Introduction
The day Pope Leo was elected, I had one of the most fascinating conversations of my life. I had reconnected with Diane. We had become very dear and close friends over the glorious summer of 1976, when we were both based at Kernforschungsanlage (Nuclear Research Institute) Jülich, W. Germany, as summer placement students. I was a third-year science undergraduate at University College Dublin (UCD), and Diane was a first-year science undergraduate from Cornell University in the US.
We had a shared passion for physical chemistry, especially thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. We were both determined to have successful science careers. Had the UCD chemistry course been more physical than organic chemistry-based, I would have chosen chemistry rather than physics. It didn’t surprise me that Diane has ended up doing a PhD in physical chemistry. I did mine in astrophysics.
At the end of the summer, I returned to Ireland and Diane to the US. I had very much hoped to keep in touch – much more difficult in the mid-1970s, but I had not managed to do so. I had not had any interaction with Diane for 49 years. Last year, prompted by my eldest son’s Godfather, whose own son had just graduated from Cornell with a PhD, I did a web search and found a professor at MIT who matched Diane’s description. I fired off an email, and it was indeed Diane, who was really excited to reconnect.
We had a long Zoom call that felt like time travel, transporting me back half a century to my 20-year-old self, and I hope to her 18-year-old self. When we were young, beautiful, idealistic and untroubled by the tribulations and complications life would throw at us.
Different faith trajectories
One fascinating aspect of the Zoom call, was the respective trajectories of our faith. Diane, a Greek American, grew up in Athens in the Orthodox tradition. I grew up in Dublin and was a Catholic. The 20-year-old me was very devout. I remember Diane being fascinated by my deep faith and following me to mass one Sunday. She told me off for not being dressed smartly enough!
My trajectory
At 20, I was steeped in Catholic tradition. I had one uncle who was a Franciscan monk, two aunts who were nuns, and a cousin who ran the Irish College in Rome and later became the Bishop of Kilalla. The Catholic Church is, of course, very broad, but I was very much on the left, admiring both the Franciscan tradition and the South and Central America Liberation Theology movement, but devout enough to become a target for Opus Dei, which was very keen to recruit me into their ranks (very unsuccessfully – far too right-wing for my liking!).
In the 1970s, the Catholic Church held an almost unshakable grip over Irish life. I remember standing among 1.25 million people at the papal mass in Dublin in 1979, swept up by the sense of unity and reverence. Back then, the Church seemed unstoppable, an institution woven into every aspect of daily life. But then came a wave of devastating revelations: priests exposed for sexual abuse, and horrifying scandals like the Tuam Babies and the Magdalene Laundries. These stories sent shockwaves through the nation, shattering the public’s faith in the Church. Today, it is only a shadow of the mighty force it once was in 1970s Ireland.
My own faith was shaken to its core by my first wife, M, whom I married in the mid-1980s. On the surface, she presented herself as a devoted Catholic, but beneath that facade, almost everything about her was a fabrication. For her, truth was always negotiable – whatever served her interests best. Lies, forgery, and even perjury seemed to come as easily as breathing. She treated others as mere obstacles or tools, utterly lacking empathy or a sense of conscience.
Blinded by love, I failed to see the psychological abuse I was enduring. The reality only became undeniable when she turned her cruelty toward our four-year-old son, whose emotional suffering led to his placement on the Leeds Child Protection Register and a referral to psychiatric care at High Royds Hospital, near Leeds. Only then did I truly understand the depth of her inhumanity.
The Consultant Psychiatrist pulled me aside and quietly assured me there was nothing wrong with my son. Instead, the real concern was my wife, who, he explained, displayed severe antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) with unmistakable psychopathic traits. I remember asking, “Is it fair to call her a psychopath?” The psychiatrist nodded, explaining that while the term isn’t formally used anymore, in her case, it absolutely applied.
ASPD is much rarer in women, so much so that a psychologist friend confided she had never encountered a female with such a pronounced case. M was also intensely narcissistic, likely fitting what psychologists now call the “dark triad” of personality disorders. A female version of Donald Trump would capture her essence.
M had cynically used my faith as another lever to get me to marry her. What was supposed to protect me had brought an evil monster into my life, which was difficult to come to terms with. I have never lost my faith completely, but am more agnostic these days.
During the divorce, I desperately wanted to get custody of my son and keep him away from M, but it was not to be. In the early ‘90s, mothers always got custody except in very exceptional circumstances. M made it impossible to see my son, changed his name totally illegally without my knowledge or consent, moved with no forwarding address and destroyed any letters I sent. In particular, one very important one on his 18th birthday.
My son found me two years after a 32-year gap. He described his childhood as being psychologically tortured on a daily basis. He is quite wonderful, universally loved by his friends, his beautiful new wife, and his work colleagues.
Diane’s trajectory
I never got the impression Diane was particularly devout in 1976, but her spirituality seemed to develop over the years. Although she was Greek Orthodox, she had plenty of dealings with the Catholic Church. In particular, before becoming a professor at MIT, she was a professor at Merrimack College, a private Augustinian Catholic University in North Andover, Massachusetts. I was unaware of Merrimack – I though Villanova was the only Augustinian University in the US (It even proudly says so on its website!)
It seems clear that Diane was extremely impressed by the Augustinians she worked with. The feeling was mutual, as she was invited on a full-day insider tour of the Vatican by some of her contacts during her visit some years ago. I was very jealous!
When I visited Diane in Athens later that year, she was trying to locate her baptism certificate but was unsure which church she had been baptised in. She spoke of having her adult sons baptised in the Orthodox Church in Greece.
Assessment of Pope Leo
What do you think of your new Pope? Said Diane. I was unsure and thought of the Roman proverb “Ad un papa grasso, segua uno sottile” (after a fat Pope comes a thin pope). No great fan of Pope Benedict, much preferring Pope Francis. I feared a swing back to a more right-wing agenda. Some North American Catholics can be very right-wing, although not as much as their protestant fundamentalist counterparts. Indeed, there is a strand of White American Nationalist “Christianity” which seems a total perversion of the teachings of Jesus.
Diane was quite excited. As discussed earlier, she had a great regard for the Augustinians. Leo was the first Augustinian to be elected pope in the 2000-year history of the Church. Diane was certain Leo would be great.
Diane was, of course, correct. Leo is very much carrying on in the tradition of Francis. The fact that he is American and that English is his first tongue gives him extra heft. He is utterly uncowed by Trump and rightly outspoken about the Iran War. He is being praised from quarters well outside the Catholic Church.
What trauma has taught me about Trump
Most people go through life without ever coming face-to-face with true evil. For a long time, I hesitated to use that word to describe M, but as I reflect on the writing piece – and the religious themes woven through it – it feels right. Her actions and lack of empathy were so extreme, so beyond the bounds of ordinary human experience, that calling her “evil” captures the reality. In many ways, she reminded me of a female version of Donald Trump, and I feel just as strongly about using that word to describe him as well.
I have nothing but contempt for Trump. Alex Hall Hall captures my feelings perfectly in her recent article, “Why Americans Need to Get Much Angrier About Donald Trump.” My own experience gives me a unique perspective on his total lack of empathy or conscience—it’s as if that part of his brain simply doesn’t exist. When I described M as an alien or demon pretending to be human, I meant it literally; the same description fits Trump just as well.
But I urge compassion toward Trump’s supporters. Falling under the spell of a master manipulator makes it almost impossible to see the truth, no matter how obvious it seems from the outside. I remember my own inability to face the truth: just after my son was born, our family doctor confided in me that M hadn’t been the unmarried innocent she claimed. In reality, she’d had three children from a previous marriage – children taken into care and adopted out because of abuse and neglect – and at least five abortions.
The doctor saw her as utterly beyond hope and urged me to escape, placing my son in care. For me, it was too much to absorb all at once, and it took four long years before I could finally face reality. I also couldn’t abandon my son.
Yet, there’s always hope. After escaping that darkness, I soon found light again. I’ve been happily married to my current wife for over 30 years. And in the years between leaving M and meeting her, I shared four wonderful and joyous years with a girlfriend whose love and kindness helped me heal. That relationship ended only because she moved to Cardiff to pursue the job opportunity of a lifetime, and the distance from Leeds proved too great for us to overcome. But those experiences showed me that new beginnings are possible, even after the bleakest times.
Just like M, Trump is, in my view, utterly irredeemable. As Alex Hall Hall argues, Americans truly need to get angrier. Another thing my son pointed out about M was her “entropic decision making” – her choices were unpredictable, chaotic, and often destructive. I never knew what new crisis she’d create, always expecting me to pick up the pieces. Trump’s behaviour strikes me as eerily similar, but with far more at stake. While M’s harm was confined to our family, Trump’s actions could and indeed already are affecting the entire world.
To our American readers, this is a pivotal moment – your voices and votes truly matter. Stand up, speak out, and do everything you can to curtail Trump’s power and deliver him a decisive defeat in the midterms. For those outside the US, it’s time to rethink old alliances and prepare for a world where American influence may be less stable. I still hope the US can find its way back to sanity, but this second Trump presidency is unleashing consequences that will be well-nigh impossible to undo.
