Many American progressives of different faiths, or no faith, celebrated the message delivered by Pope Leo XIV at St. Peter’s Basilica for the April 11 Prayer Vigil for Peace that, in other circumstances, they might have balked at. “Thoughts and prayers,” is shorthand for a kind of consolation after gun-related tragedies in the United States that has been viciously mocked by Democratic politicians and left-wing influencers.
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Leo didn’t budge an inch on that front. In his economical remarks that came after a public recitation of the Rosary, with its many Our Fathers and Hail Marys as well as a Glory Be, and a Salve Regina for good measure, the Bishop of Rome insisted: “Prayer is not a refuge in which to hide from our responsibilities, nor an anesthetic to numb the pain provoked by so much injustice. Rather, it is the most selfless, universal, and transformative response to death.”
The pope spoke to about 10,000 people at the basilica, according to the estimate by EWTN, and to some multiple of that number who watched on around the world. (At the time of writing, the Vatican’s video had been viewed 27,000 times on YouTube, excerpted in countless other videos and broadcasts, and extensively covered by the press of many nations.)
Leo addressed his public prayer that day to “Lord Jesus [who] conquered death without weapons or violence”; with shouts out to the other two persons of the Trinity in Christian theology (the “Spirit,” and the “Lord of Life”) as well as to “Mary, your mother, who stood at the foot of your cross with a broken heart, firm in the faith that you would rise again.”
On the weekend that Easter is celebrated in the Eastern part of the church, Leo asked Jesus to “Send forth your Spirit, the breath that gives life and reconciles, that turns adversaries and enemies into brothers and sisters.” His prayer request continued: “May the madness of war cease and the Earth be cared for and cultivated by those who still know how to bring forth, protect, and love life.”
The relatively new pope did not call out President Donald Trump, Iran, or his birthplace of America by name at the vigil, but the criticism was clear and pointed all the same. “In this world,” he lamented, “there never seem to be enough graves, for people continue to crucify one another and eliminate life, with no regard to justice and mercy.”
Leo claimed to speak on behalf of “an immense multitude that rejects war not only in word, but also in deed.” Recent conflict had shown that imbalance in the whole “human family” Leo warned. Why, “Even the holy Name of God, the God of life, is being dragged into discourses of death,” as some parties seek godly warrant for what the pope regards as ungodly words and deeds.
Trumping the pope
Trump, a nominal Presbyterian, was not happy about this Roman Catholic interference with his administration, as is evident from his spirited response on social media.
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” Trump began his message on Truth Social on the following evening, which poked at the pope in a number of ways. Trump brought up COVID-19 and its disastrous effects on church gatherings through social distancing rules; contrasted this pope unfavorably with his older brother Louis, a Republican in Florida who “gets it”; and alleged that Leo, elected last May, owes his current perch to Trump himself.
“Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise,” Trump wrote. “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.”
Trump mentioned a recent papal audience with former Obama adviser David Axelrod, “a LOSER from the Left, who is one of those who wanted churchgoers and clerics to be arrested” during the COVID pandemic, and urged Leo to “get his act together as Pope.”
Specifically, Trump said Leo ought to “stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church.”
The president also posted an AI-generated image of himself as a Christ-like figure, praying over and presumably healing a man in a hospital bed. Taken together, the message and the image sparked more than the usual amount of outrage, and some prominent Catholic Trump supporters weighed in.
Robert Barron, a bishop from a diocese in southern Minnesota who serves on the White House’s Religious Liberty Commission, called the president’s social media broadsides “entirely inappropriate and disrespectful.” He suggested that prominent Catholic members of the administration meet with Vatican officials “so that a real dialogue might take place.”
Bishop Barron praised some of Trump’s efforts to support religious liberties in a post on X, but closed with: “All that said, I think the President owes the pope an apology.” Trump has declined to go that far, but he did remove the offending image, offering the explanation that he thought the figure was not himself as Jesus. Rather, it might have been a doctor or a Red Cross worker.
From Francis to Leo
The responses by both Trump and Leo in the days after have made it clear that neither is likely to give ground soon. Trump has said he has nothing to apologize for. Leo has said that he will continue to speak out for peace and fears no consequences from doing so.
Yet why Trump decided to engage with this pope on this issue at this time remains a bit of a puzzle. Relations between Trump and the late Pope Francis, Leo’s immediate predecessor, could have been hugely contentious, but instead they were rather one-sided.
To start, Francis, the first bishop from South America to be made pope in 2013, heartily disliked Trump’s idea of a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
“A person who thinks only about building walls … and not building bridges, is not Christian,” the pontiff declared in response to a reporter’s question.
On the eve of the second Trump administration, Francis called any plans to undertake large-scale deportation of illegal immigrants a “disgrace.”
Trump has been willing to criticize many of the clergy who criticize him, but he mostly refused to engage with Francis’s attacks. (He did say that it was not the pope’s prerogative to judge his faith; Francis, through intermediaries in the Vatican, said words to the effect of “fair enough.”) And this uncharacteristic restraint likely paid off. Despite papal criticism, Trump increased his share of the Catholic vote in his successful 2024 comeback bid for the White House.
Leo has made many of the same criticisms that Francis did of the Trump administration, though not as loudly or frequently as Francis made them. When it came to Iran, he issued the normal papal objections, and only ramped up his criticisms when Trump started publicly threatening violence against Iranian civilian infrastructure and even civilizational erasure over Iran’s efforts that are gumming up trade through the Strait of Hormuz.
This drone-driven slowdown of oil tankers has come in retaliation for recent joint U.S.-Israeli operations that have killed many Iranian leaders, destroyed much of the nation’s military capability, targeted some domestic oil infrastructure, and further set back Iran’s attempts to acquire nuclear weapons.
The war last time
Leo did mention one American action in his remarks, the 2003 invasion of Iraq — and it’s possible this struck a nerve.
The late Pope John Paul II opposed the Iraq War, going so far as to send his theological right hand, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), out to make the case that the invasion would not satisfy Just War criteria. “The concept of preventative war does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church,” Ratzinger famously warned, to no avail.
President George W. Bush’s administration pushed ahead with an invasion to oust Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. The invasion cost an estimated $3 trillion (when veterans’ care is accounted for), arguably damaged American credibility when promised stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction did not materialize, helped give rise to ISIS, and ultimately produced a weak Iraqi state that was effectively a puppet regime of Iran for some time. It also paved the way for the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 and two terms for President Barack Obama.
As a private citizen, Trump was fairly noncommittal at the outset of the invasion but quickly turned on the war effort. More than a decade later, he capitalized on rank-and-file Republican disaffection with the Iraq invasion and so many other issues to take the Republican nomination and then the White House in twin upsets.
Trump’s “America first” policy would not amount to pacifism, but neither would he allow the U.S. to get sucked into so many costly foreign misadventures, he promised. For the most part, he held to that promise in his first term. He didn’t get America into any major new conflict as he worked to wind down its presence in Afghanistan and finish off ISIS.
America’s foreign policy has taken a different course during Trump’s second term, and the president has undertaken unusual measures to try to shake things up. The midterm elections are not the only consideration here, but voters have not historically taken kindly to prices caused by oil shocks.
CAN THE DEMOCRATS GET RELIGION?
The first U.S.-born pope’s opposition to his efforts only makes things that much harder for Trump, but Leo has signaled he is unlikely to reverse course over angry tweets.
“The Church is a great people at the service of reconciliation and peace,” he told the vigil faithful. “She advances without hesitation, even when rejecting the logic of war may lead to misunderstanding and scorn.”
Jeremy Lott is the author of several books, most recently The Three Feral Pigs and the Vegan Wolf.
