Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano listens to remarks at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' annual fall meeting in Baltimore on Nov. 16, 2015.Patrick Semansky/The Associated Press
Michael W. Higgins is interim president of St. Mark’s and Corpus Christi Colleges at the University of British Columbia and a senior fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto
The Titular Archbishop of Ulpiana and former papal ambassador to Washington, Carlo Maria Vigano, must have been thrilled when President Donald Trump tweeted “So honored by Archbishop Vigano‘s incredible letter to me. I hope everyone, religious or not, reads it!”
Incredible is the right word. Widely disseminated by the ultraconservative Catholic media and subsequently available on all public platforms, Archbishop Vigano‘s letter could not have failed to appeal to Mr. Trump. It is a validation of the President’s modus operandi, his ideological convictions, porous though they can be, and his Napoleonic ego.
Archbishop Vigano‘s letter reads like a Gnostic text with its “children of the light” doing battle with the “children of darkness,” the latter of which we “may easily identify with the deep state which you wisely oppose and which is fiercely waging war against you in these days.” Archbishop Vigano deplores the opposition Mr. Trump faces and shares the President’s belief that “the mainstream media does not want to spread the truth but seeks to silence and distort it.”
If Mr. Trump was looking for a fellow traveller, a culture warrior who appreciates the demonic forces arrayed against the angelic sentinels of our civilization, the onetime nuncio to Washington fits the bill perfectly.
One could expect such support from the televangelist John Hagee and his preacher companions-in-apocalypse, whose fulminations against the work of Satan are as colourful as they are risible, but a seasoned, sophisticated Roman diplomat, well that is quite a stretch.
But on examination, it is not all that surprising. Archbishop Vigano is himself an outlier, marginalized by the Pope he despises in spite of formulaic protestations of loyalty, a spokesperson for Catholics disaffected by the Francis pontificate, an ecclesiastic who masterfully deploys all the tropes and conspiracy theories that have enjoyed a stunning resurgence thanks to the history-distorting fiction of Dan Brown and the truth-mangled propaganda of Steve Bannon.
This church-state alliance of Archbishop Vigano and Mr. Trump is an aberration, but it does presage a turbulent and unpredictable time for the U.S. Catholic electorate as they prepare for the November election. Catholic bishops have their clear preference for whom they would like in the White House – and contrary to public perception they do not all think alike or vote as a collectivity – but Archbishop Vigano‘s insertion into the national conversation is strategically timed, enjoying some support from within the American episcopate and among a minority of the Catholic laity by giving voice to those who share his misgivings over Pope Francis.
Mr. Trump needs to cultivate the Catholic vote, although such a vote is neither homogenous nor reliable, and he needs to appeal to religious authorities outside his formidable fundamentalist base. In the previous election, he won the white male Catholic vote – though not the Hispanic – in part because of the slide away from the traditional Democrat-labour union political concordat that had persisted for decades.
To shore up his connections with the Roman Church, Mr. Trump appointed Callista Gingrich – wife of the former speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich – as the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, strengthened his bona fides through his anti-abortion platform, assumed the role of champion of religious freedom on both the national and international front, and cultivated prominent Catholic corporate leaders and media influencers of like opinion. In addition, conservative Catholics can be found in the Trump orbit, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Attorney-General William Barr principal among them.
When he visited the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington shortly after his controverted photo-op in front of Saint John’s Church in Lafayette Square, Mr. Trump and those who invited him were scolded by the first Black archbishop of Washington, Wilton Gregory, for behaviour that was “baffling and reprehensible.” Later on, Archbishop Gregory would return to his critique by expanding it to include his defence of John Paul II’s legacy against those who would misrepresent it: “[John Paul II] would not condone the use of tear gas and other deterrents to silence, scatter or intimidate them for a photo opportunity in front of a place of worship and peace.”
Archbishop Gregory aligned the two visits by seeing in them a symbol at variance with Catholic teaching. Not surprisingly, the archbishop has been deluged with vile accusations of moral dissoluteness.
In the end, that white male Catholic vote Mr. Trump counted on in the previous election may again be determinative. Archbishop Vigano‘s elaborate conspiracy theory dressed up with biblical urgency may just help to ensure that vote by appealing to the same qualities that define the Trump presidency. Or it may be a bizarre ploy that backfires.
We will find out in November.
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