{"id":8734,"date":"2026-04-14T17:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T22:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thereligioushistorynerd\/?p=8734"},"modified":"2026-04-14T17:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T22:50:08","slug":"the-president-and-the-pope-an-unprecedented-rift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thereligioushistorynerd\/2026\/04\/the-president-and-the-pope-an-unprecedented-rift\/","title":{"rendered":"The President and the Pope: An Unprecedented Rift"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed open hostility to Pope Leo XIV. Trump was angered by the Pope\u2019s criticism of his bombing of Iran. You can read the complete Truth Social Post here<\/a>. When asked to apologize to Pope Leo, Trump refused. The pontiff\u2019s response was far more measured and subdued. \u201cI 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,\u201d His Holiness said. But has a pope ever felt the need to say he\u2019s not afraid of a U.S. president? Not that I can find.<\/p>\n

Much of the President\u2019s rant against the Pope is nonsensical. It begins \u201cPope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.\u201d\u00a0 Popes are not involved with temporal criminal justice; they don\u2019t deal with \u201ccrime\u201d one way or another. Trump also wrote, \u201cLeo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn\u2019t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn\u2019t in the White House, Leo wouldn\u2019t be in the Vatican.\u201d And then Trump called on Leo to \u201cget his act together.\u201d By all accounts the 2025 Conclave elected the Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost because he seemed most ready to continue the path of the late Pope Francis.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump also was critical of Pope Francis, although this was before he was elected president. While Trump was running to be elected president in 2016, Pope Francis \u2014 head of the Catholic Church from 2013 to 2025 \u2014 criticized Trump\u2019s plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico.\u00a0 \u201cAnyone, whoever he is, who only wants to build walls and not bridges is not a Christian,\u201d the pontiff told journalists<\/a> after a trip to Mexico. Trump called the comment \u201cdisgraceful\u201d He also said Mexico was using the elderly pope \u201cas a pawn.\u201d This rift blew over relatively quickly, however, possibly because Trump was not yet the president.<\/p>\n

Presidents and Popes: A Short History<\/h2>\n

Popes have<\/em> criticized U.S. presidents before. In 2004 Pope John Paul II \u2014 head of the Catholic Church from 1978 to 2005 \u2014 was openly opposed to President George W. Bush\u2019s invasion of Iraq, which began in March 2003. In February 2003 the pontiff even sent a Cardinal with a personal letter to the White House<\/a>, hoping to persuade Bush not to invade. In 2004 he criticized President George W. Bush\u2019s war in Iraq while President Bush was standing beside him<\/em>. The President had visited the 84-year-old Pope in the Vatican while in Italy for a World War II commemoration. After a private meeting, the two men stood together in front of reporters. \u201cWith President Bush at his side, Pope John Paul II on Friday reiterated his unhappiness over the invasion of Iraq and urged the president to speed the restoration of sovereignty to the Iraqi people,\u201d the New York Times<\/em> reported<\/a>. Whatever President Bush might have thought privately, in public he was entirely respectful and deferential to Pope John Paul II. Although the meeting didn\u2019t noticeably change Bush\u2019s policies toward Iraq.<\/p>\n

The very first meeting between an incumbent U.S. president and a pope occurred at the Vatican on January 4, 1919. World War I had ended, and President Woodrow Wilson visited Rome, and Pope Benedict XV, before going on to the peace talks in Versailles. It was a cordial meeting, although the Presbyterian Wilson seemed uncomfortable with receiving a papal blessing according to this account<\/a>. There would not be another such meeting until President Dwight Eisenhower met with Pope John XXIII in 1959.<\/p>\n

Of course the Vatican meeting between President John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic president, and Pope Paul VI in July 1963 seemed especially significant. Pope Paul VI\u2019s papacy had just begun, in June 1963. As the meeting concluded the President did not<\/em> kneel to the Pope<\/a> and kiss the papal ring, as a Catholic would be expected to do, which generated much discussion in media. Kennedy was expecting to run for re-election in 1964 and probably though bowing to the Pope would trigger too much anti-Catholic hysteria. It\u2019s reported that JFK remarked to an aide that shaking the Pope\u2019s hand instead of kneeling might earn him some votes in South Carolina. President Kennedy would be assassinated in November 1963.<\/p>\n

Every president since John Kennedy has met with a pope, although not always in the Vatican. Pope Paul VI visited the United States in 1965 \u2014 the first ever papal visit to the U.S. \u2014 and President Lyndon Johnson met the Pope at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City. Pope John Paul II visited the U.S. in 1979 and was welcomed to the White House by President Jimmy Carter.\u00a0 In 1984 Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan crossed paths at the Fairbanks International Airport in Alaska. The well-traveled Pope John Paul II also met with Bill Clinton in Denver, CO (1993); Newark, NJ (1995); and St. Louis, MO (1999), as well as the Vatican in 1994.<\/p>\n

Presidents and Popes: What\u2019s next?<\/h2>\n

Presidents and popes have not always seen eye-t0-eye on every issue. But it has to be said that no sensible American politician would openly insult the Pope. In recent decades the percentage of the U.S. population that identifies as Catholic has fluctuated between 20 and 24 percent. That\u2019s a lot of voters. This is especially true when polls are showing the Pope is a great deal more popular than the President<\/a>. And any sensible adult ought to be able to respect that a pope has a unique role to play in the world.\u00a0 Yet U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance<\/a>, a Catholic, is now warning Pope Leo XIV to \u201cstay in his lane.\u201d \u201cI certainly think that in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what\u2019s going on with the Catholic church, and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n

I believe Pope Leo XIV considers matters of war and peace and the humane treatment of migrants to be very much in his lane.<\/p>\n

Shortly after posting his Truth Social rant slandering Pope Leo XIV, President Trump posted an AI-generated image<\/a> of himself as Jesus healing the sick. Even many of his own supporters were appalled. This speaks to a lack of judgment in the President that should alarm us.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"
Pope Leo XIV during an audience with the media (May 12, 2025). Source: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 license.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed open hostility to Pope Leo XIV. Trump was angered by the Pope\u2019s criticism of his bombing of Iran. You can read the complete Truth Social Post here. When asked to apologize to Pope Leo, Trump refused. The pontiff\u2019s response was far more measured and subdued. \u201cI have no fear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4714,"featured_media":8767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,229,76],"tags":[312,100,97,154,309],"class_list":["post-8734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianity","category-religion-and-politics","category-religious-violence","tag-catholicism","tag-religion-and-current-events","tag-religion-and-politics","tag-religion-in-u-s-history","tag-the-pope"],"yoast_head":"\nThe President and the Pope: An Unprecedented Rift<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed open hostility to Pope Leo XIV. Trump was angered by the Pope's criticism of his bombing of Iran. 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