Theologian: Pope Leo XIV not an "Anti-Trump"

US Theologian Faggioli: Pope Leo XIV not an "Anti-Trump"

Theologian in "Furche" Interview: New Pope is critical in principle, "but I don't expect a frontal papal opposition" - Neo-integralist movement and networks around US Vice President Vance are causing concern

Clear positions, but no "frontal opposition": This is what US theologian Massimo Faggioli expects from Pope Leo XIV regarding his stance on US President Donald Trump. However, despite all the expected factual criticism of US policy, the Pope is not an "anti-Trump," Faggioli said in an interview with "Furche" (Friday). A particular challenge for the Pope will be to hold together the increasingly divergent wings of the Catholic Church in the United States. "Conservative and progressive-liberal Catholics are increasingly living in two different universes with different parishes, schools, groups, etc. This is a strange and unhealthy situation." Moreover, the conservative wing in particular is becoming "increasingly stronger and more militant."

However, the theologian is "more concerned" about the actions of Vice President James David Vance and his network. "He is acting much more intelligently and already has the post-Trump era in mind," says Faggioli, who teaches Catholic theology and religious studies at Villanova University. Vance combines traditional perspectives with modern methods and approaches of the "Silicon Valley tech gurus"; and he "openly flirts with many of the ideas of the integralists and nationalists, such as the demand that only Christians should immigrate to the United States."

In the background, questionable interpretations of charity, for example, with reference to the "Ordo Amoris" (graded charity), which goes back to Augustine, are said to be present. However, it is precisely here that Vance will have a harder time with the new pope, according to Faggioli, "who, as an Augustinian, naturally brings a great deal of credibility here" – and even as a Cardinal, he had rejected Vance's interpretation on social media.

The conception hidden behind the term "integralism," namely the primacy of a spiritual over a secular order and the associated displacement of the liberal order, will not disappear anytime soon, according to Faggioli. This is represented by a "new generation of ultra-conservative thinkers" whom he himself identifies among his students. "This will not disappear even after Trump," the theologian said.

Cathcon:  The importance of the primacy of the spiritual in the fight with the tyrannical powers of this world should rather be emphasised.  It finds its finest expression in a book by the distinguished Catholic philosopher, Jacques Maritain.  Full text here  and Maritain making crystal clear his views on all forms of  totalitarianism.

Asked about the "Waldstein case" recently discussed in Austria in this context, involving the Heiligenkreuz priest and moral theologian Edmund Waldstein, Faggioli stated that Waldstein is "quite well known" in the US community as an integralist – he himself has been following Waldstein's activities for around ten years, "and one can say that he has become one of the voices of the Catholic right in the US as well."  (Cathcon:  Dr Waldstein's Defence in his own words. He has been asked to make an academic submission to the Hochschul before they will allow him to lecture again.  See also Heiligenkreuz Response Letter)

(Note: On June 5, Faggioli will give a lecture on "Far-Right Catholicism and Trump" at the University of Innsbruck.)

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