US presidential hopeful Donald Trump has labelled Pope Francis’s questioning of his Christianity as “disgraceful”.
Francis was asked in a press conference on a papal flight from Mexico for his reaction to Mr Trump’s proposal of a US-Mexico border wall, and what he might say to US Catholics supporting Mr Trump.
Francis said that he was “not going to get involved” in giving advice about voting.
“I’ll only say that this man is not Christian if he says this,” said the Pontiff.
“We have to see if he said these things. And . . . I give the benefit of the doubt.”
Responding to the Pope’s comments, Mr Trump said: “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful.”
“I am proud to be a Christian and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened . . . .”
Mr Trump said Mexican authorities told the Pope only “one side of the story”.
“He didn’t see the crime, the drug trafficking and the negative economic impact the current policies have on the United States,” Mr Trump said.
The Republican Party contender added: “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.”
Also on the papal flight, the Pontiff was asked about Mr Trump’s comments last week that Francis’s visit to the US-Mexico border made the Pope a political pawn of the Mexican state.
“Thank God that he said I am political because Aristotle defines the human person as animal politicus(political animal),” the Pope quipped.
“At least I am human!”
“Am I a pawn?” Francis asked. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’ll leave the judgment to you, to the people.”
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges is not Christian,” said the Pontiff.
“This is not in the Gospel.”
Mr Trump softened his tone later, saying he has a lot of respect for the Pope.
“I don’t like fighting with the Pope actually,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s a fight, I think he said something much softer than originally reported by the media.”
A Vatican spokesman later said the Pope’s comments were in no way a personal attack or an indication of how to vote.
Sources