A lot of us Catholics have been weirded out by President Trump's closeness to Catholic culture. We couldn't figure out where it came from. Last year, he wished the Virgin Mary a happy birthday. He tweeted an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He issued praise for All Saints Day.
But it's not explainable as a mere campaign tactic to win the Catholic vote, which he did indeed win. It continued after his election, with Trump inviting a Catholic priest who is well-known as an exorcist to pay a visit to Mar-a-Lago. And then he went to the re-opening of Paris's Notre Dame cathedral.
Speculation has been rife that perhaps it's the influence of Melania, who's a Catholic of sorts, albeit probably not a significantly practicing one. Others say it's J.D. Vance, a Catholic convert, or any of the huge number of Catholics in his cabinet. As I wrote here on this puzzling matter last month:
“He's surrounded by Catholics, for one -- J.D. Vance, his son-in-law Massad Boulos (Maronite Catholic in full communion with Rome), Melania Trump, Sean Duffy, Marco Rubio, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and possibly Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. They aren't the only people in his inner circle -- there are prominent Jews, Hindus, and Protestants, too, but Catholics, the real kind, not Joe Biden's kind, seem pretty prominent.
But America, the magazine of the left-wing Jesuits, seems to have found the answer, in an oddly (for them) respectful piece that can be read without a subscription.
It all began a few years ago when Father Mann was walking through a Queens cemetery and came upon the gravesite of Trump’s parents and grandparents.
“It was slightly overgrown,” Father Mann recalled. “I thought this shouldn’t be. This is a historic site. So, I went and bought a weed whacker and some decorations and fixed up the plot. I took a photo and eventually sent it to President Trump.”
A few weeks passed, and Father Mann got a call out of the blue. It was Trump. He asked Father Mann why he was decorating the family grave. After he explained his interest, he said the president sounded amazed and told him they would have to get together the next time he was in New York.
Father Mann said he was thrilled to have been called by the president, who he knew to have frequently visited his parents’ gravesite before his election in 2016. Trump speaks fondly of his parents and his older brother, who is interred in the same plot. True to his word, Trump called Father Mann shortly after not being reelected in 2020 and invited him to Trump Tower for a meeting and sit-down.”
Read the rest: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/01/so_where_does_that_catholic_influence_on_trump_come_from.html
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