How many divisions?
For me the funniest and strangest thing about the Trump administration trying to bully and threaten the Papacy into supporting its wars, is that anyone in the Trump administration had heard of the Avignon schism and the anti-pope.
After that it stops being funny but remains strange. Is Trump such a man-child that he somehow thought he could threaten the Catholic Church into backing him and seriously set up a second, rival alternative church if they didn’t?
The current Pope seems like a thoroughly decent type and I am sure he had a jolly good laugh at the very idea of Trump undermining his role and the unity of the Church of Rome.
Let’s face it when Stalin was told he might let the Papacy have some influence in the famously devout parts of Eastern Europe, he asked “Why? How many divisions does the Pope have?”
But even he, who was an old hand at setting up rival pro-communist administrations, didn’t threaten to set up a rival papacy.
Although it is not much of a surprise that Trump is not as bright as Stalin, it is amazing that he can find numerous members of staff who think that an open threat to the Vatican Ambassador in the Pentagon is going to get anywhere at all, is acceptable or even might sound good when leaked.
Let alone that they seriously suggested that the paedophile President might set up a Papacy on the Potomac. Will he build a palace or chateau for his anti-pope? Perhaps a great palace, “best palace ever”, with lots of plastic bling and maybe some slots in the Second Sistine Chapel?
Oh, please! I hope so. It could be a permanent monument to the fact that even Trump cannot bully and threaten everyone and everything.
It is however nice to see that Trump is so thin skinned that he desperately hates what the Pope has to say about him.
God, how he must stew about every harsh word, every SNL scene, every contemptuous comment by his former allies, every Iranian Lego video.
Some are suggesting ex-communication as a weapon that the Pope could use against Trump and his catholic supporters but I think it would be much better if his Holiness visited Avignon to give a sermon on the evils of war and just ended it with a mic drop.
From Jonty Bloom Media Ltd
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
I'm personally not sure that it's a 'trumpism' - it's more in-line with Hegseth's cackeyed view of Christianity (after all he held services over Easter that expressly excluded Catholics), it might also fit into the 'Anti-Biden' narrative given that JB is a practising Catholic.
Either way it demonstrates, for me, that the cult of Trump is all pervasive and perverted.
Well, that'll be a thorn in his side with future negotiations in South American countries.