After former President Donald Trump said he wanted “to try to get to heaven, if possible” as he’s been working to broker the peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, one Catholic priest took up the challenge of explaining what that actually requires of Christians.
Jesuit priest James Martin responded in a letter published in America Magazine, addressing the president directly. He began by echoing Trump’s hopes for the afterlife. “I can understand how working toward peace would awaken within you the desire to continue to do good and also turn your thoughts to heaven,” he wrote. The desire for heaven is a “universal human longing for union with God.”
Then, Martin, who also serves as editor-at-large of America magazine, continued with a question: “So where does one go from here? How do any of us get to heaven?”
Drawing from Matthew 25, he reminded Trump that Jesus identifies himself with “the least” — the poor, the hungry, the sick, the stranger and the imprisoned, and that caring for them is by extension what it means to care for Jesus. “Those who are hungry and thirsty are legion in our country. How are you caring for them?” Martin wrote.
Trump, speaking Tuesday morning in a “Fox & Friends” interview, said he hoped his efforts to broker peace in Ukraine might bolster his chances to enter heaven. “I want to try and get to heaven, if possible,” he said. “I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.” The interview came on the heels of the buzzed-about summit in Alaska, where Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the conditions for ending the war in Ukraine. “If I can save 7,000 people a week from getting killed, that’s pretty good,” Trump also said to the hosts.
Trump has made comments about the afterlife in the past, according to Time.
“I don’t believe in reincarnation, heaven or hell — but we go someplace,” Trump said in an interview in 1990, according to BuzzFeed News as cited by Time. In 2016, he told a group of 700 evangelical pastors in Florida that winning the presidential bid is one way he hopes to secure his entry into heaven.
“So go out and spread the word and once I get in, I will do my thing that I do very well. And I figure it’s probably maybe the only way I’m going to get to heaven,” he said in 2016. “So I better do a good job.” Then there was the time after the 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, when Trump invoked his aspirations for the afterlife, according to Time. “If I’m good, I’m going to heaven. And if I’m bad, I’m going someplace else,” he told Fox News.
When press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked in a press briefing if Trump’s comment about getting to heaven was a joke or if there was a “spiritual motivation” behind his peace efforts. “I think the president was serious,” she said. “I think (the) president wants to get to heaven, as I hope we all do in this room as well.”
In his letter, Martin noted that the definition of “neighbor” from the parable of the Good Samaritan also includes the poor and hungry abroad. “The untreated sick are still in our hospitals and on our city streets — as well as in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, and in the developing world. Are we helping them?” he asked. In the modern context, the neighbors are also the migrants and the refugees, Martin said.
Martin invoked the president’s office to effect change that’s consistent with Christian values. “Remember: Caring for them is caring for Jesus. Many of us struggle with how to do this, but as president, it’s in your power to cut off aid — or increase aid — to precisely these people.”
Martin also underscored that in the Christian worldview, there is no room for “revenge, bitterness or hatred,” even toward enemies. Instead, Christianity invites forgiveness and “that begins, as it does with all of us, in our own lives.” Martin cited the words of Pope Paul VI: “If you want peace, work for justice.”
He concluded with a call to action: “Getting to heaven requires both grace and good works. You’ve got to walk the walk. That means walking beside those who are poor, sick, naked, hungry, strangers, or in any way struggling. I’m trying to do the same thing, imperfectly.”