Donald Trump’s verdict on his audience with Pope Francis – ‘fantastic meeting’, ‘honor of a lifetime’ – may disappoint those who were expecting a showdown. The Pope is supposed to be Trump’s ‘antithesis’, ‘the anti-Trump’, his ‘polar opposite’ and so on and so on.
But in the end the meeting was merely awkward, to judge by the photos, and the discussion was mostly confined to safe issues (life, peace and liberty good, persecution of Christians bad). People are making much of the grumpiest Pope photo, but Francis often looks bored and uneasy when he meets important dignitaries. He tends to cheer up around the poor and the sick.
If the meeting was an anti-climax, that is appropriate, because for all that is written on both leaders and what they symbolise, Francis and Trump are both distinguished by a lack of clarity about what they actually stand for.
Trump is meant to be the champion of the ‘forgotten men and women’, but this doesn’t seem to be reflected in his policies or his poll ratings.
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