Trump's Crusade Against the Holy See

The President’s feud with the Pope amidst America’s Christian nationalist, postliberal threat

Since February 28, 2026, the United States has been actively engaged in combat with the Islamic Republic of Iran. However noble the cause of liberating a long-oppressed people may be, it is objectively true that the United States is engaged in a war, unauthorized by Congress, that lacks a clear definition of success in the conflict, and any current hope for negotiations that may bring an end to the war.

On April 11, Pope Leo XIV made a general rebuke of war and the forces that drive it during a prayer vigil for peace at St. Peter’s Basilica. The Pope did not explicitly mention President Trump or the U.S.-Iran war. What the Pope did say was that praying for peace is a way to “break the demonic cycle of evil” and “it is here that we find a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive.” He also warned that “even the Holy Name of God, the God of Life, is being dragged into discourses of war.”

This is not the first time that the Pope has admonished war. In his Palm Sunday homily, the Holy Father said that Jesus could not be used to justify war and that “He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” He referenced Isaiah 1:15, which reads, “And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.”

The Pope’s remarks also came at the same time that peace negotiations were being conducted in Islamabad, Pakistan. The negotiations did not bear fruit, but if we are to believe that the administration went into these negotiations in earnest, then the President should not have found Leo’s call for peace to be so heinous. After all, this is the same President who was infuriated because he was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But he did get one from FIFA.

This kind of very public attack on the Papacy from an American President is unprecedented in modern times, but it is not unprecedented for the Vicar of Christ to denounce the waging of war.

Pope John Paul II was critical of the 2003 War in Iraq. In an address to the Diplomatic Corps, John Paul II stated, “War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity. International law, honest dialogue, solidarity between States, the noble exercise of diplomacy: these are methods worthy of individuals and nations in resolving their differences. I say this as I think of those who still place their trust in nuclear weapons and of the all-too-numerous conflicts which continue to hold hostage our brothers and sisters in humanity.”

Pope Benedict XVI went even further in his criticism of the Iraq War. The late Pope said, “There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destruction that goes beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a ‘just war.’”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has deeply integrated his Christian faith into the Pentagon. Hegseth is a member of a church that is affiliated with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, whose founder, Douglas Wilson, is a self-identified Christian nationalist. Hegseth has even gone so far as to imply that America’s war with Iran is divinely sanctioned. While I wouldn’t expect an Evangelical like Hegeth to believe in Papal authority on these matters, what the Pope is professing is not his political opinion.

The Catholic Church’s teachings on peace and war have been shaped by the “Just War” theory, a doctrine articulated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Church views war as a defeat for humanity, but recognizes a limited right to self-defense, strictly conditioned on proportionality, necessity, and avoiding harm to civilians. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2309, states that a just war is only waged if “at one and the same time: the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain; all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; there must be serious prospects of success; the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs heavily in evaluating this condition.”

Catechism No. 2306 states, “Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defense available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risks of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death.”

Leo XIV, in the role of Pontiff, does not act as a political figure. The Pope has no elections to run. His job is to safeguard doctrine, maintain the unity of the Church, and serve as a spiritual authority. This makes the President’s attack against the Pope unusually preposterous.

On April 12, the President posted this lengthy, politicized attack against Pope Leo on Truth Social:

It’s simply laughable for the President of the United States to attack a Pope for being “weak on crime” and “weak on nuclear weapons.” The Pope’s message on crime acknowledges that individuals should be held accountable for their crimes but that no one is exempt from the grace of redemption. That’s not a political statement, that’s religious doctrine. The implication that the Pope’s broad opposition to war means he supports the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East is absurd because opposing war and opposing nuclear proliferation are certainly not mutually exclusive. Again, it must be stressed that war–just or unjust–is still a failure of humanity.

It’s also strange for the President, who is allegedly a Protestant, to state he “doesn’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States” when he presumably protests against having a pope at all. Leo XIV is the first Pope to hold American citizenship, but that obviously does not make his Pontificate subject to the President. It’s foolish to view the Pope’s messages about war and other hot-button issues–like immigration–in the context of American politics. The Pope is not “catering to the Radical Left,” he is standing on top of 400 years of Catholic Social Justice teachings and proclaiming the Gospel.

Of course, this might be the root of President Trump’s problems. When all is said and done, the President clearly does not understand the Christian faith that well. This is why the fervent support he receives from Evangelicals is so puzzling on the surface. The President’s attacks on the Pope are largely not the concern of Evangelical Christians, however. Evangelicals in America typically do not recognize Papal Authority and only laud certain Popes for conservative stances.

Supporters of the President who are Protestant, particularly Evangelicals, may have been willing to turn a blind eye to the President’s attack on the Pope. However, the President may have gone a bridge too far when he posted a picture of himself depicted as Jesus Christ healing a man. In a rare, and perhaps fleeting moment, conservatives spoke out against the President; the President’s post was called “blasphemous.” He deleted the picture after conservative backlash and claimed he thought the image depicted him as a doctor. This is a laughably absurd and bald-faced lie.

Trump’s attack on the Papacy and the AI-generated image of Jesus Trump come at a time that the Catholic Church is seeing a surge of new converts. For several decades, the Christian population in the United States was declining, but now this shift is stabilizing as younger Americans turn to the religion. Still, as recently as 1990 the ratio of adults in America who identified as Christian was 9 in 10; today only 62% of adults identify as Christian. When we look at the data from a “conservative vs. liberal” perspective, we can contextualize one of the most troubling political phenomena of our time.

Among conservatives, the decline in Christian identity is merely 82% from 89%. Roughly a third of liberals identify themselves as Christians. That’s a 25-point drop since 2007. More than half say they have no religion. This has created a political environment that is increasingly richer in religious rhetoric.

Strangely, the President is at the center of prophetic, apocalyptic predictions as an imperfect vessel sent by God, not as the Antichrist. Evangelicals have been comparing Donald Trump to Jesus Christ and Cyrus the Great since his descent from Trump Tower’s golden escalator in 2015. This cannot be discarded as some fringe theory among the most fervent supporters of Mr. Trump. Members of Congress have made these comparisons and fanned the flames from the floor of our national legislature. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) compared Trump’s impeachment to Jesus being falsely accused of treason and went so far as to state that Pontius Pilate afforded He who would be crucified more rights than the President was afforded. Comparisons to Christ are not limited to his persecution. Billboards have adorned Trump’s face alongside the scriptural prophecy of Christ’s birth.

Rick Perry, Trump’s Secretary of Energy from 2017 to 2019, brought this theory to the President. Perry went on Fox News in 2019 and said he delivered a one-pager to the President on the kings–David, Saul, and Solomon–of the Old Testament and asserted that, while imperfect, Trump was “the chosen one.”

Rick Perry is connected to a larger movement called the Independent Network Charismatic, or INC Christianity. INC Christianity is different from other charismatics and Christian denominations for several reasons. INC Christianity is concerned with spreading beliefs and practices on social media, not building congregations. The group is not as concerned with proselytizing to non-believers as it is with placing believers in positions of power. There is also no formal organization. Instead, INC Christianity is a network of independent leaders.

INC Christianity is the fastest-growing Christian movement in the United States. The loose coalition of leaders call themselves apostles and are known among followers as being able to perform miracles, access supernatural powers, and receive divine revelation from God directly. This differs greatly from the Roman Catholic Church’s organizational structure and social teachings that are based on centuries of tradition. There is one point of agreement between some new converts in these groups: Christian Nationalism. INC Christianity is radically conservative in its nature, and new and/or young Catholic converts tend to be much more radically conservative than cradle Catholics.

Vice President Vance, a convert, is the highest-ranking Catholic in government. He is practically the poster child for the radicalization of younger Americans in the “postliberal” movement. Postliberal ideology seeks to replace liberal democracy with a state that enforces a common good rooted in Catholic theology. Vance has previously aligned himself with the postliberal movement. He wants his allies to be ruthless in the exercise of power when they have the presidency and Congress, and he has stated that Republicans need to seize institutions, including universities, “to make them work for our people.”

This subset of the American electorate has seldom been discussed; they are few in numbers, and their views are far from the mainstream. Adherents to postliberalism cannot always agree on what exactly a postliberal America would look like: whether the state would work in tandem with the church or strictly adhere to it. Now, they have the President’s ear.

While the President is not a Roman Catholic and has never mentioned or aligned himself with the postliberal movement, he is certainly a convenient tool for their ambitions. The President wants to wield power relentlessly and without guardrails.

Amid the fallout from Trump’s feud with the Pope to the AI-generated picture of Trump as Christ, Vance went on Fox News and defended the President’s ire toward the Vatican. Vance told Fox’s Bret Baier that “I certainly think that in some cases it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what is going on in the Catholic Church and let the President stick to dictating American public policy.”

This is a catastrophic sound bite for the postliberals. Vance also, as a Catholic, perpetuated centuries of anti-Catholic sentiment in the U.S. Vance’s demand that the Pope stay out of American public policy is precisely the thing that postliberals do not want. In the Vice President’s statement is also the implication that the Pope is actively seeking to dictate American public policy, a fear that has been at the root of anti-Catholicism and misunderstands the Pope’s role and intention.

Anti-Catholic sentiment dates back to the colonial period; the American Revolution was rooted, in part, by anti-Papacy. Congregationalists and Puritans in New England feared the Anglican Church because, much like the Roman Catholic Church, of their strict adherence to a structure of hierarchy, much different than the “low churches” New Englanders were used to.

John F. Kennedy faced the insurmountable task of asking voters to elect the first Catholic President. Catholics had been nominated for President before and had served in public office at all levels of government for quite some time, but none came as close to the Oval Office. President Kennedy ultimately prevailed.

Anti-Catholicism and exaggerations about the Pope’s influence in American public policy are not new phenomena. The belief that the Pope, in 2023 A.D., is attempting to instruct American policy is simply silly. It is also disingenuous to suggest the Pope was doing anything but acknowledging the moral qualms of waging war in line with Catholic doctrine.

Pope Leo is not concerned with the President’s attacks against him and said, “I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what the church works for.” If only all Americans who preach the Gospel were as calm and welcoming as the one who does so from Rome.

While at times it seems that some of the loudest voices among Christians are the most intolerant and intolerable, it must be noted that these individuals do not speak for the faith or Church alone. I happily attend an Episcopal parish in Washington, D.C., along with other caring people of various political persuasions who congregate in harmony. It is disappointing, to say the least, that some Christians have, by word and deed, turned many away from religion and that they shield their bigotry behind the Gospel.

It is puzzling that at the same time the U.S. is engaged in a war with a theocratic government, some of our leaders are also blind to the fact that the marriage of Church and State is incredibly corrosive to both institutions. Religious fanaticism is a threat to any given faith and, when conjoined to administrative governance, it is a threat to any society founded upon a system of ordered liberty. Religion can guide one’s personal convictions and their conduct, but it should not directly dictate public policy.

Aside from Leo XIV’s condemnation of war, the President’s feud with the Pope ultimately boils down to the President’s disdain for any authority that may be considered higher than him. This is a notion that should be particularly alarming for Christians, regardless of whether they recognize Papal authority. It is also emblematic of the President’s idea that he should not and cannot be held accountable for his actions.

The rise of Christianity in the U.S. can perhaps be explained by the natural search for community, belonging, and a greater sense of purpose. As a Christian, I would hope more people find their way to the faith. But to butcher it for selfish means to a political end is a great disservice. In Paul’s letter to the Galatians 4:18, he reminds us, “But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you.”

The President seems self-conscious about what the afterlife has in store. On Air Force One, the President joked, perhaps, that he’s “maybe, not heaven-bound.” Perhaps he should repent. Maybe even make a few acts of contrition. The administration is correct on one matter: the Pope should not dictate American policy. American civil society is built upon the idea that we seek spiritual guidance from whomever and however we please, so long as it does not interfere with the lives and liberties of others. Also essential to the American experiment is the idea that the Constitution, and not any one man, is the ultimate authority.

In America, the people rule, and our elected representatives have failed to provide an effective check on the President’s war powers. We should expect our leaders to pursue peace wherever and whenever possible. Striving for peace is not merely a Christian virtue; it is universal. At least it should be.