Our hope is in Christ, not Caesar.

he good news is that the next pres­i­dent will not be Hillary Clin­ton. The bad news is that the next pres­i­dent will be Don­ald Trump. Let me, how­ev­er, dis­abuse some hopes and quell some fears by telling you what Pres­i­dent Trump will not do.

Pres­i­dent Trump will not do one thing to stop one abor­tion in the Unit­ed States.

He will not end Oba­macare.

He will not build a wall or round up folks to deport them.

The rea­son I say these things is because Don­ald Trump does not care about any of them. Mr. Trump is a liar. He said these things in order to appeal to the Repub­li­can base. He does­n’t mean those words any more than he meant the words “till death do us part.” If you think oth­er­wise, he will soon dis­abuse you of that notion.

Of course, I could be wrong; I’m fal­li­ble. If I am, I hope I am wrong about the first, rather than about the sec­ond or third.

But then, what will Pres­i­dent Trump do?

I have no idea. And that’s the part that wor­ries me, because I don’t think it could pos­si­bly be any good.

•••

Don­ald Trump, how­ev­er, with­out mean­ing it, could help to reac­quaint Amer­i­can Catholics with some impor­tant fun­da­men­tals, and if so that would be a good thing. He may do it pre­cise­ly by thumb­ing his nose at, for exam­ple, his promis­es to pro­mote any­thing approach­ing pro-life leg­is­la­tion or pro-life Supreme Court jus­tices.

And that would be good if it were to final­ly con­vince Catholics who have thought oth­er­wise that our hope for any­thing, includ­ing an end to abor­tion, does not reside in Cae­sar. Our hope is in Christ, and in Christ alone. It would be good if it were to final­ly con­vince Catholics who have thought oth­er­wise that they should no longer run blind­ly and gullibly after any politi­cian who dan­gles these pro-life promis­es like a red dot before a cat. It would be a good if it were final­ly to con­vince Catholics who have thought oth­er­wise that the solu­tion to abor­tion must be a moral solu­tion rather than a polit­i­cal solu­tion. And it would be good if it were final­ly to con­vince Catholics who have thought oth­er­wise that we must put our hopes in Christ and not in Cae­sar. Cae­sar will always betray us; Christ nev­er will.

I hope, how­ev­er, that I am wrong about Don­ald Trump. I would far rather say “I was wrong” than “I told you so.”

•••

What­ev­er the case, I hope there will be rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and restored friend­ships between Catholics before Jan­u­ary 20. If I have said any­thing or done any­thing to con­vey the impres­sion to any­one that I was call­ing the gen­uine­ness of their Catholi­cism into doubt, or ques­tion­ing the legit­i­ma­cy of their real con­cerns about Hillary Clin­ton, sole­ly because they were vot­ing for Don­ald Trump, then I want to use this oppor­tu­ni­ty to say I am sor­ry and that that was nev­er my inten­tion.

Hav­ing said that, any Catholic who did vote for Don­ald Trump, and uses this oppor­tu­ni­ty to engage in tri­umphal­ism about it, or to con­tin­ue to ques­tion the Catholi­cism or sal­va­tion of any­one who vot­ed for Hillary Clin­ton, or who vot­ed for a third par­ty can­di­date, or who did not vote at all, will not be serv­ing the inter­est of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion in any way. If you con­tin­ue to deny the legit­i­ma­cy of their grave con­cern about Don­ald Trump and unwill­ing­ness to vote for him, you will not be serv­ing the inter­est of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. No one’s Catholi­cism should be put into doubt, no one should be made to feel they are a less­er Catholic, because their per­son­al polit­i­cal judg­ment, in a year when both can­di­dates were hor­rif­ic, dif­fered from your own.

Only God gets to judge the state of some­one’s soul, and only a bish­op gets to judge the authen­tic­i­ty of some­one’s Catholi­cism. Unless you are a bish­op, or God, you do not have that right. And nei­ther, frankly, do I.

Truth be told, we will have to be unit­ed as Catholics in order to fight for the truth of our faith in the years ahead. Because (and I must say this again) Don­ald Trump will be no ally to us. If you think oth­er­wise, I promise you he will dis­abuse you of that notion. Our ally is Christ, and our uni­ty is Christ–not any polit­i­cal cause, not any polit­i­cal leader, but Christ and Christ alone.