“He saw the reality of poverty,” a Pennsylvania priest, Father Rich Mullen, who worked with the future Leo in the coastal city of Trujillo, said in a recent interview. “That’s when the seed was sown.” Another longtime friend, the Rev. Paul Galetto, told The Inquirer: “Having been a bishop in Peru and South America, I’m sure [Prevost’s] focus is on immigration and the movement of peoples.”
Trump’s path to world leadership was also forged in the 1980s — by embracing the dark side of the decade. The real estate mogul’s gospel of gilded prosperity took off in the moment of “greed is good” on Wall Street, even if many of his actual business ventures began failing at the dawn of the ’90s. In seeking to retain the glamour of his wealth, Trump also focused on those less fortunate than him — not as souls but as potential marks for his next scheme, which eventually became national politics. A battle for the soul of America and for the planet has been joined, on a collision course set in the 1980s.
