By P.K.Balachandran/Daily Mirror

Colombo, April 21 – People wonder what effect US President Donald Trump’s brazen utterances against Pope Leo XIV would have had on American Catholics. At the very least, the spat put US Catholics in a quandary, having to choose between the Pope, the global leader of their faith, and the US President, a proximate political leader vested with raw power.

According to reports, shock and resentment are palpable, with some openly expressing resentment. Others are praying for better sense among those wielding political power, and yet others say that in the past, too, the Pope and political authorities had clashed on secular matters, and the issue will eventually be brushed under the carpet.

What did the Pope say?

Pope Leo XIV has been consistently critical of war. He has pointedly criticised US attacks on Iran, though he himself is an American. On Palm Sunday, he condemned the use of religion to justify violence. “God does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war”, he said at Mass in St Peter’s Square.

On another occasion, he said, “Blessed are the peacemakers and 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.”

“God does not bless any conflict; to cry out to the world that whoever is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, never stands on the side of those who yesterday wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”

To drive the message home, the Vatican posted the quote on Leo’s official @Pontifex handle on X. “Absurd and inhuman violence is spreading ferociously through the sacred places of the Christian East, profaned by the blasphemy of war and the brutality of business, with no regard for people’s lives, which are considered at most collateral damage of self-interest. But no gain can be worth the life of the weakest, children, or families. No cause can justify the shedding of innocent blood.”

Earlier, he had criticised Trump’s heartless treatment of refugees in the US. In February, American Archbishops issued a forceful statement opposing the Administration’s refugee and immigration policy. A trio of Catholic cardinals criticised the conflict on CBS’s 60 Minutes last week.

Trump’s lieutenants have framed the Iran war as a holy war at times, despite a chorus of theologians arguing that the war fails tests of moral justice under Christian religious doctrine.

Trump’s Retort

In a sharp retort to the Pope’s Palm Sunday homily, Trump said that the Pontiff was “weak on crime”. In his April 12 Truth Social post, Trump called the Pope “terrible for Foreign Policy,” adding that “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 Pope responded by saying he had “no fear of the Trump administration” and would continue to preach the Catholic Gospel.

Trump’s Lieutenants Slam Pope

Vice-President J.D. Vance, a recent Catholic convert, told the Pope on Tuesday to be “careful” when discussing theology. “I 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’s going on with the Catholic church, and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,” Vance said.

Mike Johnson, the House Speaker, suggested that the Pontiff did not understand the concept of a “just war”, despite being a scholar of Saint Augustine, the fourth-century theologian who first articulated the idea in Christian theology.

Public Reactions to the Spat

Reactions to the Trump-Pope spat have been varied, but most appear confused.

“The Guardian” quotes one Taylor Marshall, an outspoken Catholic conservative with a considerable YouTube following, as saying, “If you’re an American, you don’t want to see your President having a feud with the pope. And if you’re Catholic, it’s kind of hard. If you voted for Trump three times and you want to be a Catholic and you want to be faithful and submit to the Holy Father, the bishop of Rome, the pope, the vicar of Christ, it’s kind of a tough situation to see the leader of your nation feuding with the leader on Earth of the Catholic church.”

“The Pope is incharge of 1.4 billion – not million, billion – people, and he has the nerve to interject his moral authority into the activity of President Trump? It’s a philosophical conundrum that President Trump was never prepared for, and I think he’s still trying to figure out how to navigate it.”

There is a person in Georgia who prays every day that God will remove the hard heart of Trump and replace it with a softer one that has love.

The dismay extended into an even more solid base of Trump support — conservative Christian evangelicals. Many were appalled that Trump followed his Truth Social attack on Leo by posting an image depicting himself as a Christ-like saviour.

“TAKE THIS DOWN, MR. PRESIDENT,” posted David Brody, a prominent Trump-supporting commentator with the Christian Broadcasting Network. “You’re not God. None of us is. This goes too far. It crosses the line.” The image was taken down from Truth Social.

Speaking at the White House, the President claimed that he never intended to liken himself to Jesus when he posted the picture. The picture was only meant to portray himself as a healer, he said.

But reactions from Trump supporters, including Catholics, have often been to criticise the Pope for failing to treat Islamist terrorism and the repression of dissent within Iran with the same moral condemnation as that of American militarism.

Catholic Constituency

About 53 million Americans are Catholic, forming the largest Christian denomination in the US. But Catholic voters have split their vote between the parties over the years, relative to other American Christians.

Trump won 52% of the Catholic vote in 2016 and 55% in 2024, a 12-point margin over Kamala Harris. White Catholics have steadily aligned themselves more frequently with Republicans over the last decade.

Past Conflicts with the Pope

It is pointed out that the Papacy has clashed with the American Establishment before. Pope Francis had made the treatment of immigrants and refugees central to church teachings and yet 50% of Catholics chose to vote for Trump.

Kathleen Sprows Cummings, a professor of American Studies and History at Notre Dame told AP, “Emperors, monarchs, and despots have long threatened Popes in an effort to force them to bend to their will,” she said.

“For most of this country’s history, Americans viewed the Pope as a war-mongering, money-grubbing, anti-democratic menace who had designs on the White House,” she added. “Today, the menace is in the White House, and the Pope is the one defending the ideals of liberty and human dignity.”

It is believed that as in the past the recent spat between the American Establishment and the Pope would fade or brushed under the carpet as both sides pursue their goals in the best way they can, given the realities.

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