King Charles and Pope Leo defend US Constitution from Trump

When King Charles – in his capacity as King of Canada – opened the new parliament in Ottawa last Tuesday, the symbolism could not have been more powerful, or the King’s purpose more clear. While it is not unprecedented for the sovereign to open a new parliament in one of the Commonwealth nations of which they are head of state, it is seldom done. (It last took place in Australia in 1977.)

King Charles opening the Canadian parliament from the throne in the Senate. Credit: AP

It had not happened in Canada since 1957. When the Queen opened parliament then, it was an occasion of ceremonial significance only. Then-US president Dwight Eisenhower was not threatening to “annex” Canada as the 51st state of the US, nor had he launched a trade war with the deliberate intention of severely damaging the economy of America’s closest ally.

Last week’s proceedings, though attended by the customary pomp and circumstance, were not about ceremony. Although the King’s words might not have been provocative in ordinary times, because of the events of recent months, they were crafted with unmistakable meaning and deliberate intent. Recalling the shared sacrifices of two world wars, the existential struggle of the Cold War and the war on terror, he said: “Today, Canada faces another critical moment. Democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, self-determination and freedom are values which Canadians hold dear, and ones which the government is determined to protect … As the anthem reminds us: ‘the True North is strong and free!’”

It was the most politically pointed speech given by a British monarch in the modern age – a reprimand to the president, that did not mince words: keep your hands off my realm! No prime minister could have delivered that message so effectively. It did not come just from a politician; it came from a king. A real king, not a vainglorious tabloid celebrity with delusions of grandeur, like the person to whom it was directed.

King Charles’ speech came just two weeks after another historic event: the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV.

Unlike the modern monarchy, the Vatican has not avoided engaging actively, if circumspectly, in high politics. There is no better recent example than the pontificate of John Paul II, the importance of whose discreet but purposeful support for the democratic revolution of the 1980s in his native Poland is increasingly being appreciated by historians. It may have been Reagan and Thatcher who brought communism down, but John Paul II played an important role as well.

I remember, as a student, travelling through Poland in the summer of 1982. As the regime began to totter, the despised dictator General Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law. Fearful people converged upon parish churches, which became centres of resistance and mobilisation. (Poland was still the most Catholic country in Europe.) The co-operation of the Polish church with the revolutionary Solidarity movement had the firm support of the former archbishop of Krakow.

It is too soon to know how politically engaged the new Pope will be. His choice of papal name – in homage to Leo XIII, who, in the encyclical Rerum Novarum, famously defended the rights of workers and organised labour – has been widely interpreted as a revealing gesture. When he was still Cardinal Prevost, he did not hesitate to use social media to criticise US President Donald Trump’s mass deportation of migrants – most of them from South America. As the first North American pope, his potential influence in his homeland could be immense, should he choose to use it.

Pope Leo during his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican. Credit: AP

He sits on the throne of Saint Peter, but he’s still the guy who grew up in a little house in a hardscrabble neighbourhood on the south side of Chicago (which, as Frank Sinatra reminded us, is the baddest part of town). For most of his life as a priest, he worked among the poor in Peru. He became the global head of the religious order dedicated to living by the strict discipline of the Rule of St Augustine. And he was the one who emerged from the Sistine Chapel – however the famously opaque conclave reached its decision – wearing the papal robes.

If I had to guess which man had the greater inner toughness – Leo XIV, or that needy parvenu Donald J Trump – I’d put my money on the Vicar of Christ.

Both Charles III and Leo XIV can command a willing audience of more than a billion people: Charles as head of the Commonwealth, Leo as head of the church. Both speak with the moral authority of their office. Both have, in recent times, shown a willingness to use that influence.

In 2020, the American conservative historian Anne Applebaum – the great chronicler of Soviet tyranny – wrote in her book Twilight of Democracy: “The new right is more Bolshevik than Burkean: these are men and women who want to overthrow, bypass or undermine existing institutions.”

Although those words were written about the first Trump administration, they were a prescient foretelling of the second.

When institutions are under threat, it should not be surprising that the custodians of two of the world’s most venerable ones should be bulwarks in their defence. It is one of the ironies of our day that, as the leader of the world’s greatest democracy traduces its constitution and the values upon which it was founded, two of the most influential voices of restraint may be a king and a pope: the incumbent of one of the world’s oldest surviving monarchies, and the man who, although he rules just half a square mile in Rome, for nearly a quarter of the world’s people speaks with the voice of God.

George Brandis is a former high commissioner to the UK, and a former Liberal senator and federal attorney-general. He is a professor at ANU.

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