Trump attacks Pope Leo amid Iran war criticism

What happened

President Donald Trump on Sunday sharply criticized Pope Leo XIV, an increasingly vocal opponent of his Iran war. The first U.S.-born Catholic pontiff is “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” and “thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump said on social media. “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo,” he told reporters. “He’s a very liberal person.” Shortly afterward, Trump posted an AI-generated image “depicting himself as a Christ-like figure healing a sick person with American flags and eagles in the background,” CNN said.

Who said what

Trump’s “angry counterpunch to the soft-spoken Leo” starkly “illustrated how differently two of the world’s most powerful Americans handle conflict,” The New York Times said. Trump’s broadside came after the pope held a vigil for peace at the Vatican on Saturday and suggested that a “delusion of omnipotence” was fueling the war. “Enough of the idolatry of self and money!” Leo said. “Enough of war!”

It’s “not unusual for popes and presidents to be at cross purposes,” The Associated Press said, but it’s “exceedingly rare” for them to openly criticize each other. Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement he was “disheartened” at Trump’s “disparaging words about the Holy Father.”

What next?

Trump’s “extraordinary public criticism” of the pope could put him “at odds with some Catholics, tens of millions of whom live in the U.S.,” The Wall Street Journal said. Pope Leo leaves Monday for a four-country tour of Africa, Catholicism’s fastest-growing region.