Barely a week after he attended the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, President Trump posted an AI image of himself as the next pope, just days before the papal conclave was set to begin on May 7. Ironically, the world got an American pope, but the antithesis of Trump.
While geopolitics are in disarray due to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, Pope Francis was a stabilizing factor, even bringing peace to refugees in San Diego escaping those conflicts, and the new Pope Leo has the potential to do the same.
In 2014 ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, conquered vast swathes of Iraq and Syria. Many Iraqis and Syrians witnessed family members ending up in coffins due ISIS terrorism only to flee to a city whose name is Spanish for coffin — El Cajon, — in San Diego county.
Those who survived Iraq’s political turmoil in San Diego county, including Christians and Muslims alike, appreciate the previous pope’s visit to Iraq in 2020, and are waiting to see if the new pope can match Francis’ “geo-theological” legacy.
Many of them are Chaldean Catholics, and there are a good number of Iraqi Shi’a refugees, another community persecuted by ISIS, often killed on the spot for belonging to a different Muslim sect.
While the COVID pandemic was raging, the Pope insisted on making a trip to Iraq in March 2021.
Pope Francis visited Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shia community. The pope’s visit to Iraq offered moral support to Iraq’s beleaguered and dwindling Christian community that did not have the fortune of escaping.
The meeting between the pope and the ayatollah has historical resonance. When he was elected pope in 2013, Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina decided to be named Pope Francis. His choice was deliberate and was made in reference to St. Francis of Assisi, whose legacy the newly elected pope was inspired by.
St. Francis was a Catholic preacher and mystic who during the fifth crusade set out to Egypt to try to promote peace and spread Christianity. During the siege on Damietta in 1219, he crossed enemy lines and succeeded in meeting Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil, nephew of Salaheddin. He asked the Sultan to embrace Christianity, which the ruler declined to do. Impressed by his audacity, however, he allowed Francis to preach for several days in Egypt.
Upon his return to Italy, the Catholic preacher revised the rule of the Franciscan order, which he had established, to encourage his devotees to live among Muslims peacefully and avoid conflict. This move was truly revolutionary given the fact that the Catholic church fully encouraged and supported the crusades.
During a trip to the Vatican in 2013, as part of my summer school in Rome on Catholic Italy and the Islamic World, I noticed a copy of a book called, “St. Francis and the Sultan,” at its bookstore. I saw that as a sign for optimism.
Indeed, on March 6, 2021 Pope Francis visited Ur, a Sumerian city that dates back 6,000 years, which, according to the Judaic, Christian and Islamic traditions, is the birthplace of the patriarch Abraham of Ibrahim, my namesake.
By using Abraham’s birthplace as a setting for his speech, the pope stressed the concept of the Abrahamic faiths as a single tradition.
The significance of invoking Abraham’s legacy during the pontiff’s speech at Ur lies in the current polemics in 2025 that imagine a Judeo-Christian civilisation in conflict with an Islamic one, often referred to as a “clash of civilizations.”
Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio of Florida, declared a “clash Of civilizations” after the ISIS Paris attacks of 2015, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has a tattoo of the words “Deus Vult,” a Latin phrase and meme associated with the Crusades and Knights Templars, that can be viewed as Islamophobic.
But Pope Francis’ stature provided a geo-theological counter-balance to a world where morals are often overshadowed by maximalist political positions, expanding territory and might, at the expense of human rights and a sustainable environment.
Coming from a mixed Muslim-Christian background, I had hoped Pope Leo would continue the legacy of his predecessor. He did so even before he became Pope.
On the same day as the papal conclave began to pick a successor in Rome, directly south in Libya another event was to be held, albeit with less publicity. The Trump administration had a plan to deport a group of migrants to from Vietnam, the Philippines, and Laos to Libya on a U.S. military plane, until it was blocked by a federal judge. May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and Filipino Heritage Month, making these actions even more of an affront.
Pope Francis had challenged Vice President JD Vance over deportations, arguing that mercy should be given to both citizens and non-citizens alike because “human security” outweighs “national security.” The new pope agrees, using X to challenge Vance on deportations, and emerging as the first “Twitter Pope.”
This is a reminder that respect for human rights would be the best contributor to our national security. In fact, many of the migrants from the Middle East, Somalia and Afghanistan coming to San Diego are still fleeing from the conflicts unleashed by the U.S. close to 24 years ago due to its self-proclaimed “war on terror.”
Deporting gang members does not address America’s drug addiction that leads to the formation of gangs in the first place and to the failure to improve socio-economic conditions of inner cities. Migration to the U.S. from Central America or from Africa to Europe is partly driven by climate change, making agrarian lives untenable, which the global north has failed to address despite its culpability in carbon emissions leading to rising temperatures.
At one time in history there were two rival popes. Now it seems that there are two rival Americans holding the most powerful positions in the world. Leo, the “Lion,” the new pope, seems as the stronger candidate to fight these challenges.
Ibrahim Al-Marashi is an associate professor of history at Cal State San Marcos and a visiting scholar at University of San Diego and San Diego State University. “Artivism in the Borderlands Exhibition,” at the Kroc School of Peace Studies Rotunda and Theater, took place April 29.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Opinion: The new American pope will be a counterbalance to a ‘clash of civilizations’ )
Also on site :