“We congratulate” the new president of the United States, Donald Trump, and “we wish him much wisdom” to also “overcome polarizations” said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Pppe's Secretary of State, on the sidelines of an event in Rome on November 7, 2024, reports the Italian news agency Ansa, among others.
Pope Francis has not released a statement on the election. (In image above, he is seen received Trump during his last presidency at the Vatican.)
“I think he has to work above all to be president of the whole country, so as to overcome the polarization that has occurred, which has been felt very very sharply in this time,” said Cardinal Parolin. “We hope that he can indeed be an element of ‘détente’ and pacification in the current conflicts that are bleeding the world.”
Donald Trump and global conflicts
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, 'number 2' of the Holy See, reacted to Donald Trump's victory on the sidelines of an event on artificial intelligence at Rome's Gregorian University.
Vatican diplomatic actors are particularly concerned about the situation in the Middle East and Ukraine, where the Holy See has offered to be a mediator. In responding to a question by journalists on Donald Trump’s vow to end wars, Cardinal Parolin said, “Let’s hope … of course, he doesn’t have a magic wand either.”
On the conflict in Ukraine, which Donald Trump has promised to resolve in 24 hours, the head of Vatican diplomacy said that it was difficult to give an opinion, given the great uncertainties today.
Donald Trump “also has not given any concrete indications as to how [this would be done]. Let's see now what he will propose after he takes office,” said Cardinal Parolin, as reported by Vatican News.
Harris and Trump “both are against life,” according to the Pope
There are some issues that bring the Pope and Donald Trump together, such as their opposition to abortion. In this regard, Cardinal Parolin expressed the hope that Donald Trump's avowed defense of life would not become a politics of “polarization and division,” but that the new president could broaden the consensus.
Asked last September about the dilemma facing American Catholics in the presidential election, Pope Francis said in September 2024 that “both are against life: the one who throws out migrants and the one who kills children. Both are against life.”
Pope Francis at that time invited Americans to “choose the lesser evil.”
“Which is the lesser evil? That lady or that gentleman? I do not know; each person must think and decide according to his or her own conscience."
The Pope’s relationship with Donald Trump
Pope Francis welcomed Donald Trump at the Vatican in May 2017, six months after his first election to the White House. The handshake was cordial, but the disagreements between the two men were well known.
During the 2016 campaign, the Pope had criticized Trump's idea of building a wall between the US and Mexico and deporting illegal immigrants.
“If a person who thinks only of building walls, wherever it may be, and not of building bridges, [he] is not Christian,” Pope Francis said on his flight home from a trip to Mexico that year.
This morning, Cardinal Parolin highlighted that the Holy See is “for a wise policy towards migrants and therefore one that does not go to these extremes.”
On the diplomatic front, while the Pope had welcomed the historic meetings between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2018 and 2019, Vatican diplomacy had voiced its discontent and concern after Donald Trump's decision to transfer the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
In a region of the world that has been engulfed in bloodshed since the massacre of October 7, 2023, Donald Trump's return was hailed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “huge victory.”
