A war of words erupted Monday between the world’s two most influential Americans, President Trump and Pope Leo XIV, over the war in Iran, in a feud that could upend Mr. Trump’s support among the Christian right.
Mr. Trump issued a scathing social media post late Monday, lambasting the pope as “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy.”
The president then took credit for Pope Leo’s ascension to the papacy. He said the Catholic Church selected an American because it thought that would be the best way to deal with him. Born in Chicago as Robert Francis Prevost, Pope Leo is the first U.S.-born pontiff.
Mr. Trump then posted on Truth Social an image appearing to depict himself as Jesus healing a sick man. He deleted the post hours after a backlash erupted among some of his Christian supporters and later told the press he thought the image showed him as a doctor.
Pope Leo said his message is rooted in the Gospel and he will continue to speak out against the war in Iran. He said he doesn’t fear the Trump administration.
Popes and presidents have had policy disputes in the past. Pope John Paul II disagreed with President Clinton’s abortion policy, and Pope Francis spoke out against Mr. Trump’s immigration policy during his first term.
Such pointed and public disagreement between a pope and a U.S. president is unprecedented, said Douglas Kirner, who teaches American politics at Cornell University.
“Past presidents have had their disagreements with popes on different issues; they don’t always see eye-to-eye, but to have it play out in a very public way on social media with the direct personal attacks. I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this before,” he said.
The back-and-forth was the culmination of a feud that had been simmering since the Iran war began two months ago. Mr. Kirner speculated that Mr. Trump is taking criticism over the Iran war unusually personally, especially from a figure as prominent as the pope, in part because he campaigned as a noninterventionist.
‘Deeply offensive’
Mr. Trump’s comments were quickly condemned by religious groups and some supporters, who say he crossed a line by disrespecting the head of the world’s largest Christian denomination.
Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, said Mr. Trump’s comments show a “lack of respect for the faith of millions” and called the AI Jesus image “deeply offensive.”
Ashley McGuire, a senior fellow at The Catholic Association, urged Mr. Trump to apologize to Pope Leo.
“The Catholic Church does not in any way fit into American political boxes,” she said. “Insulting the pope and all Catholics by extension, with the hope of making the church bend to American political agendas, is discouraging and counterproductive. Love and respect for the pope is part and parcel of being Catholic.”
Ms. McGuire said Mr. Trump’s remarks “greatly distract” from the progress she said he has made on religious liberty and the number of Catholic appointments he has made.
In a Monday evening interview on Fox News, Vice President J.D. Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, downplayed the disagreement with Pope Leo, saying it “isn’t particularly newsworthy.”
He said that though the U.S. “can respect the pope,” Vatican and American national interests don’t always align and that the U.S. government should cater to the latter.
“In some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, what’s going on in the Catholic Church, and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,” he said. “But when they are in conflict, they are in conflict. I don’t worry about it too much.”
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Standing among Catholics
For Mr. Trump, who was baptized Presbyterian but said in 2020 that he is a nondenominational Christian, the feud creates political risks. He could run afoul of alienating America’s 70 million Catholics ahead of what is expected to be bruising midterm elections in November.
Mr. Trump won 56% of the Catholic vote in 2024, while Kamala Harris won 43%. It was a big gain for Mr. Trump, who split the Catholic vote evenly with Joseph R. Biden in 2020, only the nation’s second Catholic president.
A poll taken last week, even before his blistering attack on the pope and posting the AI image, revealed that Mr. Trump’s support among Catholics is slipping.
The poll, conducted March 20-23 by Republican pollster Shaw & Co Research and Democratic pollster Beacon Research, found that 48% of Catholics approve of Mr. Trump’s job performance, while 52% disapprove.
It revealed that 23% of Catholics strongly approve of the job Mr. Trump is doing, while 40% do not.
An NBC News poll released Monday found that Americans view Pope Leo more favorably than Mr. Trump. About 42% of respondents said they view the pontiff as “very positive” or “somewhat positive,” while 8% viewed him as “somewhat negative” or “very negative.”
About 41% of respondents said they view Mr. Trump “very positive” or “somewhat positive,” but 53% viewed him “somewhat negative” or “very negative.”
Pope Leo’s positivity rating ranks him between his two most recent predecessors, Pope Francis, who peaked at 57% in December 2013 and Pope Benedict XVI, who had a 30% positive rating in February 2013.
Mr. Kirner said he expects some of the religious supporters who have criticized Mr. Trump over his posts to return to the fold, but he warned that some could sit out the midterm elections, especially since the president isn’t on the ballot.
“If I were the administration, I’d worry less about this costing me a voter that’s going to switch parties than I would about a person saying they aren’t as invested as they were two years ago and sit out,” he said.
Neither man backs down
Despite the backlash, Mr. Trump made it clear Monday that he was not backing down or apologizing.
“No, I don’t,” Mr. Trump said when asked if he owed the pope an apology. “Pope Leo said things that are wrong. He was very much against what I’m doing with regard to Iran, and you cannot have a nuclear Iran.”
Pope Leo has been critical of the war in Iran. During a prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday, the same day the U.S. and Iran began negotiations, Pope Leo delivered a message condemning politicians who boast of military superiority and who justify the war in religious terms.
Although the pope did not mention Mr. Trump or the U.S. by name, it was clear whom he was referring to.
During his Palm Sunday sermon, the pope said God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”
On Sunday, Mr. Trump appeared to have had enough and lashed out at the pope on Truth Social.
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a country that was sending massive amounts of drugs into the United States and even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers and killers into our country,” Mr. Trump wrote.
“And I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, in a landslide, to do, setting record low numbers in crime and creating the greatest stock market in history,” Mr. Trump continued.
He accused the pontiff of catering to the “radical left” and said “it’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church.”
Pope Leo fired back Monday, saying he isn’t afraid of Mr. Trump and vowed to keep raising his voice against the Iran war. It is extremely unusual for a pope to respond so publicly and swiftly to a foreign leader. A maxim commonly cited about the church is that it thinks in centuries.
“I have no fear of the Trump administration, or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the church is here to do,” the pope told reporters on board his plane to Algiers.
“I don’t want to get into a debate with him,” Pope Leo said of Mr. Trump. “I don’t think the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing.”
‘Posting a joke’
Mr. Trump did not stop with blasting the pope on social media. He immediately followed that with an image that appeared to depict himself as Jesus.
The president said the image actually depicted him as a doctor healing a sick person. Speaking with reporters at the White House, Mr. Trump said he posted the image himself but thought it showed him as a physician.
“I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with the Red Cross, as a Red Cross worker,” Mr. Trump said.
This AI-generated image, posted and later deleted by Mr. Trump on Truth Social, shows him in a white robe typical of images of Jesus, healing a sick man with his hand while surrounded by several adoring followers, eagles, soldiers and the American flag.
It included Mr. Trump holding an orb glowing with light in one hand.
The post drew swift condemnation from conservatives who called it “blasphemy.”
“It’s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better,” Mr. Trump said.
The image drew swift outrage from conservatives, including former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican and Trump ally turned foe.
“It’s more than blasphemy,” Ms. Greene, who resigned from Congress in January, wrote on X. “It’s an Antichrist spirit.”
Megan Basham, a prominent conservative Protestant writer and commentator, also blasted the post.
“I don’t know if the president thought he was being funny or if he is under the influence of some substance or what possible explanation he could have for this OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy,” she wrote on X. “But this needs to be taken down immediately and ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God.”
Another X user wrote, “If you call yourself a Christian and you’re not outraged by this, you really need to re-evaluate your faith.”
Riley Gaines, a conservative podcaster who has spoken at Trump rallies, also criticized the post.
“I cannot understand why he’d post this. Is he looking for a response? Does he actually think this? Either way, two things are true,” Ms. Gaines wrote on X, adding that “a little humility would serve him well” and “God shall not be mocked.”
Referring to those complaints, Mr. Trump said, “Only the fake news could come up with that one. I just heard about it, and I said, ‘How did they come up with that?’”
In his Fox News interview Monday evening, Mr. Vance said the Jesus image was Mr. Trump “posting a joke” in his usual “not filtered” public style.
He noted that the president “took it down because he recognized people weren’t understanding his humor in that case.”
