Sean Spicer gets his revenge on Donald Trump
By now the story has been well documented: when Donald Trump visited the Vatican, he allowed a number of his staffers to attend his meeting with Pope Francis. But in a move that was either ignorantly tone-deaf or purposely spiteful, Trump didn’t allow devout Catholic Sean Spicer to meet the Pope. Months later, Spicer ended up resigning amid the Anthony Scaramucci debacle. Now, however, Spicer has gotten his revenge.
Today the news broke that Sean Spicer got to meet the Pope this past Sunday when he attended the International Catholic Legislators Network at the Vatican (link). During the convention, Pope Francis made a point of giving a private audience to Spicer. Even if you’re no fan of Sean Spicer, this has to be seen as a fitting brushback against the cruelty that Trump had tried to carry out.
While he was Donald Trump’s White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer regularly lied to the public. He was inappropriately hostile toward reporters who called him out on those lies. He often made offensive remarks, and he was generally incompetent. But apart from the terrible job he did as Press Secretary, there is nothing to suggest that Spicer is anything like the sadistic monster that Trump is. But perhaps more importantly, this can be taken as a sign of the Pope tacitly sticking it to Trump.
Pope Francis has no doubt seen the headlines and learned that Donald Trump made a point of keeping Sean Spicer out of the original meeting. And so when Spicer traveled back to the Vatican for the conference this weekend, the Pope seemed to make a point of giving Spicer a private meeting. One can debate whether the Pope was merely trying to do the right thing, or whether he was doing it to send a message to Trump. But it’s so often the case that those two things are one and the same.
