President Donald Trump and Pope Francis are not likely to become fast friends or – in the main – political allies. As governors, however, Trump and Francis are remarkably similar in several respects.

John L. Allen Jr. – the editor of these pages – noted eight years ago how Trump and Francis share a “keep ’em guessing” style of governance.

“[I]deology aside,” Allen wrote, “both Francis and Trump model what 21st century leadership looks like: Untethered from institutions and bureaucracies, and keeping both friends and foes guessing.”

Francis has only given further proof of his penchant for “government by surprise” in the years that have passed since Allen wrote that, while the first two weeks of Trump’s second term have been a whirlwind of disruption: “Government by chaos,” one might say – and several have, even during Trump’s first term – like it or not (and there are lots of people who like it very much, just as there are many others thoroughly appalled).

Trump and Francis also share a preference for “kitchen cabinet” advisors.

Francis has his semi-official “C9” Council of Cardinal Advisors, as well as a rotation of friends who have – and sometimes appear to compete for – his ear. Trump has Elon Musk and his nebulous semi-official Department of Government Efficiency, along with a coterie of celebrity political outsiders and obscure think-tank types who vie for his attentions.

Perhaps most strikingly, both Trump and Francis prize loyalty above all else in their personnel choices, even – perhaps especially – when their preferred picks come with some baggage.

They are not alone in this among top leaders, and for many very good reasons. Anyone who has ever held a leadership role in any organization knows – perhaps it was a lesson learned the hard way – that the person who is the best fit for the job on paper may not be right for a host of reasons unrelated to talent, ability, or experience.

Sometimes leaders give key jobs to persons who have shown loyalty. Trump and Francis have both done that. Sometimes, leaders will give positions to people with some sort of baggage because it is a way to secure the loyalty of the person in the post. Trump and Francis have both done that, too. They are not mutually exclusive sets of circumstances and frequently they mix or coincide.

Trump’s choice for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, is a Fox News personality with limited senior leadership experience and a colorful personal history, who barely squeaked through his Senate confirmation. Hegseth, however, is the fellow Trump wanted. “I give so much credit to President Trump,” Hegseth told Fox’s Sean Hannity in December. “He’s got a backbone of steel,” Hegseth said.

Trump’s picks for two key cabinet posts and one senior law enforcement position – Health and Human Services, Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation – have faced grilling on Capitol Hill.

Trump’s Health and Human Services nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is known for his distrust of major institutions both public and private and is unconventional in his views on subjects from vaccines to the effects of 5G wireless networks. Kennedy ran against Trump as an independent but bowed out of the race and backed the eventual winner.

Trump’s pick for Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – an officer in the US Army Reserve, former legislator from Hawaii, and lifelong Democrat who ran for president in 2020 before throwing her support to Biden, then left the Democratic Party in 2022 and became a Republican in 2024 – has little intelligence experience but has been vocal in her criticism of Democrats’ “cowardly wokeness” and strong in her support of Trump.

Trump’s choice for FBI Director, lawyer Kash Patel, is a veteran of the first Trump administration and the author of Government Gangsters, a book that purports to expose deep-seated corruption inside the “deep state” – the supposedly apolitical apparatus of government – which is one of Trump’s longstanding bugbears.

Francis has his own list of loyal familiars who have their own baggage.

One is Msgr. Battista Ricca, a former diplomatic functionary with a checkered past including unseemly favors for a particular friend and a contretemps with a young male prostitute in which the police were involved. Francis picked Ricca first to oversee the Vatican bank (more properly known as the Institute for the Works of Religion) in 2013 and later made Ricca the director of the Casa Santa Marta (the Vatican guesthouse where Francis resides).

In 2017, Francis created a cushy job for his old Argentinian associate, Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta – one of the first men Francis made a bishop after being elected to the papacy in 2013 – as part of efforts to keep Zanchetta’s poor life choices out of the public eye and help him get back on his feet after Zanchetta had to resign the see Francis had given him. Zanchetta eventually faced charges of criminal sexual misconduct in Argentina, was convicted, and received a four-year prison sentence.

Perhaps the best example of Francis’s preferences in these regards, however, is his choice for the corner office in the Vatican’s doctrine department, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith: Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández.

Fernández is an Argentinian theologian and friend of Francis who has ghostwritten important papal teaching documents – or significant parts of them – and has long been the pope’s preferred theological counselor.

“Close observers are well aware,” Allen wrote in 2017, “that when it comes to theological matters, Francis relies much more on Argentine Archbishop Victor Fernández, an old friend who heads the Pontifical Catholic University in Buenos Aires, than whoever happens to be running the [D]DF.”

Well, now Fernández is running the DDF.

It was a surprising choice, the pope’s personal favor notwithstanding, given Fernández’s not exactly spotless history of publication – including one fairly racy volume – and admitted failures in handling a major abuse investigation in the archdiocese of La Plata in 2019 when he was archbishop.

Since major reforms more than 20 years ago, the dicastery Fernandez now heads, has been chiefly responsible for the investigation and prosecution of sex crimes and coverup involving minors and, more recently, vulnerable adults.

At the time of his appointment, Fernández in fact said he did “not feel prepared or trained for these issues,” and only accepted the appointment after Francis agreed to let him leave the disciplinary side of the work to the special section within the dicastery dedicated to handling those cases.

“[T]he Holy Father’s decision for me to concentrate on doctrinal matters in no way minimizes the importance of the fight against abuse,” Fernández told Crux in 2023, when news of his appointment broke. “[I]t is showing his confidence in those who know [best in these matters],” Fernández said, “so that they continue on the right path, which little by little is being consolidated.”

That may be, but it has also shown how Francis wanted his man in the top spot at a key department, and that’s something Trump and Francis have in common.

Whether one likes one or the other or even both men, is beside the point.

Follow Chris Altieri on X: @craltieri