In the contest for the dumbest tweet President Donald Trump has ever made, the recent one attacking Pope Leo XIV has to be the dumbest and most self-destructive. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court, a group of Democratic senators walked into his office and bluntly said that they were done. That was the high tide of the New Deal. After that, FDR lost his ability to snap his fingers to get his policies through.
The attack tweet on Leo XIV may well be the high tide of the Trump presidency. It is the point when the Catholic vote, which is the swing vote in every election, says to Trump, “Enough, we’re done.” If ever Trump wanted to create a worldwide Catholic-Muslim alliance against the United States, he has done a crack-up job over the last 40 days. Between killing Shia Muslim clerics and attacking the head of the Catholic church, he potentially went after the faith of 260 million Muslims and 1.5 billion Catholics around the globe.
In attacking the pope, Trump has joined the company of Napoleon Bonaparte, who imprisoned the pope, Otto Von Bismarck and his Kulturkampf against Catholics, French King Philip the Fair, who imprisoned the pope, and Joseph Stalin, and his infamous quip, “How many divisions does the pope have?”
And what Catholic school child wasn’t taught of the famous “road to Canossa.” In 1076, Gregory VII excommunicated Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and declared him deposed, releasing Christians from their oaths of loyalty to him. In 1077, the emperor stood for days barefoot in the snow outside Canossa Castle seeking absolution from Gregory. He needed Catholics to pay their taxes, just as today, Trump needs Catholics to fight his war. If they walk, what does he have? One young man has told me he was going into police work rather than the military over the challenges this war places on a Catholic conscience.
One can only imagine history if Napoleon had a Twitter account. His message to the pope back then was clear: “God placed me on the throne, and you reptiles of the earth dare oppose me. I owe no account of my administration to the pope, only to God and Jesus Christ.” Does pride precede a fall? Waterloo anyone?
There is an old saying about political leaders who attack the pope, which Napoleon may or may not have said: “He who bites the pope dies.” I don’t know who Trump’s advisors on the Vatican are, but there was no question from day one that the Vatican would oppose the war for some of the same reasons it opposed the war in Iraq. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2309‑2317) gives ample evidence for this. The church has little use for undeclared wars and views sneak attacks with a jaundiced eye.
At that time of the Gulf War, Saint Pope John Paul II said, “War is never just another means that one can choose to employ for settling differences between nations. As the Charter of the United Nations Organization and international law itself remind us, war cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions, without ignoring the consequences for the civilian population both during and after the military operations.”
As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, said as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the former Inquisition), “the concept of a ‘preventive war’ does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”
So what can we make of the old French saying, “Qui mange du Pape en meurt“? Any pope doing his job, like Christ, will always be a thorn in the side of rulers. Rulers, if they are wise, should take note. They may want a peace prize, but they risk getting the Pontius Pilate Silver Bowl award instead.
Related: Bad News, Rachel. You Can’t Be Catholic And Live in Rebellion to God and the Church.
The president’s words were intemperate, and even those who voted for him and generally support his policies are taking note. Emperors, kings, presidents, and prime ministers come and go. But Catholics believe there will be a pope until Christ returns, because the Catholic Church will exist until she is assumed into the eternal kingdom.
As for Napoleon, after his fall from grace, he repented and returned to the church. “I was born in the Catholic religion. I wish to fulfill the duties it imposes and receive the succor it administers…” He said it would rest his soul to hear Mass again. In his will, he wrote: “I die in the Apostolic and Roman religion, in the bosom of which I was born.” Political blunders aside, whether you are Napoleon or Donald Trump, it is never too late to backtrack on your mistakes.
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