Trump Picks a Fight with the Pope

As if cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump didn't have enough problems already, he has now gotten himself embroiled in a conflict with the Pope. As I wrote last week, the Trump administration, especially Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, has imbued the government with religion. When Hegseth offered a prayer for God to deliver "overwhelming violence" against enemies of the United States, the Pope took umbrage. Trump then responded to the Pope, and the controversy eventually sucked in Vice President and reply guy JD Vance. The Pope does not appear to be backing down, so this fight may not be going away anytime soon.

Hegseth has been the most aggressive administration official when it comes to crossing the divide between church and state. He has ordered regular prayer meetings at the Pentagon and has routinely engaged in religious rhetoric during his public speaking. Last month, Hegseth hosted a Christian worship service at the Pentagon and prayed to have "every round find its mark" and for "overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy."

Hegseth's prayers for violence apparently caught the attention of Pope Leo XIV, who used his Palm Sunday homily to rebuke Hegseth, saying:

Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: 'Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood'.

Last week, after reports that the Pope had met with David Axelrod, a former advisor to President Barack Obama, Trump apparently could no longer contain himself. He took to Truth Social to post a remarkable diatribe about Leo XIV, beginning with "Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy." Trump criticized the Pope in very personal terms, saying "Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn’t on any list to be Pope". Trump went on to write, "Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician."

The next day, the Pope responded to Trump by saying:

I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the Church is here to do. We are not politicians. We don’t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective he might understand it, but I do believe in the message of the Gospel, as a peacemaker.

The Pope received widespread support, not the least of which was from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Meloni has long been a Trump ally, a diminishing group with the defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary. in the wake of Trump's criticism of Leo XIV, Meloni responded by saying, "I find President Trump’s remarks about the Holy Father unacceptable." Trump quickly attacked her as "unacceptable."

Then Vance got involved. Vance is a fairly recent convert to Catholicism, only becoming Catholic in 2019 at the age of 35. Yet, he has no hesitation in telling the Pope how to do his job. "Stick to matters of, you know, what’s going on in the Catholic Church," Vance told the Pope. Vance also suggested that "it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality." Many would suggest that war is a matter of morality.

But Vance wasn't done there. Having taken it upon himself to instruct the Pope as to which duties he should undertake, Vance chose to go further and actually attempt to explain Catholic doctrine to the Pope. Speaking at a Turning Point USA event, Vance said:

When the Pope says that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword, there is a thousand-year, more than a thousand-year tradition, of just war theory, okay...If you are going to opine on matters of theology, you've gotta be careful, you've gotta make sure it's anchored in the truth and that's one of the things that I try to do and it's certainly something that I would expect from the clergy whether they are Catholic or Protestant.

Vance has a penchant for stepping on rakes, but I am not sure that he could have found a worse topic on which to challenge Leo XIV than just war theory. One of the major contributors to the development of just war theory was Augustine of Hippo, or St. Augustine as he is commonly known. As Abby Roberts wrote on BlueSky:

Trying to explain St Augustine to the pope, the former head of the Augustinian order, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Augustine, on his way back from celebrating mass at the Basilica of St Augustine in Annaba, Algeria, overlooking the site where Augustine lived is peak Adult Catholic Convert.

Admittedly, I didn't know most of this about Pope Leo XIV, but I confirmed that it is true. What Vance did was essentially try to explain dunking a basketball to Dr. J. Needless to say, he got some pushback. Bishop James Massa, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Doctrine issued a statement that said, in part:

A constant tenet of [just war theory] is that a nation can only legitimately take up the sword 'in self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed' (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2308). That is, to be a just war it must be a defense against another who actively wages war, which is what the Holy Father actually said: 'He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.'

Speaking in the African country of Cameroon, the Pope offered his own response, saying:

Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth...They turn a blind eye to the fact that billions of dollars are spent on killing and devastation, yet the resources needed for healing, education, and restoration are nowhere to be found. The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters.

Trump has routinely used his power over government to award friends and punish enemies. In what appeared to be another example of this behavior, funding for a Catholic charity was suddenly stopped. As the Miami Herald reports:

The Trump administration has abruptly canceled an $11 million contract with Catholic Charities to shelter and care for migrant children who enter the U.S. alone, ending a relationship between the Catholic Church and the U.S. government dating back to the first arrivals of Cuban exiles in South Florida.

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami responded by saying:

Our track record in serving this vulnerable population is unmatched. Yet, the Archdiocese of Miami’s Catholic Charities’ services for unaccompanied minors have been stripped of funding and will be forced to shut down within three months.

Getting back to Hegseth, he has continued his practice of speaking at Pentagon prayer services, but somehow ended up quoting a scene of the movie Pulp Fiction. Hegseth offered a prayer that he attributed to the lead mission planner of the recent operation to rescue a downed aviator in Iran. The prayer, according to Hegseth, was:

The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherds the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother. And you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee, and amen.

Hegseth said that the prayer referred to Ezekiel 25:17. However, as noted by the "A Public Witness" blog, the prayer actually closely matched lines delivered by Samuel L. Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction:

There’s this passage I’ve got memorized, sort of fits this occasion: Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee!

As for Ezekiel 25:17, it is only one sentence long and simply says, "And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them."

So, there you have it. Hegseth is speaking the word of God as written by Quentin Tarantino. Vance is literally trying to be more Catholic than the Pope, and Trump has been posting memes of himself appearing as Jesus. These are the folks responsible for America's Jihad against Iran. Personally, I am not thrilled that our country is being led by religious fanatics, but if we have to have religious fanatics leading us, couldn't they at least be competent?