At the end of a trip to Mexico this week, Pope Francis threw a jibe at US Republican presidential hopeful, Donald Trump, stating that the billionaire was not a Christian for his call to build a border wall with Mexico.
According to the Pope, “a person who thinks only about building walls… and not of building bridges, is not Christian”.
Trump has made a case for deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants from the United States, one of many controversies to trail him since he declared his ambition for the highest office in the US.
While Trump has been known to call himself a “proud Christian”, the Pope seems to disagree, stating that: “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel.”
However, the Republican frontrunner has blamed the Mexican government for misrepresenting him before the pontiff, and went a step further to label the Pope’s statement “disgraceful”.
Trump has also been known to accuse Mexico of sending “rapists” and criminal over the border to the US.
In his statement, the Pope did not say whether Republicans should vote for Trump.
“I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and I will give him the benefit of the doubt,” he pontiff said.
But in a swift reaction, Trump said in a campaign rally in South Carolina that it was not the place of any religious leader to denounce anyone’s religion or faith.
He said: “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian.
“No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith.”
“[The pope] said negative things about me. Because the Mexican government convinced him that Trump is not a good guy.”
He also said the Vatican is the so-called Islamic State’s “ultimate trophy”, and “if and when” the group attacks it “the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened.”