VATICAN (Agencies): In a message marking Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the United States on January 20, Pope Francis told him that he hoped that the nation would prosper under his leadership and make no room for hatred, discrimination or exclusion, Vatican News and CNS reported.
The pope offered his “cordial greetings and the assurance of my prayers that Almighty God will grant you wisdom, strength and protection in the exercise of your high duties.”
The pope wrote, “Inspired by your nation’s ideals of being a land of opportunity and welcome for all, it is my hope that under your leadership the American people will prosper and always strive to build a more just society, where there is no room for hatred, discrimination or exclusion.”
The message said, “At the same time, as our human family faces numerous challenges, not to mention the scourge of war, I also ask God to guide your efforts in promoting peace and reconciliation among peoples.”
Pope Francis also invoked “upon you, your family, and the beloved American people an abundance of divine blessings.”
…international media reported that no sooner had Trump been inaugurated than he announced a raft of measures, including withdrawing the US from the Paris climate accords…
Offering an opening prayer during the inauguration ceremony minutes before Trump took the oath of office, Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York evoked pivotal moments in US history where the nation’s leaders turned to the Lord, OSV News reported.
“Remembering General George Washington on his knees at Valley Forge. Recalling Abraham Lincoln at his second inaugural, ‘with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.’ Remembering General George Patton’s instructions to his soldiers as they began the Battle of the Bulge eight decades ago: Pray! ‘Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night. Pray by day.’ Observing the birthday of the Reverend Martin Luther King who warned, without God ‘our efforts turn to ashes,’ we, blessed citizens of this one nation under God, humbled by our claim that ‘In God We Trust,’ gather indeed this Inauguration Day to pray,” he said.
Cardinal Dolan prayed “for our president Donald J. Trump, his family, his advisers, his Cabinet, his aspirations, his vice president; for the Lord’s blessings upon [outgoing president] Joseph Biden; for our men and women in uniform; for each other, whose hopes are stoked this new year, this inauguration day.”
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops did not release an Inauguration Day statement, but did post an Inauguration Day prayer on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Assist with your spirit of counsel and fortitude the president of these United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness, and be eminently useful to your people over whom he presides,” it began. “May he encourage due respect for virtue and religion. May he execute the laws with justice and mercy. May he seek to restrain crime, vice, and immorality.”
[mass deportations] will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing pay the bill Pope Francis
The prayer also asked that the “light of your divine wisdom direct the deliberations of Congress” and for all US citizens, “that we be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of your holy law.”
However, international media reported that no sooner had Trump been inaugurated than he announced a raft of measures, including withdrawing the US from the Paris climate accords, proclaiming a “national emergency” reversing climate measure and seeking to boost oil and gas production—this in the face of global temperatures rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in 2024.
He also issued pardons for the nearly 1,600 rioters who stormed the US Capitol during the 6 January 2021 insurrection, attempting to stop a joint session of Congress from certifying the electoral votes of the 2020 presidential election, causing damage to property, injuring hundreds and causing the deaths of five people.
Trump also signed an executive order beginning to process of withdrawing the country from the World Health Organisation, with which he clashed during the Covid-19 pandemic during his first term from 2026-2020, and began moves to crack down on immigration claiming: “We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”
On January 19, the eve of Trump’s inauguration, CNS reported Pope Francis as saying in an interview on Italian television that if the US president carries out his threat “it will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing pay the bill” for problems in the United States.
“This won’t do! You don’t resolve things this way,” the pope stressed.
