Pope Allies Criticize Trump Religious Supporters, Steve Bannon
(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
By Wanda Carruthers
NEWMAX
An article in a Vatican-reviewed journal criticized evangelical and Christian supporters of President Donald Trump for wanting to push a “theocratic” worldview, saying they were attempting to carry out “apocalyptic geopolitics,” The Hill reported Saturday.
The article in La Civiltà Cattolica attacked “value voters” of Trump who carried a “xenophobic and Islamophobic vision that wants walls and purifying deportations.” The articles authors are close confidants of Pope Francis.
“The panorama of threats to their understanding of the American way of life have included modernist spirits, the black civil rights movement, the hippy movement, communism, feminist movements and so on,” the article stated. “And now in our day there are the migrants and the Muslims.”
White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was singled out in the article, saying he wanted Americans to submit to the Bible, which it said was “no different from the one that inspires Islamic fundamentalism.”
The authors praised Pope Francis for having a peaceful worldview and explained he didn’t consider religion as it related to terrorism.
“Francis is courageous here and gives no theological-political legitimacy to terrorists, avoiding any reduction of Islam to Islamic terrorism,” they wrote. “Nor does he give it to those who postulate and want a ‘holy war’ or to build barrier-fences crowned with barbed wire.”
The “barbed wire” comment was likely referencing Trump’s desired wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
Pope Francis criticized Trump in February, calling his religion into question because he wanted to build the border wall. In May, Trump met Pope Francis in Italy and gave him books written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.