The Vatican and the American Crisis

In Washington, they haven't understood the conclave. They don't understand this new phase of Catholicism. According to Massimo Franco, this is the view inside the Vatican regarding Donald Trump's attack on the Pope [Corriere della Sera, April 14]. The day before, Trump had targeted Robert Prevost, dedicating a lengthy post to him on his own social media platform, Truth Social. At the heart of his criticism was papal opposition to the third Gulf War. I don't want a Pope who thinks it's OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon – he had written – I don't want a pope who criticises the president of the United States or who meets with Obama sympathisers. All accompanied by an AI-generated image in which Trump appeared in the guise of a healing Jesus.

Americanism and US imperialist expansion

The forms are those of show and social media politics in the Trumpian style. They have scandalised many, including a large share of conservative American Catholics. In themselves, such encroachments are the norm in the 2,000-year history of relations between throne and altar, a history made up of agreements, compromises, mutual interference, and also clashes to the bitter end. As for relations between the United States and the Vatican, the fact that it took until 1984 to establish full diplomatic relations gives an idea of the turmoil that has characterised them.

Franco recalls the failed visit of Monsignor Bedini, sent to Washington in 1853 by Pope Pius IX with the aim of opening a diplomatic mission. Lost and frightened, on his return from that nightmarish journey, he would report on 19^th century America as being swept up in religious and anti-papist passions whose existence he had not suspected [Imperi Paralleli, Il Saggiatore, 2016]. At the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, Americanism was an expression of a national distinctiveness within the American episcopate which, viewed from Rome, smacked of heresy. Leo XIII intervened personally, with the aim of curbing liberal influence on the American church. Franco notes, however, that the US episcopate was engaged in a battle on two fronts, one within the country and one on the Vatican side. The aim was to make clear to Americans that Catholicism placed loyalty to the homeland first and did not constitute a threat to the country's independence and, at the same time, not to set this loyalty against the Church of Rome. The eternal dialectic between Vatican centralisation and national churches was re-emerging across the Atlantic, driven by the rapid development of the future superpower.

The Pope, patriarch of the West

The pragmatic shift in relations between the Vatican and Washington, as Franco defines it, would require the shock of imperialist carnage. In 1939, the United States decided that it was necessary to have an ear in Rome, the heart of Mediterranean fascism allied with Hitler, while Pope Pius XII was preparing for an alliance with the true victor of the Second World War. At the same time, the Italy of the papacy was preparing to play a strategic role alongside the United States.

The Yalta partition would mark the end of Eurocentrism and give the Church a Western character. As Andrea Riccardi writes, this is where its resources lay, this is where its cadres and missionaries throughout the world came from, this is where its administrative centres and major cultural centres were located. It was a decisive turning point, though not one which would resolve every issue. In the United States, all presidents, including Kennedy, the first Catholic president, had to contend with the anti-papal tradition fuelled by Protestant organisations. As for the Vatican, Pius XII himself was determined, as far as possible, to affirm the neutrality and impartiality of the Church, which was, moreover, destined to be drawn into the crisis of Western society [Il potere del papa, Laterza, 1988].

The United States and the multipolar Church

In the post-war decades, the papacy, having emerged as an Atlanticist bulwark, faced momentous transformations both internally and externally. The social change linked to imperialist maturation and, today, to late imperialist maturation, has overturned the old structure of the Catholic establishment and set in motion a trend towards a decline in vocations in the old powers. From the 1960s onwards, the Church effectively became global. Today, over two-thirds of its faithful and more than half of its priests live outside Europe and North America. In terms of power relations, the Atlantic decline will be matched by the emergence of Asia and the Global South, and above all, the Chinese giant. These are epoch-defining changes on a scale of centuries or millennia which, in the history of the Church itself, call to mind the 16^th century or the fall of the Roman Empire.

In 2013, the calculated discontinuity represented by the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio reflected the new condition of a multipolar Church. In his ambition to foster a healthy decentralisation – and thus to review the forms of Vatican centralisation – and in the agreement with Beijing over the appointment of bishops, the first non-European pope in modern history represented the response of the Church to those epoch-defining changes. As an expression of an objective process, the trend towards a multipolar Church is irreversible. How it is managed, and in what measure, is another matter.

It is significant here that a respected commentator such as Walter Russell Mead, an informal interlocutor of Trump's, considers the pontificates of Bergoglio and Prevost together. Mead believes that history will likely view the papacies of Francis and Leo as a transitional era for a Catholic Church slowly adjusting to a world in which the Church's future lies increasingly in the Global South. According to Mead, although born in the US, Prevost is in fact, given his background, the second pope in a row to emerge from the Latin American church, the continent home to the largest number of Catholics in the world, but where evangelical churches have long been gaining ground. These are churches with which Trump's Protestant supporters have close ties. From Prevost's perspective, Mead observes, Trump is almost the personification of everything that is wrong with the world [The Wall Street Journal, April 21^st].

In Prevost's election as pope, we have seen a sign of continuity with Bergoglio's pontificate, albeit in a rebalancing. The American crisis is the flip side of the rise of China and the Global South. Confronting this crisis appears to be the task facing Leo XIV, pope of multipolarism, but also an Augustinian, American pope [L'intesa multipolare nella crisi dell'ordine, Ed. Lotta Comunista, 2025].

Prevost and the American question

For the Vatican, there is an American question to be addressed, in which the crisis of the US Church and the Atlantic decline are interconnected dimensions. A century later, another kind of Americanism is sweeping through that sector of the Church, gripped by the unprecedented conditions of a global superpower in relative decline. Franco reports on the Vatican's fears of seeing Catholics sucked into the clash between two Americas but, regarding the recent episode, notes the almost deafening silence of the conservative American world, confirming Prevost's ability to unite the episcopate [Papi, dollari e guerre, Solferino, 2026].

DE FACTO GRAND COALITION OF EUROPEAN REARMAMENT

Andreotti was an excellent foreign minister, sometimes even of Italy. The quip attributed to Spadolini, aside from the judgement on Andreotti, speaks to the significance that the relationship with the Vatican held for Rome in the post-war decades. The recent clash between Trump and Prevost saw Prime Minister Meloni take a stand in defence of the Pope, drawing a harsh reaction from the American president. Previously, Rome had refused to grant use of the Sigonella military base to aircraft involved in the Gulf War. By aligning itself with the Vatican, the government was thus able to distance itself from a US administration in the midst of strategic confusion. A few days later, the prime minister travelled to Paris for the meeting of the willing on Hormuz, embracing Macron and joining Merz and Starmer in the European E4.

Since the government took office, we have observed how, on all key issues, the sovereignists in government have proved to be euro-soluble. The novelty, therefore, lies not in substance but in form. A more ostentatious pro-European stance, at least in this case, is a way of distancing oneself from Trump and his wars, the effects of which are hitting the economy. The special relationship once claimed now appears of little use. Whether this will have an effect on the domestic front remains to be seen. The referendum has turned the narrative on its head. In media portrayals and political calculations, both Italian and European, the image of an eroded executive has overshadowed the newfound political stability. The centre-left broad coalition has the wind in its sails, and its many leaders – or would-be leaders – already see themselves at Palazzo Chigi. We shall see. There is only one prime minister's seat and, judging by the dry electoral figures, the two voter bases are more or less equal. One thing is certain from the outset. Whatever the political hue of the government, we will find it enlisted in the European rearmament. It is a de facto grand coalition. Imperialist Europeanism has infinite nuances.

The matter, clearly, cannot be considered closed. James Keating, a theologian and academic, one of the leading contributors to First Things, the flagship journal of US religious conservatism, agrees with Prevost in condemning certain aspects of Trump's rhetoric. Yet, his words also sound like a warning. Prevost, he writes, took the extra step of encouraging Americans to contact their congressmen to end the war, thus entering into the political fray of his native country. Even if other popes have done this, no American pope, for obvious reasons, has. We are in uncharted territory [April 16^th].

Does an American pope sharpen the tension between the supranational centre and the national Church by putting the papacy on the front line? It is a risk that the Vatican may have factored in and perhaps even deemed necessary. The convulsions of American decline, as we have written, are such as to threaten to sever the US from Europe. Prevost alluded to this, believing that an attempt is underway to break apart what I think needs to be a very important alliance today, and in the future [December 9^th]. The reference was to Trump's latest statements, and the alliance was that between Europe and the United States.

China and the convulsions of US decline

Fears regarding the stability of the Atlantic alliance are compounded by those concerning the world order. Leo XIV, writes Franco, finds himself facing a president who invokes God to justify the bombing of Iran, and is undermining the multilateralism and international order of which the US itself had been the architect. And this while a regime change is taking place that upsets the institutional balances of powers to the sole advantage of the White House [20.06]. A significant difference can be noted compared to 2003. Even then, the Vatican, under Wojtyła, took a stand against Bush Jr's pre-emptive war, and even then, the reasoning went beyond the Middle Eastern context. Among the Pope's fears, as reported by Andrea Tornielli, was that this very doctrine might be used by other very powerful States hostile to the United States. For example, who would prevent China from denouncing Taiwan as a threat and invading it? [Papi e guerra, Il Giornale, 2003]. What appears different, however, is the assessment of American oscillations and what Prevost defines as the current weakness of multilateralism.

Setting aside any theological considerations regarding the Augustinian concept of just war – which we shall not address here – this is a global contention that has reached the level of continental powers, suggesting that the Vatican handle Atlantic decline with extreme care. Washington is no longer the sole superpower in the arena. A decade of crises and wars arising from the crisis in the world order has begun. Today, the multipolar Church would like to be the Katehon, the restraining force. A lesson of the 20^th century, however, is that the breakdown of the order will once again call upon its military chaplains, both at the front and in the rear. The era in which the Church was the chaplain of the West has ended. But even the multipolar Church, in its ambition to act as chaplain to all powers, old and new, will be gripped by the crisis in the world order.

The Internationalism