Watching Pope Leo school Trump is a blessed sight

April 19, 2026 — 11:00am

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I might have to go back to church. My mother always told me that the Catholic Church was greater than the men running it.

But I grew so disillusioned with the men running it while I was covering the sex abuse scandals that I could no longer stomach going to Mass. The church that had helped form my sense of right and wrong as a child suddenly seemed blind about right and wrong. But Pope Leo XIV, or Pope Bob, as the first American pope is sometimes affectionately called, may win me over.

President Donald Trump has been rampaging around the globe like Grendel at dinner time, a rapacious, feral creature. Who could stand up to him? The soft-spoken, humble Leo, who strives to unify, squared off against the bombastic, solipsistic Trump, who strives to divide. And watching the saintly pope school the amoral president is a blessed sight.

I’m sure His Holiness watched askance as Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth cast the conflict with Iran as a holy war, trying to put God on the American side as our troops are asked to rain “death and destruction from above” on “apocalyptic” Iranian foes.

In March, Hegseth called for “overwhelming violence of action........

© The Age