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US President Donald Trump has weighed on the papal succession, floating the archbishop of New York as an option after Pope Francis’ death.
Trump, who attended the late pope’s funeral at the Vatican last week, on Tuesday indicated that cardinal Timothy Dolan, who led prayers for both of his presidential inaugurations, would be his pick.
“I’d like to be pope — that would be my number one choice,” Trump quipped when asked about the upcoming conclave of cardinals who will make the selection. “We have a cardinal that happens to be out of a place called New York who’s very good so we’ll see what happens.”
Dolan, a traditionalist who is prolific on social media, arrived in New York from the Midwest in 2009 to be installed as archbishop, a position that brought him into regular contact with the city’s power brokers, including Trump.
The two men forged a friendship and Dolan said prayers at both of Trump’s presidential inaugurations, describing the second one as “a great day for the United States”.
His views on abortion and gay marriage are conservative, but he was supportive of the late Pope Francis’ early outreach to gay Catholics, and has publicly criticised Trump administration rhetoric on immigration.
While the outcome of conclaves is hard to predict, Dolan is regarded as a long shot. To become pope, a cardinal will have to secure the votes of two-thirds of the 135 cardinals who will be sequestered in the Sistine Chapel as of next Wednesday.
“The chances for Dolan are slim,” said Francesco Sisci, founder of the Appiah Institute, a Rome-based think-tank focused on geopolitical issues. “He is a New Yorker: he has neither a global outlook, nor does he have a Roman footprint. Now he is being supported by Trump. You don’t want a pope that speaks for the emperor.”
Dolan, who has been posting videos on his social media channels from his current trip to Rome, has not commented on the unexpected presidential endorsement.
Trump is not Catholic, but said he attended the papal funeral as a sign of respect for Catholic voters who overwhelmingly favoured him in the last presidential election.
Pope Francis was highly critical of Trump’s policies, particularly his hostility to Latin-American migrants. Just before he was hospitalised with double pneumonia in February, Francis publicly called on clergymen in the US to resist the Trump administration’s demonisation of migrants.
American Catholics — many with Irish or Italian immigrant backgrounds — were once seen as a reliable vote base for the Democratic party. But in the last US election, the Catholic vote swung hard to the Republicans, some drawn by Trump’s promise to stand up for religion and traditional values, and others mobilised by new Maga Catholic groups that seek to blend their universalist faith with US patriotism and anti-immigrant sentiment.
Dolan told Fox News in December that Trump “takes his Christian faith seriously”, especially after the failed assassination attempt on the campaign trail.
Dolan sparked controversy in 2020 when he appeared to endorse Trump’s re-election bid. In a public letter over 1,500 religious figures criticised Dolans “deferential coziness” to a sitting president that “uses cruelty as a political weapon and abuses power”.
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