feuding with Pope Leo<\/a>, the first US-born leader of the Catholic Church and an outspoken critic of the war that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran.<\/p>\nTrump reiterated his criticism of the religious leader on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
In a separate post on Truth Social, Trump urged that “someone please tell Pope Leo” about the killings of protesters by Iran and that “for Iran to have a Nuclear Bomb is absolutely unacceptable.”<\/p>\n
On Tuesday evening, Vice President JD Vance, speaking at the University of Georgia, said the pope was wrong to say that disciples of Christ are “never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs” and that “it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology”.<\/p>\n
Leo said in response to Trump’s previous attacks that he had “no fear” of the Trump administration and would continue to speak out.<\/p>\n
In a forceful speech on Monday in Algiers, he denounced “neocolonial” world powers who he said were violating international law, without singling out specific countries.<\/p>\n
Christian voters have formed a critical part of Trump’s political base. Trump, who does not attend church regularly, won large majorities of Christian voters in the 2024 election, including Catholics.<\/p>\n
More muted response<\/p>\n
The online response to Trump’s latest post has been more muted than the outrage that accompanied his earlier Jesus post.<\/p>\n
Yet high-profile individuals with ties to politics and Catholicism continued to weigh in on the administration’s feud with the pope.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday morning the US-based Knights of Columbus, the largest Catholic men’s fraternity in the world, posted on X a statement from its Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly defending the pope.<\/p>\n
“Pope Leo XIV has consistently called for peace, dialogue, and restraint in a world marked by war and suffering,” the statement said. “The Holy Father’s words are not political talking points, they are reflections of the Gospel itself.”<\/p>\n
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told attendees at a news conference that criticism of the pope was expected, however, after the religious leader waded into “political waters.”<\/p>\n
Johnson said that he was “taken a little bit aback” by the pope’s remarks about “‘those who engage in war, that Jesus doesn’t hear their prayers’ or something”.<\/p>\n
“It is a very well-settled matter of Christian theology,” Johnson said. “There’s something called the ‘just war’ doctrine.”<\/p>\n
Johnson appeared to be referencing an address given by Pope Leo on 29 March in St Peter’s Square, when the pontiff said: “(Jesus) does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood’,” citing a Bible passage.<\/p>\n
-Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pope Leo, left, and US President Donald Trump. Photo: AFP US President Donald Trump has posted an apparently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-381231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Pope](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQ68DT_BeFunky_collage_6_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"US](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQ3GC8_TRUMP_png.jpeg\")
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