Imagine that Martin Luther had scrawled his 95 Theses on the back of a Denny’s menu and nailed it to the doors of the nearest church and you get the picture of Donald Trump’s polemic against Pope Leo XIV.
The faithful should be careful not to overreact to the President’s provocation, which is objectively hilarious
The President’s TruthSocial rant against the Holy Father is highly offensive, of course. Show some respect for the Vicar of Christ. That’s not to mention the follow-up post in which he shared an AI-generated image of himself mocked up as Jesus Christ healing the sick. Given the condition of his second term in office, Trump might focus on trying to raise the dead.
Although a man of peace, the Pope has several options for retaliation. He could deploy a battalion of nuns from the Sisters of the Splintered Ruler to give the presidential knuckles what-for. Or he could send in the Jesuits, the Navy Seals of Catholicism, for a spot of psychological torture. An hour of having every question answered with another question and he’ll crack. Then there’s the nuclear option: tell the tradcaths that Trump prefers the Novus Ordo to the Latin Mass. The Secret Service will still be clearing altar rails from the White House lawn come inauguration day 2029.
The faithful should be careful not to overreact to the President’s provocation, which is objectively hilarious. However wounded we feel by an insult to the Pope, we should remember that our faith is girded by absolute truth and our willingness to suffer for it. If Jesus could die on the cross for us, we can laugh off the jibes of a carnival barker in the Oval Office.
Like how he claims “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime,” as though the apostolic successor of Peter were a Democrat in a tight congressional race. Soft on crime? I could see that hurting him in the Vatican midterms. “I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn’t!” Is he trying to make the actual, literal Pope jealous? There’s something about becoming Christ’s representative on Earth that tends to resolve any sibling rivalry.
Trump tries to blame the Pope for everything from Venezuela to the Iranian nuclear program. Unless the Ayatollah was secretly attending Mass and praying novenas for the destruction of Israel, you can’t pin Iran’s nuclear ambitions on us.
Trump repeatedly gripes “I don’t want a Pope who…” as though it’s anything to do with him. He’s not a Catholic, I don’t think. (If he is, boy does he have a lot of Hail Marys in his future.) This isn’t The Apprentice. He doesn’t get to set a weekly task for the College of Cardinals then fire them one by one. Naturally the kind of Pope he prefers is the kind that keeps schtum: “I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States.” The Holy Father really should choose his words more carefully, like: “Blessed are the war-mongers, for they shall be called the children of Lockheed Martin.”
The President boasts that he won “IN A LANDSLIDE” (he didn’t) and declares: “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.” The Almighty works in mysterious ways but not that mysterious.
The best response to Trump is to pray for him. God, may the veil of ignorance be lifted from his heart; may he repent and come to revere the Holy Father; may he stop Randomly capitalizing WORDS and Thus making Already unhinged Posts Needlessly more ANXIOUS.
Through Christ our Lord, Amen.
