Donald Trump believes Pope Leo has ‘probably learned’ a lesson about politics after their latest feud while the President revealed the reason he deleted an image posted on social media that depicted him as Jesus Christ.
Trump told CBS News on Monday that he decided to unload on the American-born Pope after seeing a 60 Minutes segment that showcased the pontiff’s disapproval of the Iran War and Trump’s immigration agenda.
‘He’s wrong on the issues,’ Trump said. ‘I don’t think he should be getting into politics. I think he probably learned that from this.’
Trump gave a blunt ‘no’ when asked if he had any plans to call Pope Leo and said he had ‘no idea’ if the pontiff would visit the United States while Trump is President.
‘It’s up to him, not up to me,’ Trump said.
The President continued to assert that the AI image was meant to be of him as a doctor but said he was taken aback by the anger toward him from seemingly both sides of the aisle.
‘I viewed that as a picture of me being a doctor in fixing — you had the Red Cross right there, you had, you know, medical people surrounding me,’ he said.
‘And I was like the doctor, you know, as a little fun playing the doctor and making people better. So that’s what it was viewed as. That’s what most people thought.’
Trump also said he believed the image was made by ‘a very beautiful, talented artist’ before revealing what led him to delete it.
‘Normally I don’t like doing that, but I didn’t want to have anybody be confused. People were confused.’
The Pope said on Monday that he plans to continue speaking out against war, telling Reuters: ‘I don’t want to get into a debate with him.’
Speaking aboard the papal flight to Algiers, where Leo is starting a 10-day tour to four African countries, he added: ‘I don’t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing.
‘I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialog and multilateral relationships among the states to look for just solutions to problems.
‘Too many people are suffering in the world today. Too many innocent people are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say there’s a better way.’
It comes amid a growing row between Trump and the head of the Catholic Church, who has in recent weeks condemned rhetoric coming out of the White House and called for peace in the Middle East.
In a fiery rant on Truth Social, Trump branded the pontiff ‘WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy’.
He then sparked further controversy after posting an AI-generated image seemingly depicting himself as Jesus Christ, triggering backlash among his usual supporters and Catholics on social media.
It came after the President claimed that Leo, 70, was only made Pope ‘because he was an American’, adding: ‘If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.’
In the AI-generated image posted on Truth Social, Trump appears dressed in red and white robes as he cures a man with his healing hand while the American flag waves in the background.
He had earlier told reporters on Sunday at the Joint Base Andrews in Maryland: ‘I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person, and he’s a man that doesn’t believe in stopping crime.’
Trump also accused the leader of the Catholic Church, which has 1.4billion members, of ‘toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon’.
He lashed out again at the pontiff on Sunday night, writing on Truth Social: ‘I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.’
‘I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States and, even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers, and killers, into our Country,’ Trump said.
The President went deeper on his opposition to Pope Leo and the church’s stance on several issues including COVID lockdowns.
‘He talks about “fear” of the Trump Administration, but doesn’t mention the FEAR that the Catholic Church, and all other Christian Organizations, had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else, for holding Church Services, even when going outside, and being ten and even twenty feet apart,’ Trump wrote.
The President then claimed that Pope Leo ‘criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.’
The outburst followed recent criticism from the Pope over the weekend about the actions of the US military in Iran.
On Saturday he told worshippers at St Peter’s Basilica: ‘Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!’
Last week he criticized the President over his threats against the country, when he warned that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again’.
The Pope called it a ‘truly unacceptable’ statement.
In the lengthy post on Truth Social, Trump said that ‘Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise’.
‘He wasn’t 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’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.’
Trump then condemned the Pope for his meeting with Barack Obama‘s campaign manager, David Axelrod, who the President called an ‘Obama sympathiser’ and ‘a LOSER from the Left, who is one of those who wanted churchgoers and clerics to be arrested’.
He added: ‘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. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!’
Catholics on social media quickly lambasted Trump for attacking the leader of their Church, who they believe is the successor of St. Peter, one of Jesus’ 12 apostles.
‘There is no ambiguity about the situation now,’ Massimo Faggioli, an expert on the papacy, told Reuters.
He compared the comments to efforts by the leaders of Germany and Italy during World War Two to draw the late Pope Pius XII to support their causes.
‘Not even Hitler or Mussolini attacked the pope so directly and publicly,’ said Faggioli.
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was disheartened by Trump’s comments.
‘Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls,’ he said in a statement.
Bishop Robert Barron, who has led the Diocese of Winona–Rochester in Southern Minnesota since 2022, said Trump’s comments about the Pope were ‘entirely inappropriate and disrespectful’ and called on the President to issue an apology.
Iran exploited the chorus of condemnation, with President Masoud Pezeshkian writing on X: ‘His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, I condemn the insult to Your Excellency on behalf of the great nation of Iran, and declare that the desecration of Jesus, the prophet of peace and brotherhood, is not acceptable to any free person.’
‘I wish you glory by Allah,’ he said.
Trump eventually removed the AI image of him appearing to look like Jesus Christ on Monday afternoon.
