{"id":389910,"date":"2026-04-13T14:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T14:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/389910\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T14:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T14:25:14","slug":"trump-attacks-pope-leo-xiv-amid-criticism-of-iran-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/389910\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Attacks Pope Leo XIV Amid Criticism of Iran War"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDonald Trump<\/a> is now attacking the Pope.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,\u201d the president wrote Sunday night on Truth Social, following Pope Leo XIV<\/a>\u2018s recent criticism of the war against Iran. Trump continued to bash the Catholic Church\u2019s response to Covid-19, slam Leo for opposing him despite the \u201cGreatest Stock Market in History,\u201d and claim that his presidency is the only reason Leo was elected Pope. \u201cIf I wasn\u2019t in the White House, Leo wouldn\u2019t be in the Vatican,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLeo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician,\u201d the president concluded. \u201cIt\u2019s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it\u2019s hurting the Catholic Church!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLess than an hour after posting his attack against Pope Leo, Trump posted an image depicting himself as a robed, Christ-like figure, using divine power to heal a man as nurses, soldiers, and others looked on in reverence.<\/p>\n

\n\tPope Leo XIV, the first American ever elected to lead the Catholic Church, has been sharply critical<\/a> of Trump\u2019s warmongering, particularly lately amid the United States\u2019 war of choice against Iran. \u201cGod does not bless any conflict,\u201d Leo wrote on Friday. \u201cAnyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs. Military action will not create space for freedom or times of #Peace, which comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump has been at odds with religious leaders since he retook office. Shortly after he was inaugurated, Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde delivered a sermon<\/a> calling for mercy for those who are scared at the Washington National Cathedral. Trump was attending, and days later attacked Budde as \u201cRadical Left and a \u201cTrump hater.\u201d He didn\u2019t take her message to heart, either, launching a brutal immigration crackdown, one that Leo called \u201cextremely disrespectful\u201d<\/a> last fall. The crackdown has since intensified along with the president\u2019s growing thirst for military conquest.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Trump administration has demanded the Catholic Church\u2019s endorsement on both fronts. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Free Press reported<\/a> earlier in the week that the Pentagon threatened former Holy See American Ambassador Cardinal Christophe Pierre during a meeting earlier this year, warning him that, as The Free Press put it, citing Vatican official briefed on the meeting, \u201cthe United States military has power to do whatever it wants \u2014 and that the Church had better take its side.\u201d The White House has denied the reporting, and the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See has\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0that Cardinal Pierre denied the media\u2019s portrayal of the meeting.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump\u2019s attack on Sunday came after 60 Minutes, which Trump often criticizes, aired a segment in which Catholic cardinals explained that the ongoing conflict with Iran is \u201cnot a just war.\u201d<\/a> Trump was asked about his post attacking Leo later Sunday night. \u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s doing a very good job. He likes crime, I guess,\u201d the president said before insisting: \u201cI am not a fan of Pope Leo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLeo was also asked about Trump\u2019s attacks. \u201cI have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the Church is here to do,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cWe are not politicians. We don\u2019t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective he might understand it, but I do believe in the message of the Gospel, as a peacemaker.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump is now attacking the Pope. \u201cPope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[54,42,117780,43,14655,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-389910","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-iran-war","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pope-leo-xiv","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}