US President Donald Trump to pay tribute to Pope Francis’s funeral despite ideological differences

Pope Francis meets with President Donald Trump, left, on the occasion of their private audience, at the Vatican, May 24, 2017 (Image: AP)

US President Donald Trump, who has differences with Pope Francis over ideologies, will attend his funeral on Saturday. Pope Francis took his last breath on Easter Monday.
Pope Francis and Trump have differences over ideology. For example, just a day before he died, in his final public address, on the occasion of Easter Sunday, Pope Francis expressed a message of unity and an appeal for the marginalized and migrants.
He proclaimed, “All of us are children of God!” In contrast, President Donald Trump issued an insulting post wishing a happy Easter to his opponents, including “Radical Left Lunatics,” “Weak and Ineffective Judges and Law Enforcement Officials,” and former President Joe Biden, “our Worst and most Incompetent President.”

Some of the fundamental differences between the US president and the late pope will come into sharper focus as Trump travels to Rome on Friday for Francis’ funeral, scheduled to be held Saturday morning in St Peter’s Square.
David Gibson, director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University in New York, called the relationship of Trump and Francis as a ‘fraught relationship’.
The relationship eroded:
Things hadn’t been great between Trump and the pope during Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021. However, Gibson cites, “Trump 2.0 was even worse with the Vatican because of how much more aggressive it has been on every level, against migrants, against international aid.”
The Argentine pontiff and the American president had contradicting views on immigration issue. In 2016, Francis, indirectly referencing then Republican candidate Trump, called anyone who builds a wall to keep out migrants is ” not Christian.” Trump called the comment “disgraceful.”
Despite Pope Francis’ emphasis on humility, inclusivity and progressive stances on issues like immigration and climate change – Trump has managed to garner increasing support among American Catholics. This support is strong especially amongst conservative Catholics.
Trump identifies himself as a “non-denominational Christian,” meaning he doesn’t align with established church institutions and emphasizes a direct relationship with God. His policies on abortion—including appointing three of the five U.S. Supreme Court justices who contributed to overturning national abortion rights—have deepened his support among Christians, particularly conservative Catholics.
The Republican president sincerely requested Catholics last year to vote for him. In October, when he addressed the Al Smith charity dinner in New York, which raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities, Trump appealed: “You gotta get out and vote. And Catholics, you gotta vote for me.”
In the 2024 elections, Trump won the Catholic vote, according to AP VoteCast, which carried out survey of more than 120,000 voters. In 2020, the Catholic vote was evenly split between Joe Biden, but in 2024, 54 per cent of Catholic voters supported Trump and 44 per cent supported Kamala Harris.
Despite Catholic support, Trump failed to garner Pope Francis’ approval:
Trump may have secured the Catholic vote; however, he failed to win over Pope Francis. Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, who met briefly with Francis the day before he died, dismissed the pontiff’s disagreements with the administration, telling reporters this week that the pope was “a much broader figure” than American politics – a man who led a church with 1.4 billion members worldwide.
“I’m aware that he had some disagreements with some of the policies of our administration,” he added.
“He also had a lot of agreements with some of the policies of our administration. I’m not going to soil the man’s legacy by talking about politics.”
Although Trump and Pope Francis had an amicable meeting at the Vatican in 2017, yet their disagreements persisted. In February, 2025, Francis sent a letter to US bishops expressing his disagreement with the recent mass deportation carried out by the Trump administration. He noted that in the Bible, the infant Jesus and his family were themselves refugees in Egypt, fleeing a threat to their lives.
Some leading bishops did applaud some of the new Trump administration initiatives on “school choice” and policies defining gender as determined at birth. Francis, while upholding church teachings on sexuality, took a more tolerant stance toward LGBTQ+ people.
Other prominent bishops, appointed by Francis, are more sympathetic with his priorities. They include the new archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Robert McElroy.
Although they have a difference, Trump still chose to pay his tribute to Pope Francis in Rome.
Trump’s policies resonate with conservative Catholics, contrasting with Pope Francis’s progressive agenda:
John Fea, a professor of history at Messiah University in Pennsylvania, noted that many conservative Catholics, despite respecting the pontiff, “didn’t like his progressive views” on immigrants and his authorizing of blessings for same-sex couples.
“The views of many conservative American Catholics line-up with Trump’s brand of populism: strong borders, pro-life on abortion, concern about critical race theory in schools, etc.,” Fea, author of “Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump,” said via email.
In addition to migration, the pope and Trump held opposing views on environmental issues. While the pope advocated for immediate action on climate change, Trump was eager to revive the fossil fuel industry. Francis also staunchly opposed the death penalty, a policy Trump supported.
Steven Millies, director of the Bernadin Centre at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago noted that Trump and Francis did share some policy goals on issues such as abortion and religious freedom. “But the alignments were at the diplomatic level more than at the personal or political level, of course,” he said.
“They were profoundly different people – one who’d been formed by Jesuit spirituality and lived his life in deepening faith that he shared with the world, the other who mangles Scripture quotations, sells Bibles for personal profit, and uses Christian faith like a brand identity in a market competition.”