The political gap between US evangelicals and Catholics is widening. And Trump won’t tolerate authority outside his own
“W
ho will rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Henry II was reputed to have muttered. His knights heard his pointed remark as an order. They rode to confront Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury, who spoke too freely and critically about the king. When they failed to intimidate him into silence, they murdered him. Absolute rule demanded absolute fealty.
The representative of the holy trinity could not be allowed to stand above the unitary executive in 1170.
Donald Trump believed that the conclave of the college of cardinals elected Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV on 8 May 2025 for the gratification and exaltation of Donald Trump. “He wasn’t on any list to be Pope,” Trump posted on 12 April this year, “and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”
