Trump, Pope Leo and the Catholic Divide

National Catholic Register, 17 April 2026

President Trump’s attack on Pope Leo XIV has brought a simmering tension into the open.

Is blasphemy worse than shooting someone on Fifth Avenue? We may soon find out.

The political potency of President Donald Trump is due in large part to the fierce loyalty of his partisans. No matter how great the outrage, it would be overlooked, excused, justified somehow as better than an alternative. Even before the first presidential primary in 2016, Trump marveled at the phenomenon.

"I have the most loyal people,” Trump said in January 2016 in Iowa. “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?”

More than 10 years later, it has proved true enough. Now, with the president’s aggressive comments regarding Pope Leo XIV, combined with the blasphemous image depicting himself as Jesus, that loyalty is being tested.

The conflict between the American president and the first pope from the United States has prompted observers to question: Whose side will Trump-supporting Catholics take? It remains to be seen, and the answer will indicate whether the adjectival identity is stronger than the noun.

The blasphemy controversy has drawn greater attention to a curious trend over the past decade or so. Many American Catholics, of all political tribes, have been inclined to subject papal teaching to the most rigorous scrutiny, while accepting all manner of provocations from their preferred political figures. Once more evident on the political left, this is now especially true regarding Trump. For more than a decade, a minority of American Catholics have strained to accept what Pope Francis or Pope Leo has said, yet proved eager to swallow whatever Trump offers (cf. Matthew 23:24).

Will it continue after Trump’s recent Easter Octave outbursts?

With apologies to readers for the profanity, Trump posted, concluding with an apparently mocking Muslim invocation, on Easter Sunday:

Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F------ Strait, you crazy b-------, or you’ll be living in Hell—JUST WATCH. Praise be to Allah.

When Easter Tuesday arrived, Trump escalated from threatening the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure — a war crime — to threatening outright genocide:

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!

Pope Leo, with remarkable understatement, said that genocide against an ancient people “truly is not acceptable.”

On Divine Mercy Sunday, peace negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan, having failed, Trump posted his rant against Pope Leo. It would have proved the ultimate shock if he did not soon after post an image of himself as Jesus Christ.

“I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States,” Trump posted, later telling reporters that, “I am not a fan of Pope Leo.”

For his part, the Holy Father responded that he is “not afraid of the Trump administration.”

The fact that Pope Leo was on his way to Africa for a four-country visit indicated something of the context. An American pope is not for Americans alone, much less for the minority of Americans who support President Trump.

Indeed, contrary to Trump’s claims that the Holy Father’s negative judgment on the morality of the American-Israeli war on Iran is “hurting him very badly,” it is quite likely that not being intimidated by Trump — one of the world’s most unpopular political leaders — has caused Leo to rise in the esteem of many. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a heretofore European ally of Trump, blasted him for his attacks on Pope Leo.

What are the implications of this exchange, which USCCB president Archbishop Paul Coakley characterized in brief and modest terms:

I am disheartened that the President chose to write such disparaging words about the Holy Father. Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls.

Six considerations suggest themselves.

First, it seems that ostentatious blasphemy from the White House, if not Fifth Avenue, is still revolting to a great many American Christians, including those who have been ardent supporters of the president.

That blasphemy is a gross stain on the dignity of his office was conceded by Trump himself, who deleted the post. He declined to apologize, offering instead the implausible explanation that he thought the image portrayed him “as a doctor.”

Vice President JD Vance accepted that the blasphemous image was out of bounds, but said it was intended as a joke.

That blasphemy is considered beneath the presidency was not previously thought in doubt, but given the president’s social-media habits, it is welcome to have that confirmed.

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