Vatican not agst Trump says Turkson (3)

(ANSA) - Vatican City, March 31 - Cardinal Peter Turkson, the Vatican's Prefect for the Dicastery of Integral Human Development, on Friday denied the Vatican was against US President Donald Trump. "Pitting the Vatican against President Trump is rather exaggerated," Turkson told ANSA. "The United States has a valid and democratic government that deserves all our respect" and which is now "carrying out election pledges".
    He added, however, that "in the USA there is a system of checks and balances, in which we trust just as much, able, to revise some of the promises made during the campaign".
    Turkson was speaking a day after saying that The Vatican is hoping Trump will revise his policies and is "counting" on lobbying by the Catholic Church in the USA. Trump's decisions are "concerning", Turkson said, "but luckily there are dissenting voices, contrary voices, in the US, in explicit disagreement with Trump's positions: his immigration ban was blocked by a lawyer in Hawaii." Turkson said "that is a sign that there can be another voice and hopefully via political means, gradually Trump himself will start rethinking some of his decisions".