Pope Trump Goes Up in Orange Smoke

H abemus Papam are the words the world will be hearing before too long, when a new pope is elected by the College of Cardinals at their conclave at the Vatican. This weekend, when a chimney was attached by the Vatican fire brigade (yes, a real thing) atop the roof of the Sistine Chapel, in Saint Peter’s Square, journalists in Rome flooded social media with the only news they could report in the days before papam: a chimney installation.

Waiting for smoke in Saint Peter’s Square pales in comparison with some of the fun people are having with the coming papal conclave. When the existence of a cardinal named Pierbattista Pizzaballa became widely known, the jokes about his potentially becoming the next pope started to fly: anyone who puts pineapple on pizza will be excommunicated; your second pizza will be free if it doesn’t arrive in 30 minutes or less; he will choose the name Papa John. Even the president of the United States got in on the game, jokingly telling a reporter that he would like to be pope — before posting on social media the now-infamous AI image of himself in papal regalia.

Donald Trump then went on to do what most people do: Name the one cardinal he knows as a decent contender, New York’s Timothy Dolan. None of it is helpful, but it passes the time. I can tell you from experience that the days before the election of a new pope can be the most painfully slow news days in Rome. And yet they offer us rare opportunities to talk about faith and welcome others to learn more: basically, a gift for evangelists. That is, unless the commentary gets absurd, contradictory, or downright meaningless.

What do you think about Bishop Robert Barron’s being on Trump’s religious liberty commission? A friend, a faithful, long-suffering, struggling daughter of the Catholic Church, asked me about the popular bishop stationed in Minnesota. I wasn’t so sure about everyone named to the new White House advisory body, but some are friends who I know will do anything good they can with the opportunity. (I’m looking at you, Ryan T. Anderson.) I am also aware that every time a Catholic (say, JD Vance) is seen with Trump, some are understandably looking for more. A word about the humanity of the immigrant, for instance. This administration can’t even get itself to oppose the increasingly widely dispensed abortion-pill cocktail, which accounts for at least two-thirds of the abortions in the United States; it’s even being prescribed via telehealth. My friend was looking for something from a priest warning Catholics about partisanship and, more fundamentally, advising them not to miss the humanity of the person amid contentious political issues.

Some relatively conservative corners of social media, at the same time, were buzzing about West Virginia Republican Congressman Riley Moore’s speaking on the House floor against religious persecution abroad. It’s an issue that does not get the attention it deserves, but it can be a fair-weather theme: When Coptic Christians or Nigerians are killed on Palm Sunday, it becomes a popular topic in some quarters until a new shiny object comes along to be used as a bludgeon against the mainstream media. But Moore’s name was familiar because the last time social media had noticed him, he was posing in front of a jail cell in El Salvador, giving a thumbs-up. As if to say, Yay, we’re deporting monsters. Criminals who come into our country are people, too, though. Yes, control our borders, keep people safe. But how many miseries got them to this point in life? Maybe it’s not the American government’s concern, but it is humanity’s.

Moore was also a topic of conversation in early March, when he brought Bishop Barron as his guest to the president’s speech to a joint session of Congress. I don’t know that Barron needs to get involved in political X posts, though he is on the platform himself, but I understand the desire for more well-rounded political instruction from a moral point of view. Guidance that is not partisan but about stretching the heart in accord with Scripture. As far as the religious liberty commission goes, Barron can criticize — or warn — while praying and serving (either or both behind the scenes and publicly).

I’m reminded of Cardinal Dolan, who talked with me once about the often controversial Al Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, which every four years tends to host two presidential candidates — one typically an adamant advocate of legal abortion. Cardinal Dolan had come under fire for inviting Barack Obama. If we can’t break bread together, we’re in bigger trouble than we know, he said. How are we ever going to convince people about a topic as fundamental as abortion if we can’t even have civilized meals together? How are we ever to make sense of our immigration mess without talking with people we disagree with about matters that are uncomfortable?

A week after Pope Francis’s passing, former President Joe Biden wrote an op-ed about the importance of mercy and compassion for the vulnerable. He may not have noticed that Pope Francis talked early and often about the evils of abortion and assisted suicide. Biden and Trump both attended Pope Francis’s funeral Mass, and both could take lessons from him in human encounter and the dignity of every human life. Did anyone believe Trump, for example, when he said at the March for Life that every person is made in the image and likeness of God?

It is good to have priests around to remind us to be better. Pray that they do so by the way they live, and that the witness compels us to understand what God is like and what He wants from His created ones. If jokes (say, about blue smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney meaning that a Smurf has been elected pope — you can’t make these things up) keep us entertained while we receive the most important news there is — about how to live the freedom God has given us well, in service to Him and others — so be it. Just don’t forget to pray for all these humans about whom we have opinions, or about whom viewers of the movie Conclave pretend to know everything.

May we have faith in more than we argue about. May the fact that all eyes are on Rome show us a way to know God more and appreciate how He makes all things new, even when it seems as though all we habemus are fleeting frenzies and chaos.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.