Is Donald Trump a sinner? That may depend upon how many of the Ten Commandments he must break before he becomes a sinner. Pope Francis gave the U.S. president an important lesson on immigration he would do well to heed.
Let us leave behind the Seven Deadly Sins, such as gluttony, greed, pride, wrath, and vainglory (pride in one’s achievements.) Instead, we can head right into the big ten.
There is the “no other gods before Me” commandment. Place a check mark there, because the man in the Oval Office clearly worships the almighty dollar. As far as the “make no idols” commandment, it looks as if Trump hit that one, too, when he built Trump towers of Babel all over the world.
The president said he was working very hard over his Christmas break, which would indicate he broke the “Keep the Sabbath Day holy. On the other hand, cameras caught him on the golf course, so that one was probably just half a check mark.
Now, the press has caught Trump having an affair with a porn star when he was married to First Lady Melania Trump. So much for “thou shalt not commit adultery.” He also covets his friends’ wives, their wealth, and their position. Knock that one out.
Then, there is the billionaire Donald’s problem of refusing to pay his subcontractors’ their due, which counts as stealing. He’s also told thousands of documented lies, which is bearing false witness.
When Trump stood before thousands in his campaign rallies, he often said, according to the Los Angeles Times:
‘I will be the greatest jobs president God ever created.’
That is a double whammy for “taking the name of God in vain” and lying, but we cannot check “false witness” twice. Too bad. We know that Trump honors his father with great respect, but has anyone ever heard him mention his mother? That should get him half a check mark.
Unfortunately, his lack of attention to and compassion for the victims of Hurricane Maria has directly led to hundreds of deaths in Puerto Rico. Is that murder? If so, Trump scored nine out of 10 in the Ten Commandment achievement award.
Along that line, Pope Francis had a few words to say about being “hostile to migrants,” according to The Canton Report:
‘It’s a sin if fear makes us hostile to migrants.’
Is that the reason the president is hostile toward immigrants? The Canton Report wrote:
‘Pope Francis has defined hostility and rejection of refugees and migrants as sin, encouraging people to overcome their “fully comprehensible” fears that these new arrivals might “disturb the established order” of local communities.’
The Pope invited several thousand immigrants, migrants, and refugees from 49 countries to his Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday. He said that people coming to different countries must:
‘Know and respect the laws, the culture and the traditions of the countries that take them in. (Communities must) open themselves without prejudices to their rich diversity, to understand the hopes and potential of the newly arrived as well as their fears and vulnerabilities.
‘It is not easy to enter into another culture, to put oneself in the shoes of people so different from us, to understand their thoughts and their experiences. As a result, we often refuse to encounter the other and raise barriers to defend ourselves. Local communities are sometimes afraid that the newly arrived with disturb the established order, will ‘steal’ something they have long labored to build up.”’
Pope Francis reminded people that these travelers are afraid, too:
‘Of confrontation, judgment, discrimination, failure. These fears are legitimate, based on doubts that are fully comprehensible from a human point of view. Having doubts and fears is not a sin. The sin is to allow these fears to determine our responses, to limit our choices, to compromise respect and generosity, to feed hostility and rejection.’
The Holy Father said spending time with “the different” was a “privileged opportunity” to be with God:
‘The sin is to refuse to encounter the other, the different, the neighbor.’
Featured Image via Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla.
