Donald Trump has no idea what it means to be Pope, writes Shelagh Fogarty

To suggest Pope Leo ‘sticks to matters of morality’ alone is to show a profound ignorance of the role, not just in the modern era.

Cardinal Czerny, who currently heads the Vatican department (dicastery) for promoting human development, put it neatly in a TV interview. Asked about criticism that Leo was too political, he replied that ‘life is political’. Then he explained that being political and being partisan are two very different things.

I’m glad Leo is being so vocal.

The first Pope to really hit my radar was John Paul the Second. He was elected unexpectedly in 1978, after the sudden death of his Italian predecessor, just thirty-three days into his term. This new pope was Polish, young, and charismatic. There was an intensity to him, but a quick, warm humour to match, which no doubt added to his appeal, especially to the young. He’s one of the inspirational public figures of my lifetime.

John Paul II led the charge against Communist leadership in Eastern Europe. Unlike Leo, he had the full support of the US President Ronald Reagan and our own PM at the time, Margaret Thatcher.

He’d come of age under Nazism, only to see his beloved Poland swallowed up by the Soviet Union. For the Catholic Church, communism is in full opposition to the full humanity of the individual. We were left in no doubt what this Pope made of it, but even when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed, John Paul wrote and spoke with similar clarity about the dangers untramelled free market Capitalism can pose to human dignity. I think the past decade has proved some of his arguments on that.

My friends rib me about my interest in Papal Encyclicals - basically a long essay by a Pope on a particular theme. They make valuable reading alongside whatever the politics of the day are. They often track those politics.

Pope Leo’s namesake, Leo the Thirteenth, wrote Rerum Novarum on workers’ rights as the Industrial Revolution transformed their lives. It’s credited as a major factor in the development of trade unions. Pope Paul VI wrote Humanae Vitae (on Human Life) just as the contraceptive pill transformed people’s sex lives and reproduction. John Paul’s Veritatis Splendor (On The Splendour of Truth) sets out the Church’s belief that good and evil are knowable, and relativism about them gives birth to the horrors we see in the world. Pope Francis chose the environment with his second encyclical, Laudato Si.

We await Leo the Fourteenth’s first Encyclical. My guess is it will deal with technology's gifts and threats to humanity.

Perhaps the President and his deputy should prepare themselves this time.

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Listen to LBC's Shelagh Fogarty from 1-4pm Monday to Friday on the LBC app.

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