FLASH
Shkruar nga Massimo Franco
Today's visit with Marco Rubio should be seen as a fragment of a mosaic in reconstruction...
It is legitimate to view Donald Trump’s attack on Leo XIV and today’s visit to the Vatican by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio through a political lens. Legitimate, but instrumental and deceptive. The Washington administration has every interest in portraying the tensions with the Vatican as a clash of sorts. The reality, however, is that of repeated, almost cold-blooded attacks on the first American Pope, who has simply responded with strong but measured words. Some have tried to find logic and strategy in his hostile and unpredictable behavior towards the head of the Catholic Church: an understandable, if perhaps unintentionally generous, effort.
The impression is that Trump's offensive is a mixture of improvisation and irritation. Improvisation, because trying to find a scapegoat in the Pope for the difficulties facing American politics seems like an ill-conceived device: all the more so when it evokes a ridiculous papal admission of nuclear weapons being incubated in Iran. However, the irritation seems to stem from two factors. The first, in the short term, is the midterm elections in six months, in which Trump's party fears a major setback. His aim is for the controversy with Leone to bring the Catholic votes that are leaving back into the presidential fold, since they contributed decisively to his rise to the White House in 2024.
But the risk is that it will have the opposite effect. The second, more fundamental element, has to do with the Pope and the Vatican as international actors and champions of multilateralism; and the influence they are having in the United States with their pedagogy of peace and inclusion.
For a president who is both the son and embodiment of a radicalized and fearful America, confrontations are the ideal environment in which to act. Ultimately, Trump won over divisive slogans. The idea of having a figure within his ranks who speaks and acts according to diametrically opposed values, but with the same global perspective, must seem intolerable to him. The existence of an episcopate divided for years between "Trumpians" and "anti-Trumpians" served to read American society by his supporters.
And the presence in Vatican Rome of an Argentine pope like Francis, who could even be caricatured as anti-American, benefited Trumpism, despite the symmetrical prejudices of North America against the "Latin Pope". The model, however, no longer works: it cannot work. Since the election of Robert Prevost, the most ardent followers of the MAGA movement, such as Steve Bannon, have tried in vain to accredit Leone as a "Bergoglio clone". But the effort never ended, because the clichés of the past no longer explain anything after the Conclave a year ago.
In the capital of the papacy sits a son of Chicago who also knows his people of origin well; who is called Latin Yankee because, despite the apparent oxymoron, he embodies the identities of the different Americas; and who for this reason challenges the categories previously used to label "conservatives" and "progressives" in the Catholic Church. For Trump, his profile is disturbing and therefore irritating precisely for this reason. And this explains at least in part the attempt to push him into "partisan" positions, with clumsy words that are likely intended to harm the occupant of the White House above all.
But Pope Prevost is not an enemy of Trump, nor can he be defined as anti-Trump. Simply put, he is different from Trump. His gradualism is the product of a strong doctrinal orthodoxy and a long-term vision of reality. Leo XIV was given the mandate to unite and pacify his Church above all else. And he moves with the calmness of someone who believes he has a few years ahead of him to try to bring Catholicism back to unity and the world to a less desperate and violent vision of international relations. The White House, on the other hand, seems almost obsessed with the need to certify increasingly elusive military “victories” in the near future.
To think that this means permanent damage to the historic relationship between the Vatican and the United States would be to indulge in a "presentist" interpretation of what is happening. In reality, their bond is stronger and more deeply rooted than the turmoil of recent months suggests. This is so for historical, strategic, financial and value-based reasons, although the latter aspect may seem strange today. But above all, it is a bond that goes beyond this Administration. Today's visit with Marco Rubio should be seen as a fragment of a mosaic in reconstruction. And one that will be reassembled, perhaps with difficulty, against a backdrop of updated but equally stable conditions. Despite the occasional blows fired by the White House. / Adapted from "Pamphlet" by "Corriere della Sera"
Ka vajtur ky skuthi te sheqerosi thartirat qe leshon ustai tij.
Tani qe "u gjunjezua" rate ne qetesi edhe ju edhe corriere... . Shyqyr me ne fund u qetesuat, por kujdes kur i referoheni corriere- se ata jane aq serioze e te besueshem saqe edhe psé Trump ishte konfirmuar fitues corriere vazhdone me "burime te besueshme" te deklaronte qe ka fituar Kamala