We may be minutes away from a Twitter feud between Pope Francis and Donald Trump.
When asked to comment on the Donald’s presidential campaign Wednesday, the head of the Catholic Church replied, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.”
According to the Associated Press, the pope’s remarks were specifically targeted at Trump’s plan to construct a wall along the United States’ southern border.
Trump responded with characteristic grace, essentially telling His Holiness, “Nice Vatican ya got here. Would be a shame if an ISIS attack happened to it.”
“If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened,” the GOP front-runner wrote in an official statement. The mogul went on to call the pope’s comments “disgraceful.”
At a press conference Thursday afternoon, Trump blamed the Mexican government for convincing the pope that he is “a bad guy.”
If the pope’s comments on Trump have divine authority, then there are far fewer Christians in the United States than previously believed. Polls from last summer showed a majority of Americans voicing support for a border wall with Mexico, while 41 percent favored a fence to keep out Canadians as well.
The pope’s standard thins the ranks of Christendom even more dramatically overseas. Last year, Hungary built a barrier along its border with Serbia and Croatia. Nearly 40 percent of Hungarians are Catholic, and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s border policy is broadly popular in the country.
