The Middle East is not the only place in the world where politics is enveloped in a religious cloak tailored by fanatics, and where believers keen to protect their faith from the ravages of extremists rely on religion in their defence. To a certain extent, secularist North America and Europe thought they were unaffected by such difficult quandaries. The state has long been established on the basis of the principle of the separation of the relationship between people and their creator from the relationship between the governed and the government. Apparently, however, our era has invented a new equation. If you don't come to religion voluntarily, as a normal believer or a fanatic, religion will come to you and you'll have to decide where you stand. In this framework, the trip by the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis (or Francisco in Spanish or, to use his original name, Jorge Mario Bergoglio) to Mexico was the beginning of another journey, leading to the heart of North America. Whether or not the timing was deliberate, the papal visit to Mexico coincided with the early phases of the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries in the US. These primaries deviate from the traditional mode that produces candidates from the “establishment”. On the one hand, they have swerved sharply in the direction of attitudes and beliefs that many Americans have harboured, especially on matters concerning immigration and religion. Donald Trump has drawn the lion's share of attention in this regard. He called Mexican immigrants to the US “rapists” and “killers”, demanded the deportation of “illegals” and called for the construction of a wall between Mexico and the US. It was not long before he went further and demanded that Muslims be barred from entering the US. Of course, Trump is not alone on this. Republican nominee Ben Carson chimed in, declaring that he could not accept a Muslim in the White House. The chances of such an event occurring in the near or distant future are around zero, but the stance flies in the face of the founding principles of a country that boasts equality and equal opportunity for all citizens. The point here, however, is that Trump is an exponent of a trend among US political elites that cannot be ignored, because this trend does not come from the fringes but rather from a large segment of the electorate that has propelled him to the fore in the Republican primaries. In Iowa he came second by a very narrow margin. In New Hampshire he placed first and, late last week, Trump emerged triumphant in South Carolina, leading Jeb Bush, who finished in fourth place, to announce that he was withdrawing from the race. Pope Francis's Mexican tour was no ordinary state visit by the head of the Vatican to another country. It was more in the manner of an evangelistic drive for a kind of Christian revivalism inspired by “liberationist” philosophy that focusses on the need to aid and defend the poor and oppressed. In the course of that campaign the pope drew near the hornet's nest, visiting northern Mexico in the vicinity of the border with the US, where Trump wants to build a wall to keep out “undesirables”. That area was also within earshot of the southern US and specifically the reverberations from Trump's campaigning in South Carolina. So reporters in Mexico naturally asked the pope for his opinion on Trump's remarks and the pope obliged. “A person who thinks only about building walls ... and not of building bridges, is not Christian,” Pope Francis said. As though to lighten the blow, he added: “This is not the gospel,” and made it understood that anyone who reads the gospel would understand its message of love and compassion. But the pope's remarks have another crucial aspect as they might be construed as an intervention in US domestic affairs during an electoral campaign. The Vatican state only stands on a tiny patch of land, but the influence of its head of state, the pope, among Catholic peoples around the world more than compensates for that territorial deficiency. Moreover, the pope's remarks specifically targeted Trump who, according to opinion polls, is the nominee that stands the best prospects for becoming the Republican presidential candidate. The incident has yet another, more dangerous, dimension. It is impossible to ignore the fact that Pope Francis is the head of the Catholic Church and it is equally impossible to ignore the fact that the majority of Christians in the US are protestant. Protestantism was a massive revolution against the mother church, which the leaders of that movement regarded as fanatical and opposed to progress, and certainly capitalism. Not surprisingly, therefore, the pope's remarks generated waves of criticism, the first from Trump himself, naturally. Trump responded that the pope did not have the right to question his faith, and that he — Trump — was “proud to be a Christian”, even if he did not walk around with a Bible on his shoulder. The response from some protestant quarters was to lash out at the pope's economic and social agenda that, from their perspective, encourages class conflict. As for the media, it read Pope Francis's remarks as implicit backing for Marco Rubio who, with Ted Cruz, is one of Trump's main rivals for the Republican candidacy. Rubio is a Catholic. As a result, what might have been an advantage for Rubio, a Catholic like John F Kennedy, whose election would promote the US's reputation as a country that does not discriminate between people on the basis of colour or creed, became somewhat problematic for the young Republican candidate in a predominantly protestant country, and especially in the southern states where protestant-catholic sensitivities still have an impact. This brings us to another crucial aspect, which is best expressed by the question: What has happened to US secularism and the separation between the relation to the creator and the state? Because if that were firmly in place, the pope's remarks would have occasioned little more that some debate in the press or academic circles regarding ideological changes in the Vatican. But when such statements hit a core in the US campaigns and trigger religious biases among Americans, we need to take note of them. If a fire can be started from the smallest of sparks, imagine the effect of papal remarks touching directly on the holy of holies of US politics: the elections. The issue, here, may be connected with an even broader phenomenon. What if the pope's remarks are a part of a larger European or international drive to keep Trump out of the White House? British irritation at Trump and his outlook appears to have spread to other European parties and Western elites, and on to Japan, Australia and elsewhere. A certain fear has begun to take hold in those countries, and perhaps throughout the world, that Americans' infatuation with “change” could propel the world over the precipice by way of the shallow policies of a reckless candidate who does not know the difference between running a company and running a state, and who lacks the slightest respect for the nature of the contemporary world. Ultimately, elections in any country — and even more so in a world power with all its ideological and cultural influence — no longer concern merely that country itself. They concern the whole world. Is there more to come on this topic or will this, along with other subjects, be swept aside by the tempestuous American electoral winds? The writer is chairman of the board, CEO, and director of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies.
