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The pope and the president remade the Catholic church and American politics in their outsider images, but their relationship was defined by their remarkable clashes.
- April 21, 2025Updated 2:21 p.m. ET
The pontiff and the president had little in common.
One spurned the traditional red shoes and luxurious apostolic palace for religious simplicity, living humbly in a Vatican City guesthouse. The other made a brand of his own name and wrapped nearly everything he touched, from New York City skyscrapers to the Oval Office, in a gilded sheen.
But Pope Francis and President Trump disagreed over far more than style. By the time they met at the Vatican in 2017, the vast differences in their priorities and worldviews were clear.
Both rose to global prominence during the same decade of rapid political and societal change, as war, poverty and climate change disrupted nations and sent millions of migrants across the globe. And both leveraged their personal charisma to flex their power in transformative ways, remaking the Catholic church and American politics in their own outsider images.
Yet the relationship between the two was defined by the chasm between them, frequently bursting into public view in extraordinary clashes that revealed radically opposing visions of how to lead, and of what kind of world they hoped to create.
Until the pope’s final day, the two leaders had been tangling over immigration, an issue both saw as crucial to their mission and legacy.
Mr. Trump twice won the White House on promises to halt illegal border crossings, blaming undocumented immigrants for crime, economic malaise and terrorism.
