Trump and Pope Leo: the American Pope has become one of the few world leaders standing up to the U.S. president
This is the slightly revised English version of an essay first published in the German daily newspaper 'Koelner Stadtanzeiger' on May 11, 2026.
Donald Trump is at odds with Pope Leo XIV. Somehow, the U.S. president manages to pick fights with just about everyone, whether it’s America’s loyal European allies or the head of the Catholic Church with its 1.4 billion followers. Yet Trump had initially welcomed the election of the first American pope in the Catholic Church’s more than 2,000-year history as a “great honor.” But Trump cannot quite accept that the pope, who served for many years as an extremely popular priest in Peru, is first and foremost the head of the Catholic Church and the leader of the small Vatican City State in Rome, Italy.
Leo does not see himself as a representative of the U.S. and has no sympathy whatsoever for Trump’s “America First” nationalism. He has no regard for the ruthless power politics of our time, which increasingly dominates global affairs. Like his predecessors, Leo XIV also sees his primary mission as acting as a mediator and apostle of peace and equality, and not least as the voice of the weak and disadvantaged nations in the world. The outlandish behavior of Trump and his entourage greatly repels him.
The pope, therefore, does not shy away from repeatedly criticizing the brutal crackdown by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on undocumented—and thus illegal—immigrants. Leo is primarily concerned with the ruthless methods employed, which, as in Minneapolis but also elsewhere, have led to the deaths of several people and, through widespread deportations, have already torn thousands of families apart. The pope has asked the catholic bishops in the U.S. to help and support undocumented immigrants in his home country. Leo XIV was born in Chicago in 1955.
The pope also has no sympathy whatsoever for the U.S.-Israeli bombing of Iran. For the Catholic Church, the war on Iran is not a “just war.” Only then would the use of force be justified from a Catholic perspective. When Trump threatened in April to completely “wipe out” Iran’s millennia-old civilization and did not shy away from destroying Iran’s civilian infrastructure, such as power and water plants, the Vatican lost its temper. The pope criticized Trump’s intentions in no uncertain terms and even called on U.S. citizens to contact their members of Congress and demand an end to the bombings. Since then, time and again, Leo XIV has not ceased to sharply reject Trump’s many strange and often contradictory claims and falsehoods.
Trump was surprised by the American pope’s blunt words. After all, only a few countries—primarily China—have dared to put Trump in his place so far. Except on the Greenland issue, the Europeans have almost always backed down, even though some EU countries did not allow the U.S. to use their military bases on European soil for commencing bombing raids on Iran.
Trump responded to the pope in his typically aggressive manner. He claimed that Leo knows nothing about foreign policy and is a weakling when it comes to the necessity of combating international crime. Vice President J.D. Vance, a converted Catholic, admonished the pope to be more cautious in his theological statements. Just a few days ago, the increasingly erratic Trump claimed without providing any evidence whatsoever that the pope’s views would endanger the safety of Catholics around the world and that Leo apparently had no objection to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.
The Iran war and Trump’s spat with the pope are unfolding against the backdrop of the highly important midterm elections in early November 2026. Should the Republicans lose both the House of Representatives and the Senate to the Democrats, nothing would stand in the way of initiating yet another third impeachment proceeding against Trump. But to win the Senate, the Democrats would have to capture four Senate seats currently held by Republican senators. That is certainly within the realm of possibility, but by no means certain.
According to the latest polls, Trump and his administration are becoming increasingly unpopular. Only about 33 percent still approve of his policies. The war with Iran, now in its second month, and especially the ever-rising gas prices and accelerating inflation are increasingly weakening his position. Trump’s aggressive rhetoric in his dispute with the pope is not going over well even with many of his loyal Republican supporters. Not least, the image Trump posted in mid-April on his social media platform Truth Social, depicting himself as Jesus Christ, was criticized as tasteless and blasphemous by nearly all religiously oriented people in the U.S., regardless of their religious affiliation. Trump panicked and claimed the image did not depict him as the Son of God, but as a doctor. However, no one believed him and he soon deleted the picture.
The escalating dispute with the pope has already done a great deal of damage to the Republican party, particularly among the roughly 70 million Catholics in the U.S. In 2024, most Catholic voters—who make up 20 to 25 percent of the total U.S. electorate—still cast their votes for Trump. The remarks regularly made by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth regarding the war against Iran as a war willed by God—which comes dangerously close to the definition of a “holy war”—are meeting with particularly strong resistance. 66 percent of all Americans side with the pope and oppose the war against Iran.
Recently Secretary of State Marco Rubio has traveled to Rome to smooth things over. Rubio, whose parents are from Cuba, is a baptized Catholic, though he was also once a Mormon and a Baptist before returning to Catholicism. But Rubio is certainly more diplomatically skilled and affable than most of Trump’s other cabinet members. During his audience with the pope in the pope’s private library in the Vatican, overlooking St. Peter’s Basilica, the two discussed the situation in the Middle East and the Western Hemisphere, particularly Cuba. The Trump administration’s economic stranglehold on the island and the resulting humanitarian catastrophe in the small communist country are a major concern for the Vatican. The pope likely also addressed Trump’s aggressive rhetoric against himself.
However, the subsequent press release made no mention of whether Rubio had suggested a phone call between Leo and Trump. The pope would most likely not refuse such a request from Trump. And Trump’s Catholic voters would be pleased. It is clearly in Trump’s interest to re-establish cordial relations between his administration and the Vatican.