When Pope Leo met in Madrid with Spain\u2019s left-wing prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez, on Monday morning, they represented, at least to many liberals, a powerful duo joining forces to lead the opposition to President Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have the same voice,\u201d when it comes to speaking out against Mr. Trump, Cardinal Jos\u00e9 Cobo of Madrid said.<\/p>\n
Pope Leo has drawn the president\u2019s fury for criticizing the war in Iran and later saying he had \u201cno fear\u201d of the Trump administration. Mr. S\u00e1nchez has battled Mr. Trump on everything from NATO spending to the migration policy to his opposition to the wars in Gaza and Iran.<\/p>\n
Their motivations, though, are seemingly different.<\/p>\n
If the pope was dragged into the fight by Mr. Trump, Mr. S\u00e1nchez happily jumped in. Mr. S\u00e1nchez is perhaps Europe\u2019s most accomplished political escape artist, after wriggling free from countless crises during his eight years in power. His most recent high-wire act has been to seize on international quarrels with Mr. Trump to raise his global profile and distract from troubles at home<\/a>, especially the corruption scandals and accusations<\/a> now swirling around his former allies and family.<\/p>\n Appearing with the pope \u201cwill help S\u00e1nchez with his external public image,\u201d said Joseba Louzao, a professor at Cardinal Cisneros University and author of \u201cA Brief History of the Catholic Church in Spain.\u201d<\/p>\n Meeting the pope at the Vatican\u2019s embassy in Madrid on Monday, Mr. S\u00e1nchez sought to underline their connection by giving the pontiff a Spanish olive bonsai tree that was, the Spanish government said in a statement to reporters, \u201ca universal symbol of peace, dialogue and understanding, values shared by Spain and the Vatican.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. S\u00e1nchez\u2019s relationship with the pope may not matter much in Spain, an increasingly polarized country where feelings about the prime minister were already deeply entrenched, Mr. Louzao said. The great hope for Mr. S\u00e1nchez, he suggested, would be Mr. Trump seizing on Monday\u2019s Madrid meeting to attack them together \u2014 potentially upgrading the prime minister\u2019s global status and invigorating his base.<\/p>\n On the face of things, the two men have little in common. Mr. S\u00e1nchez is a self-declared atheist<\/a>, a staunch defender of abortion rights and an opponent of Catholic involvement in public education. But to hear him tell it, he is also singing from the same hymn sheet as Pope Leo.<\/p>\n He and the pope have \u201ca certain degree of harmony\u201d he said during a May 27 trip to meet Leo in the Vatican, whether it be their shared opposition to war, their concerns about giant tech companies<\/a>, or their defense of migrants. \u201cThe Catholic Church and the Government of Spain are once again, I believe, very much in tune,\u201d Mr. S\u00e1nchez added.<\/p>\n He called Leo \u201ca moral compass\u201d as they navigated with \u201ccommon sense against irrationality and the law of the jungle.\u201d<\/p>\n When Spain let passengers from a cruise ship infested with hantavirus dock in the Canary Islands in May, Mr. S\u00e1nchez responded to local criticism by citing \u201cthe explicit recognition expressed by none other than the pope for the solidarity and empathy shown by the people of the Canary Islands.\u201d<\/p>\n Spain\u2019s Catholic prelates have tried to avoid too strong a comparison.<\/p>\n Joan Planellas, the archbishop of Tarragona, acknowledged that when it came to immigration, opposition to war and the need to regulate tech giants. \u201cCertainly, on these topics that seem more left-wing, if we speak politically, there is a certain harmony.\u201d But not on abortion, euthanasia and other \u201cdelicate topics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Cardinal Cobo added that Mr. S\u00e1nchez\u2019s agreement with the pope on some issues did not mean he should use him as a political shield, especially because they still disagreed on many matters.<\/p>\n