A Catholic in the White House

Rarely has a Catholic inhabited the White House, and not since John and Jackie Kennedy have we had one as President or First Lady. When I visited the Vatican last November, a Slovenian cardinal mentioned that Melania Trump was baptized Catholic in her mother’s hometown of Raka in Slovenia. 

This was disclosed during President Trump’s visit to the Vatican in May 2017. Cardinal Franc Rode, prefect emeritus of the Vatican’s Congregation for Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, spoke with the First Lady, and during her visit Mrs. Trump placed flowers at the feet of a statue of Mary and asked the Pope to bless her rosary. 

If Mrs. Trump was baptized as a child, it would have been during communist rule and the ceremony would have been in secret. It is hardly surprising that she is a Catholic. Slovenia is a mainly Catholic country (with a sizeable Lutheran population), bordering Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia. Although most recently part of former Yugoslavia, it has historically been part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Some Slovenes think of themselves as the closest of all the Balkan nations to Habsburg culture. 

Mrs. Trump grew up under a communist regime, and evidently was baptized at some point in the traditional faith of most Slovenes, but she doesn’t appear to be a practising Catholic since the Trumps usually attend an Episcopalian church when in Florida. In addition, is well known that her husband, Donald Trump, was previously married, and she is his third wife.

There are two saints named Melania. St. Melania the Elder (d.410) was a Roman widow who travelled to Palestine where she became an associate of St. Jerome. She was apparently a domineering personality. Her granddaughter, St. Melania the Younger (d.439), was married off to a relative against her will and, after the early death of her two children, devoted herself to the poor and to the emancipation of slaves, selling off much of her husband’s property.

After she was widowed, she founded a community of women, and dedicated herself to a life of prayer, good works and the copying of books. (I don’t suppose President Trump would be particularly thrilled to hear of a patron saint who sold off all her husband’s property to benefit the poor!)

Today, in Russia, we have Vladimir Putin, a man who went to a public reception at the office of the KGB Directorate to find out how to become an intelligence officer in the Soviet Union, the regime established by the Bolsheviks in 1922.

At the time of the 1917 Revolution, 100 years ago, the Russian Orthodox Church was deeply integrated into the autocratic state and enjoyed official status. This was a significant factor that contributed to the Bolshevik attitude to religion and the steps they took to control it. Thus, the USSR became the first state to have as one objective of its official ideology the elimination of existing religion and the prevention of future implanting of religious belief, with the goal of establishing state atheism. 

Under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union, there was a government-sponsored program of forced conversion to atheism by communists. Based on state interests, the regime ridiculed and targeted religions, and atheism was propagated in schools.

Today, without proclaiming his Orthodox faith, Vladimir Putin assisted at the Christmas and New Year liturgical ceremonies officiated by the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow. Patriarch Kirill was elected Jan. 27, 2009, by the Russian Orthodox Council as Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ and Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, with 508 votes out of 700.

It is not my place to judge Putin’s real Christian devotion but his presence at the Moscow Cathedral seems more political than true Christian conviction. In fact, Pope Francis met Putin as leader of the Russian Federation and not a word was said about the resolutions of Lenin and Marx who proclaimed that “God does not exist” or that “religion is the opiate of the masses.”

We must remember that Francis is also the supreme chief of the State of Vatican City and as such is able to receive the leaders of all other countries and the chiefs of other religions. The successors of Henry VIII of England are always very welcome at the Vatican, and the process of ecumenism tries to make a reality of the words of Jesus “ut omnes unum sint” (“that all will be one”).

In John 6:65-68, Jesus says something that confuses and upsets his followers - “No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” The Gospel tells us that many of the disciples walked away grumbling.

Jesus turns to his apostles and asked them “Do you want to walk away too?” Peter replies: “Lord to whom can we go? You have the message of eternal life.” Peter is right. To whom can we go?