Trump attacks the pope, getting into trouble with his Catholic base

“I am disheartened that the President chose to write such disparaging words about the Holy Father. Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician.”

“I don't want a pope who thinks it's okay for Iran to have nuclear weapons. I don't want a pope who thinks it's terrible to attack Venezuela. And I don't want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States, because I am doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.” In short, Donald Trump does not want a pope like Leo XIV. On Sunday night, in a post on Truth Social, he launched an attack against the latter with a ferocity unprecedented in US-Vatican relations.

“Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.” He added that the Pope was “weak on crime,” “catering to the Radical Left,” that he should “focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician” and that this was “hurting the Catholic Church.”

He later doubled down to reporters who asked him about the post as soon as he stepped off the plane bringing him back to Washington after a weekend in Florida, saying “I'm not a big fan of Pope Leo. He's a very liberal person, and he's a man that doesn't believe in stopping crime.” The reason behind his outburst was, unsurprisingly, the position expressed by Robert Prevost on the US intervention in Iran, calling it “absurd and inhuman violence,” and specifically condemning the “absolutely unacceptable” threat to wipe out an entire civilization. At the root of the war, the Pope had added, lies Trump’s “delusion of omnipotence.”

“I have no fear of the Trump administration, nor of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel,” was Leo's response to those who asked him about Trump's post while he was on a flight to Algeria, adding that he had “no intention of entering into a debate with him.” “I do believe that the message of the Gospel, ‘blessed are the peacemakers,’ is a message that the world needs to hear today,” he stressed.

Several leaders of the US Catholic Church publicly condemned the US president's harsh attack against the spiritual leader of over 1.4 billion people, millions of whom live in the United States. Among them was Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops: “I am disheartened that the President chose to write such disparaging words about the Holy Father. Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician.” The harshest words came from Jesuit priest James Martin: “Is there no limit to this moral squalor?”

But what truly caused a scandal in the United States was a post made by Trump on Truth Social (as Pope Leo noted in passing, “the name of the site itself” is “ironic”) shortly thereafter. It featured an AI-generated image of the president, dressed as Jesus, healing a sick person by laying hands on him. He was surrounded by “patriotic” symbols: soldiers, eagles and the obligatory Statue of Liberty. “Shocking blasphemy” was the reaction, even from within the Christian right, which normally supports him unconditionally – including in his willingness to commit genocide in Iran.

“I don't know if the President thought he was being funny or if he is under the influence of some substance or what possible explanation he could have for this OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy. But he needs to take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God,” wrote Megan Basham, a popular commentator within the religious right. “God shall not be mocked,” right-wing podcaster Riley Gaines wrote on X. Facing the outrage of dozens of his Christian supremacist allies, Trump acted swiftly and removed the offending image from Truth Social. Later, during a White House press conference, he dismissed the idea that the image depicted him as Jesus as “fake news,” claiming: “I thought it was me as a doctor.”

While reluctantly complying with the demands of the Christian right, Trump refused during the press conference to apologize to Pope Leo. An apology had been demanded by Bishop Robert Barron – a conservative Catholic who had taken part in the work of the Religious Liberty Commission established by Trump on Monday morning – in a post on X calling Trump's statements “entirely inappropriate and disrespectful.” “I think the president owes the Pope an apology,” Barron wrote. The president disagreed, saying at the White House that “there is nothing to apologize for” since the pope “said things that are wrong.”

Trump's frontal assault is the latest escalation in a long-standing conflict with the Holy See. It goes beyond the war in Iran: Prevost famously declined an invitation to the upcoming 250th anniversary celebrations of US independence, preferring instead to organize a trip to Lampedusa, the island symbolizing the migrants' journey to reach Italy. Days ago, rumors circulated – later denied by the administration – of a veiled threat (a reference to the Avignon Papacy) made by a Pentagon official to the former Vatican ambassador to the US, Christophe Pierre. When asked about the controversy, the highest-ranking Catholic in the Trump administration – Vice President J.D. Vance – displayed confusion about who the “Pierre” they were asking about was.

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