Pope Leo XIV’s Saturday evening plea for world peace at St Peter’s Basilica has triggered an extraordinary public feud with President Donald Trump, who branded the Chicago-born pontiff “weak on crime, and terrible for foreign policy” whilst accusing the Catholic Church of selecting an American leader specifically to manage relations with his White House.
The Vatican’s most direct rebuke yet of Mr Trump’s Middle Eastern military campaign—delivered in Italian without naming the President but urging leaders to “stop” war and pursue “dialogue and mediation” rather than “rearmament and deadly actions”—prompted a furious Truth Social response alleging Pope Leo believes “it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
“If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican,” Mr Trump declared, claiming the Catholic Church’s leadership choice represented strategic calculations about “the best way to deal with President Donald J Trump.”
The President concluded his message demanding: “Leo 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. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!”
Returning from UFC 327 in Miami, Mr Trump told reporters “we don’t like the Pope” whilst elaborating: “I don’t think he’s doing a very good job. He likes crime, I guess. We don’t like a Pope that’s going to say that it’s okay to have a nuclear weapon.”
He characterised Pope Leo as “a very liberal person” who “doesn’t believe in stopping crime,” later sharing an AI-generated image appearing to compare himself to Jesus Christ.
The confrontation follows disputed accounts of a 22 January Pentagon meeting with the Holy See’s former US ambassador Cardinal Christophe Pierre, with the Free Press describing it as a “bitter lecture warning that the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants—and that the Church had better take its side.”
The Vatican dismissed this “narrative” as “completely untrue,” characterising the encounter as routine diplomatic exchange on “matters of mutual interest” whilst condemning journalists and “online agitators” for exploiting it “to sow division between the Holy See and the United States.”
Pope Leo previously condemned Mr Trump’s threat to destroy Iran’s “whole civilisation” as “truly unacceptable” whilst declaring on social media that Christ’s disciples are “never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”
The President has increasingly framed the Iran conflict through religious terms, with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth comparing downed airman recovery to Easter miracles whilst Mr Trump cited Psalm 18 verses 37-42 justifying “overwhelming violence” against enemies.
Catholic voters supported Mr Trump 55 per cent to Kamala Harris’s 43 per cent during 2024’s election.
