Pope Francis Wishes Trump Well, But Then Issues A Warning

"Hitler didn't steal the power, his people voted for him, and then he destroyed his people"

Written by Michael Corthell

BRIDGTON, Maine - January 24, 2017 - Pope Francis wished President Donald Trump well on his inauguration as the 45th president of the United States last Friday, praying that God will grant him 'wisdom and strength' to perform his duties.

But at the same time, the Pope warned of populist leaders like Donald Trump. In an hour long interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais and conducted at the time Donald Trump was being sworn in as the 45th U.S. president last Friday, the leader of the Catholic Church warned against the rise of populist leaders like Adolf Hitler. Trump is a populist leader.

''Hitler didn’t steal the power, his people voted for him, and then he destroyed his people,'' Pope Francis said. The pope told the paper that he has worries about the rise of populism in the United States and Europe.

''In times of crisis, we lack judgment, and that is a constant reference for me,'' he said. ''The case of Germany is classic,'' he continued, also adding that Hitler gave them a ''deformed identity and we know what it produced.''

''After the crisis of 1930, Germany is broken, it needs to get up, to find its identity, a leader, someone capable of restoring its character, and there is a young man named Adolf Hitler who said ''I can do it.'' (Donald Trump said that he was the only one who was capable of 'fixing' America.)

Pope Francis declined, however, to link Trump directly to Hitler. ''We will see how he acts, what he does, and then I will have an opinion,'' he said. He reasoned that ''being afraid or rejoicing beforehand because of something that might happen is, in my view, quite unwise.''  Instead, the Pope said, ''We must wait and see'':

We need specifics. And from the specific we can draw consequences. We are losing our sense of the concrete. The other day, a thinker was telling me that this world is so upside down that it needs a fixed point. And those fixed points stem from concrete actions. What did you do, what did you decide, what moves did you make? That is why I prefer to wait and see.

The Pope was asked if he feared that Trump’s success may give rise to even more extreme right-wing populist movements in other parts of the world, especially in Europe, Pope Francis referred to a conflict he’s had with the newly elected president.

''In times of crisis we lack judgment,'' he said. ''Let’s look for a savior who gives us back our identity and let us defend ourselves with walls, barbed-wire, whatever, from other people who may rob us of our identity.''

We can infer exactly what Pope Francis thinks of President Trump if we go back to February of 2016 when Francis said this, ''A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” after a reporter asked him about Mr. Trump on the papal jet as he returned to Rome after his six-day visit to Mexico.