The most recent Leo, the 13th, was the founder of modern Catholic social teachings.
Leo XIII's encyclical "Rerum Novarem" critiqued the excesses of socialism and capitalism. During his 25-year papacy, from 1878 to 1903, the pontiff exhorted people to "come together guided by values" and preached "solidarity between the classes," said Stevens, a theologian and the retired president of the College in St. Mary in Omaha, Nebraska.
According to her, Leo XIII spoke out against "exploitation" of workers by capitalist industrialists but did not agree the "state should take over everything," either. Rather, she said the pontiff recognized the dignity of the human person and called on the broader community to safeguard the rights of people, particular those most vulnerable.
She said Leo XIII wrote there is dignity to every human person and extolled the dignity of work. Stevens said the pontiff pressed capitalists to provide safe environments and healthy environments and create just wages.
"There was a tremendous amount, at the time, of social inequality and exploitation of people and they were problems that had to be faced by both the Church and the state," she said. "That was one of his basic points."
Stevens cautioned against commentary suggesting Leo XIV chose the name in order to send a message to the president.
"I'm not prepared to suggest that Leo chose that name so as to respond to Trump," she said.
Trump's supporters point out the president won election in 2024 by waging a campaign for blue-collar and other workers forgotten and left behind by U.S. free trade and neglectful manufacturing policies in the past 40 years. He vowed, during the campaign, to end taxation of tips and overtime for wage employment.
But once in office, the Trump administration has sought to slash federal spending, including numerous safety net programs for the poorest Americans and the elderly. The White House has also delivered on Trump's harsh rhetoric toward immigrants with equally harsh deportations.
Some in the MAGA-verse were decidedly unhappy over Prevost's immigration tweets, some of which rebuked Trump and Vice President JD Vance's views.
Loomer, a failed congressional candidate in Palm Beach County, wrote on X that the new pontiff "supports illegal aliens and open borders."
Yep said in an interview with Charlie Kirk of the far-right youth group Turning Point USA that he harbored "great concern" because Leo XIV had "an ambiguous scorecard on same sex blessings."
In a statement to The Palm Beach Post, Yep reiterated his belief there is "justifiable apprehension" for what the new papacy will bring due to prior postings on social media. But Yep also said other "praiseworthy actions" by Prevost, such as his emphasis on the "defense of babies in the womb," offer hope.
"We pray that he will work well with the Trump Administration as well as ending immediately the Francis era Secret Accord between the Vatican and the Chinese Communist Party signed in 2018," Yep wrote. "Catholics above all should be praying for this man as undertakes a tremendous responsibility as head of 1.4 billion people."
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at [e-mail]. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Trump, Leo XIV cast gaze on Gilded Age but draw different lessons