President Trump says Pope needs to understand the reality of Iran’s nuclear threat
President Trump said it was not rude for Pope Leo to criticize the Iran war, but he needed to understand the importance of disarming Iran.
It was a tumultuous April for many Catholic supporters of President Donald Trump.
Two days after Easter Sunday, the president threatened to annihilate Iran. Days later, President Trump belittled Pope Leo
Some have suggested the moment could be a flashpoint for Catholic conservatives torn between political and religious loyalties, as the Trump administration spars with the Vatican over what has become the most contentious relationship between secular leaders and the Holy See since the Middle Ages.
“Conservative Catholics who have supported Trump may feel the need to decide between Trump and the Pope,” said Landon Schnabel, an associate professor of sociology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
The conflict has escalated beyond just the president versus the pope. While some of President Trump’s Catholic allies, most notably Vice President J.D. Vance, entered the fray, the nation’s Catholic bishops rallied around the Pope, and the entire situation spread through social media.
“It’s like we’re watching this debate unfold between two giants in real time,” said Frank Lacopo, an assistant professor of history at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau. “This is unprecedented in American history.”
Nearly 60% of Catholics supported President Trump in the 2024 election, but Matthew Schmaltz, founding editor of the Journal of Global Catholicism, said up to a third of that support may have waned since then as the president and pope clashed over U.S. deportation policy and the Iran war. The dispute threatens to collapse key constituencies in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections.
“It’s clear that American Catholics are an important political constituency, and the president has been careful not to alienate them, whether they are Republicans or Democrats,” he said. “Mr. Trump is truly exploring new political territory.”
Nicholas Hayes Mota, a social ethicist and public theologian at Santa Clara University in California, told Truth Social that the cumulative effect of the past two weeks, limited by AI images of Trump that have since been removed, has already pushed some people to break with the president.
“This is clearly a bridge too far for some people,” Hayes Mota said.
Despite the president’s skeptical attempts to explain, the “Trump as Jesus” image drew fierce criticism from conservative Catholics, including podcaster Michael Knowles, former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, and CatholicVote.org, a group founded by Trump’s ambassador to the Holy See.
For many religious Americans, faith leads and politics follows, said Cornell University’s Schnabel. In other words, their beliefs and values shape their political positions.
But when the president posts images of himself as Christ, he said, he is “asking believers to start with their political allegiances and backfill their theology.” This creates a tension between religious beliefs and political allegiances.
“When people have two conflicting commitments, something has to give,” Schnabel said.
Years of conflict between the Pope and the President
The U.S. government and the Vatican have long exchanged views on policy, but the ongoing exchange is unique in its public and private nature.
“You would have to go back to the Middle Ages or the Protestant Reformation to see this type of controversy between the pope and secular leaders,” said Schmaltz, a professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
For example, in 11th In the turn of the century, a dispute arose between Pope Gregory VII and Henry IV over whether the pope or the king had the right to elect bishops. Racopo said a similar dispute erupted in 1303 between Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip IV of France over taxing powers, eventually leading to violence.
“Some of the king’s men went to the pope’s residence and beat him,” he said.
In modern times, the conflict between the Pope and the US president has proved tame and less direct by comparison, largely limited to criticism of US war activities. In 1965, Pope Paul VI famously gave a speech at the United Nations and implored, “No more wars, no more wars!”
“Although he declined to name names, many observers took it to be directed at Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War,” Racopo said.
A 2015 article in America magazine recalled Time correspondent Wilton Wynn’s account of a tense meeting between President Johnson and Pope Paul in December 1968 as the war dragged on, with Wynn saying that Pope “slammed his hand on the desk” and “yelled” at the president. However, the meeting ended with the two exchanging Christmas presents.
Hayesmota, who lives in Santa Clara, said the pope has an obligation to speak on behalf of the church and its mission. He noted that Pope John Paul II was an active critic of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq under President George Bush. “So Leo is not acting at risk. But I don’t remember a president attacking the pope in this way.”
Stephen Schneck, former director of the Institute for Policy Studies and Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., said both Johnson and Bush were “respectful and diplomatic” in their interactions with the pope. “So the conflict between the president and the pope was nothing compared to what we saw last week.”
President Trump has made subtle comments about Pope Leo, a Chicago native who was elected to succeed Pope Francis in May 2025, becoming the first North American pope and who has been vocal in his opposition to the Iran war.
In an April 12 post on Truth Social, President Trump called the pope not only weak on crime but also “terrible in foreign policy,” adding, “Leo should get his act together, use common sense, stop pandering to the radical left, and focus on being a great pope, not a politician.”
In response, the pope said he was “not afraid of the Trump administration” and would continue to preach the Catholic gospel.
The president’s disdain for the leadership of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics has once again drawn criticism from prominent Catholic conservatives. “President Trump’s post insulting the Pope once again crosses the line of decorum that plays an important role in diplomacy,” said Kelsey Reinhardt, president and CEO of CatholicVote.org.
Hayzmota said such attacks do not support Trump among Catholic voters, nor are they an attempt to politicize the pope’s clear statements about the church’s moral values.
“His attack treated the pope as just a political opponent,” Hayzmota said. “The pope is very popular not only in the United States but among Catholics around the world. If President Trump really wants to make this a contest, I don’t think that would work for him.”
Vance “could be a bridge builder.”
Political observers say the person most likely to be influenced by Imbrorio is J.D. Vance, who has made his faith part of his political persona. Mr. Vance, who converted to Catholicism and describes himself as deeply religious, “will be held accountable” in his upcoming memoir, “Communion: Finding the Path to Faith,” scheduled for publication in June, Mr. Schmaltz said.
“Mr. Vance is in a position where he has to answer questions about religious beliefs and how they relate to policy positions,” Schmaltz said. “Mr. Trump needs to be very careful in how he responds, and he needs to be careful that he doesn’t echo the kind of criticism that he leveled at the pope.”
This week, the vice president joined the fray by publicly rebutting Pope Leo’s April 10 claim on X that followers of Christ “will never be on the side of those who once wielded swords and today drop bombs.”
Speaking to the audience at the Turning Point USA rally in Georgia on April 14, Vance said Leo’s position would mean opposing America’s liberation of France and concentration camps during World War II. He suggested that the pope “be careful when talking about theological issues.”
The next day, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops rushed to Pope Leo’s defense, issuing a statement emphasizing that the Catholic Church’s centuries-old tradition of just war theory teaches that states “can only legitimately take up the sword” in self-defense after peace efforts fail.
“For a just war to be a just war, it must be a defense against others who are actively waging war. This is what the Pope actually said,” the group said in a statement. “When Pope Leo
Some pointed out that Vance’s statement about the church’s doctrine of just war, rooted in the teachings of St. Augustine, was made during a visit by Pope Leo XIV, who for 12 years presided over the worldwide religious order founded by St. Augustine, to the North African site of the ancient Roman city of Hippo, where Augustine once ruled as bishop.
Haysmota said Vance’s comments “sounded arrogant to many people.” “That was not a good thing for the vice president. For many Catholics, war is a pressing moral issue.”
Haysmota said that as the second-highest-ranking Catholic in the administration, Vance could help ease tensions and foster dialogue sought by some Catholic conservatives.
“He may be a bridge builder, but his initial reaction didn’t convey that,” he said.
Will President Trump soften his religious stance?
Schmaltz emphasized that the Catholic right is not monolithic. He said some die-hard MAGA supporters welcome President Trump’s criticism of Pope Leo, “because they perceive him as a liberal…There’s a group of die-hard Catholic MAGA supporters who truly believe that Donald Trump was chosen by God at this historic moment.”
On the other hand, conservative podcasters and influencers may be more cautious about how they frame their support for the administration going forward, he said.
Experts say Trump may have an obligation to soften his religious stance, but the president has proven unpredictable. Days after receiving backlash for posting a controversial AI image, Trump reshared another image of himself being hugged by Jesus and wrote, “God may be playing trumps!”
“If we don’t want a catastrophe, Trump absolutely needs to soften his religious stance,” said Schneck, a former director of the Catholic University Research Institute. “He’s already got the hardcore evangelical right. Why does he continue to antagonize mainstream Catholics and religious moderates?”
Schneck said he believes it’s “political malpractice” for Vance and other Catholics in the Trump administration, including Marco Rubio and Caroline Leavitt, to keep doubling down on these messages, but said the president has shown a knack for wriggling his way out of difficult political positions.
“Mr. Trump’s secret is his uncanny ability to drown out current anger by shifting attention to new spectacles.” “We’re hopeful that this will be his formula to win back a lot of Catholics right before the midterm elections.”
