{"id":21032,"date":"2016-02-19T09:00:29","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T17:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/pope-vs-trump-not-christian-to-only-build-border-walls\/"},"modified":"2016-02-19T09:00:29","modified_gmt":"2016-02-19T17:00:29","slug":"pope-vs-trump-not-christian-to-only-build-border-walls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/pope-vs-trump-not-christian-to-only-build-border-walls\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope vs. Trump: ‘Not Christian’ to only build border walls"},"content":{"rendered":"

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE<\/strong> \u2014 Thrusting himself into the heated American presidential campaign, Pope Francis declared Thursday that Donald Trump is \u201cnot Christian\u201d if he wants to address illegal immigration only by building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/p>\n

Trump fired back ferociously, saying it was \u201cdisgraceful\u201d for a religious leader to question a person\u2019s faith.<\/p>\n

The rare back-and-forth between pontiff and presidential candidate was the latest astonishing development in an American election already roiled by Trump\u2019s free-wheeling rhetoric and controversial policy proposals, particularly on immigration. It also underscored the popular pope\u2019s willingness to needle U.S. politicians on hot-button issues.<\/p>\n

Francis\u2019 comments came hours after he concluded a visit to Mexico, where he prayed at the border for people who died trying to reach the U.S. While speaking to reporters on the papal plane, he was asked what he thought of Trump\u2019s campaign pledge to build a wall along the entire length of the border and expel millions of people in the U.S. illegally.<\/p>\n

\u201cA person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,\u201d he said. While Francis said he would \u201cgive the benefit of the doubt\u201d because he had not heard Trump\u2019s border plans independently, he added, \u201cI say only that this man is not a Christian if he has said things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, a Presbyterian and the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, responded within minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a religious leader to question a person\u2019s faith is disgraceful,\u201d he said at a campaign stop in South Carolina, which holds a key primary on Saturday. \u201cI am proud to be a Christian, and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump also raised the prospect of the Islamic State extremist group attacking the Vatican, saying that if that happened, \u201cthe pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

The billionaire businessman said later Thursday that he was \u201ctotally respectful\u201d of the pope but stood by his initial response.<\/p>\n

Francis, the first pope from Latin America, has been a vocal proponent of compassionate immigration policies. In an address to Congress during his visit to Washington last year, he urged lawmakers to respond to immigrants \u201cin a way which is always humane, just and fraternal.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also irked Republicans on the same trip with his forceful call for international action to address climate change. His comments prompted some GOP presidential candidates to suggest the pontiff stay out of politics.<\/p>\n

Immigration is among the most contentious issues in American politics. Republicans have moved toward hardline positions that emphasize law enforcement and border security, blocking comprehensive legislation in 2013 that would have included a path to citizenship for many of the 11 million people in the U.S. illegally.<\/p>\n

Hispanics, an increasingly large voting bloc in U.S. presidential elections, have flocked to Democrats in recent years. President Barack Obama won more than 70 percent in the 2012 election, leading some Republican leaders to conclude that the party could win the White House back only if it increased its appeal to the fast-growing group.<\/p>\n

However, the current GOP presidential primary has been dominated by increasingly tough rhetoric on immigration, with Trump at the forefront. He\u2019s insisted that Mexico would pay for his proposed border wall and has said some Mexicans entering the U.S. illegally are murderers and rapists.<\/p>\n

While Trump\u2019s rhetoric has been among the most inflammatory, some of his rivals have staked out similar enforcement positions. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson are among those who have explicitly called for construction of a wall.<\/p>\n

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, one of the few GOP candidates proposing a path to legal status for people already in the U.S. illegally, said Thursday that he supports \u201cwalls and fencing where it\u2019s appropriate.\u201d Bush said that while he gets his guidance \u201cas a Catholic\u201d from the pope, he doesn\u2019t take his cues from Francis on \u201ceconomic or environmental policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marco Rubio, another Catholic seeking the GOP nomination, said that Vatican City has a right to control its borders and so does the United States.<\/p>\n

Rubio said he has \u201ctremendous respect and admiration\u201d for the pope, but he added, \u201cThere\u2019s no nation on Earth that\u2019s more compassionate on immigration than we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cruz said he was steering clear of the dispute. \u201cThat\u2019s between Donald and the pope,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to get in the middle of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear what impact, if any, the pope\u2019s rhetoric will have on the Republican primary. An October poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that most Americans had no strong opinion on the pope\u2019s approach to immigration issues, though he was overall viewed favorably.<\/p>\n

Even before Thursday\u2019s exchange, Trump had been critical of Francis\u2019 visit to Mexico. He said last week that the pope\u2019s plans to pray at the border showed he was a political figure being exploited by the Mexican government.<\/p>\n

Francis glossed over Trump\u2019s assertion that he was a pawn of Mexico, telling reporters on his plane that he would \u201cleave that up to your judgment.\u201d But he seemed pleased to hear Trump had called him a \u201cpolitical\u201d figure, noting that Aristotle had described the human being as a \u201cpolitical animal.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Pace reported from Greenville, South Carolina. AP writers Jill Colvin in Kiawah Island, South Carolina, and Tom Beaumont in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Nicole Winfield on Twitter at: http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/nwinfield and Julie Pace at http:\/\/twitter.com\/jpaceDC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE \u2014 Thrusting himself into the heated American presidential campaign, Pope Francis declared Thursday that Donald Trump is \u201cnot Christian\u201d if he wants to address illegal immigration only by building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump fired back ferociously, saying it was \u201cdisgraceful\u201d for a religious leader to question a person\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":21033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-21032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21032"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}