Mind Your Manners, Mr. President
Leo XIV did not, at least as reported by a gaggle of television reporters accompanying him on his African travels, tell the Algerian president to let his people go.
He must have decided that the time was inopportune to raise the issue of persecuted religious minorities in Algeria, where a verbal slip can land you in the hoosegow or worse, in court facing charges including disrespect of Islam, a capital crime.
He did advise his hosts in Algiers, where he began a two-week mission to Africa, that freedom is better than tyranny and, frankly, boys, your governance style would benefit from some loosening up. Abstract as they are, the comments do clearly indicate Leo, who, as an American and an Augustinian, knows his Bill of Rights as well as his City of God, thinks the regime should not feel threatened by freedom of religion.
North Africa was Christian before it was Muslim, and it was Jewish before it was Christian, and demographic evolution has brought Algeria by convincing majorities into the umma, so where is the danger of a few thousand Catholics and evangelicals, and even fewer Jews?
Why, the state of Israel is mainly Jewish, but does it persecute the 20 or so percent of its citizens who are Muslims? Does it prohibit Christian worship? Nu, there was a restriction in Jerusalem at Easter, but there is a war on, and what do you want, a suicide bomber during mass and hundreds of murdered worshippers?
Algerian president Abdelmadjid Tebboune, elected in 2019 and re-elected in 2024 with no significant opposition, followed the proverbial African advice to roll his tongue in his mouth and let Leo’s advice pass. Without taking a cynical view, it appears he got good PR out of the papal visit, a first for Algeria, and Leo, who was elected at the conclave last year (by a large majority and without any help from any outside party) was happy to make a stop at St Augustine’s birthplace and hometown, Annaba (called Hippo in ancient days). (RELATED: Why We Should Give to God What Is God’s, and to Caesar What Is Caesar’s)
So everybody is happy and nothing has changed and in fact the leadership of Algiers may have appreciated the pope calling U.S. war policy unjust war, seeing as how it has supported the Iranian theocrats’ hostile attitude toward America, Israel, France, and the West in general.
It was a detail the pope from Chicago might have noticed, but he was too polite to mention, at least in public. True, there is a nagging feeling that it may be more than, you know, being polite, humble, that sort of thing. The simple fact is, the leaders of authoritarian Muslim countries like Algeria are very worried about Donald Trump. They see that while he is eager to make commercial arrangements, he also sees that they are “weak,” as he said of Leo, in response to violent manifestations of Islam, such as the jihad gangs that go on killing sprees against Nigerian Christians. (RELATED: Fresh Horror in Nigeria: The Return of Boko Haram)
Could Leo be playing into this, and could it be because he fears Islam? Or could it be that he dislikes Trump more than he wants to speak up for terrorized Christians?
The president could politely point out that the ayatollahs and their regime are the ones to blame, and there could be a most salutary and much-needed public discussion about just what the fight is about. Pope and president in debate, that would surely get high ratings, and all would benefit from listening. And it would seem to me that Leo would then have to descend from abstractions about peace and war, interfaith cuppa tea, and respond to a blunt question: what is the Catholic position in regard to aggressive tyrants? (RELATED: Sword and Spirit to Save the World)
When he feels that he is maligned in his purposes, our president tends to react angrily instead of asking such blunt questions. Instead, without seizing the opportunity to criticize Leo for not voicing any concern for the few Christians (or the even fewer Jews) in Algeria, he felt he was being unfairly criticized and in a blast that was not a model of diplomatic language, he told the bishop of Rome, basically, to shut up and get with the program and moreover he would not be where he is were he, Donald Trump, not in the White House. (RELATED: When Politics Becomes a Faith, Faith Is Put to the Test)
You have to admit it is a bad show, but the real beneficiaries are anti-Trump Democrats and authoritarian regimes like President Tebboune’s. If there is going to be interfaith dialogue, the pope — a very intelligent man — ought to see this.
As noted by an erudite article in these pages the other day, this is scarcely the first time there have been differences between the temporal powers and the papacy over the use of force in international relations. All the more reason to air the issues calmly and before a global audience. It would encourage people of all faiths to study St. Augustine (and Maimonides) and grasp that we are fallible and sinful creatures here below, but we know we are made in the image of the Creator and must persevere in our efforts to do the right thing.
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, as a Catholic and an Italian, felt obligated to publicly advise Mr. Trump to leave Leo be, mind your manners, and we Italians respect the pope.
Quite so. Vatican City, where the papacy has its digs, is located in Rome (the capital of Italy), but is fully independent. Respectful of the Lateran Treaty that defines this arrangement, Signora Meloni feels some responsibility for the tiny country that serves as the capital of the global church.
Treaties matter. Respect for tradition matters. You cannot have an ally — Italy and America are allies — saying mean things about a man and an institution you love and toward which your country bears both customary and defined responsibilities, and just let it pass. She said, therefore, Trump’s words were “unacceptable.”
Which they were.
Americans are used to, and can accept — after all, they elected him — President Trump’s over-the-top verbal style, which actually is mild by the standards of Queens, N.Y., where it is accepted in all its uncouth, but strictly figurative, colorful bombast. “I’ll kill you!” they say. “My way or the highway!” they add. Then they come to reasonable terms.
Mr. Trump can go on a wild rant against the new mayor of New York City — a Muslim, by the way, and a self-described collectivist socialist — and then invite him to the White House and work on a housing development plan in Queens (leave aside whether it is good public policy in New York’s over-regulated housing industry), and most Americans, or at least New Yorkers, will shrug and say, “Ya gotta go along to get along,” or, “Whatever works works.”
Donald Trump has always had an intuitive preference for common sense and pragmatic solutions. It is missing in his attitude toward Leo XIV and Signora Meloni.
Signora Meloni is one of America’s — and Trump’s — top supporters and allies. She defends him against a European political establishment that is far too often contemptuous of our Republic and its mores, not to mention its global responsibilities and policies, which help Europe too.
The incident recalls when Mr. Trump openly vituperated another fine and courageous lady, Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, who has been firmer than most in urging a European defense build-up to resist the barbarian threats to the old Continent.
A reasonable man would think that, however great the pressures he is under, the president owes Leo and Giorgia Meloni apologies. As suggested in this space the other day, he ought to invite them for a sit-down at our USAF base in the Azores (“meetcha halfway”), and talk it out. Closed doors, no TV reporters; if they want, I can show up to provide the relaxing tennis workout, they have courts there, a bit windy though. Tennis has its ill-mannered bad sportsmen, too, but the classy guys make up and move on.
READ MORE from Roger Kaplan:
Sword and Spirit to Save the World
On Presidents, Popes, and the Parlous State of International Affairs These Days