{"id":80033,"date":"2026-04-14T23:46:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=80033"},"modified":"2026-04-14T23:46:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:46:19","slug":"co-opting-christ-trump-pope-leo-and-the-trans-atlantic-schism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=80033","title":{"rendered":"Co-Opting Christ \u2014 Trump, Pope Leo and the Trans-Atlantic Schism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Paolo Pontoniere<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Images via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cGod does not bless any conflict,\u201d wrote Pope Leo in an\u00a0April 10 post<\/a>\u00a0to the social media platform X. \u201cAnyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the Pope, and increasingly for much of Europe, tensions over the\u00a0Iran war<\/a>\u00a0are not simply a matter of policy difference, but a moral and theological crisis.<\/p>\n

That crisis broke open Sunday when\u00a0Trump accused the pope<\/a>\u00a0of being \u201cweak on crime\u201d and of \u201ccatering to the radical left\u201d on his Truth Social account. The normally soft-spoken Leo responded. He told reporters on a flight to Algeria, \u201cI have no fear, neither of the Trump administration, nor of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tit-for-tat exchange between the American president and the pontiff is the latest in a widening rift between the Vatican \u2014 and much of Europe \u2014 and Washington DC over the Iran conflict and US policy more broadly.<\/p>\n

In January Pentagon officials told the Vatican\u2019s U.S. Ambassador, Cardinal Cristophe Pierre, \u201cThe United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world.\u201d Another official reportedly raised the issue of the Avignon Papacy, during which the 14th Century French crown used its military might to bring Rome to its knees.<\/p>\n

Pope Leo \u2014 the first ever American pope \u2014\u00a0took the message for what it was,\u00a0canceling a planned visit to the US<\/a>\u00a0later in the year.<\/p>\n

Then came Trump\u2019s threat, posted Easter morning to Truth Social, to wipe out Iran\u2019s civilization. \u201cA whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,\u201d Trump posted. The comments drew widespread condemnation, including from some of the president\u2019s longtime conservative backers.<\/p>\n

The \u2018ideology of profit\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Church leaders alongside European media increasingly interpret these developments as evidence of a broader schism. For many, the divide is over not just policy but fundamental values.<\/p>\n

On one side is a vision rooted in\u00a0Catholic social teaching<\/a>: universal dignity, solidarity with migrants, and strict moral limits on the use of force. In his Easter address, Pope Leo delivered comments seen as veiled criticism of U.S. foreign policy. The pope warned against what he called the \u201cidolatry of profit,\u201d which he said \u201cplunders the earth\u2019s resources,\u201d and which is at the root of the \u201cviolence of war that kills and destroys.\u201d<\/p>\n

When \u201cpower politics and economic interests take precedence over international law and human rights,\u201d the French paper\u00a0Le Monde<\/em><\/a>\u00a0noted, conflict becomes a persistent, structural issue rather than an anomaly.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The Financial Times<\/em><\/a>\u00a0cautioned that the kind of Christian nationalism fueling parts of Trump\u2019s MAGA base \u201ccombines religion and authority in a way that threatens plurality.\u201d<\/p>\n

That interpretation, which seeks to bind Christianity to a conservative, nationalist political identity, was laid bare in remarks during a recent White House event by Trump\u2019s spiritual advisor, Paula White-Cain, who likened the president to Jesus Christ. This past weekend Trump also\u00a0posted an image<\/a>\u00a0to his social media platform depicting himself as a Christ-like figure.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s moral framework<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For the influential Jesuit publication\u00a0America Magazine<\/em><\/a>, the debate over which interpretation of Christianity prevails revolves around the question of whether Catholics will \u201caccommodate\u2026 authoritarian power.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no shortage of historical examples of the Church\u2019s past support for authoritarian rulers, from Spain\u2019s Franco to the military regime that ruled Argentina from the late \u201870s to early \u201880s. Leo\u2019s predecessor, Pope Francis, faced questions over his own ties to Argentina\u2019s dictatorial government.<\/p>\n

But in recent years the Church has emerged as a leading voice championing the rights of immigrants, for example, and the importance of participatory democracy.<\/p>\n

Church officials in the US have increasingly voiced criticism of Trump\u2019s immigration enforcement tactics, including comments from Cardinal Joseph Tobin, Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, who called Immigration and Customs Enforcement a \u201clawless organization<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the November midterms approaching, there is a growing sense across much of Europe that the elections are more than a referendum on Trump. For many, they represent a\u00a0test of America\u2019s moral framework<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And with the Vatican now entangled in a war of words with the president, the question of the Church\u2019s role in shaping US voters\u2019 decisions takes on added importance.<\/p>\n

Catholics make up around 25% of the U.S. electorate and are evenly split among Republicans and Democrats, making them a decisive swing vote. Forty percent of immigrants in the US \u2014 a constituent that helped secure Trump\u2019s 2024 election win \u2014\u00a0also identify as Catholic.<\/p>\n

Catholics have been a key voting bloc for Trump, but\u00a0polling from March<\/a>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0before Trump\u2019s latest clash with Leo \u2014\u00a0finds his support shrinking, with 48% approval compared to 52% who disapprove of his performance in his second term. Those numbers are a reversal from an earlier poll that found 52% of US Catholic voters approving of the president and 48% disapproval.<\/p>\n

But for the Vatican, the stakes extend well beyond U.S. politics or the electoral contest itself. At issue is Christianity\u2019s role in public life and whether it remains a universal moral framework or a vehicle for consolidated state power and perpetual conflict.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ByPaolo Pontoniere Apr 13, 2026 Images...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80033"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80034,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80033\/revisions\/80034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}