Abaca Press/AP
Following an extraordinary attack against Pope Leo XIV that featured President Trump insulting the Catholic leader as “weak on crime” and “terrible,” Leo told reporters on Monday that he was not afraid of the Trump administration.
“I 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,” Leo said en route to Algeria for a papal visit to Africa.
“We are not politicians,” he continued. “We don’t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective he might understand it. But I do believe in the message of the Gospel, as a peacemaker.”
When asked about the Truth Social attack, Leo said, “It’s ironic, the name of the site itself. Say no more.”
Leo’s defiant message came after Trump issued a lengthy, ego-driven rant against the pope on Sunday, claiming that Leo would not have been elected had it not been for Trump’s presidency. “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican,” he wrote.
Elsewhere in the post, Trump complained: “I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE.”
The president then posted a bizarre image that appeared to portray him as a Jesus-like figure healing the sick while surrounded by patriotic imagery. The image prompted rare disapproval among some of MAGA’s most faithful, including the anti-trans activist Riley Gaines, who wrote on social media: “Seriously, I cannot understand why he’d post this. Is he looking for a response? Does he actually think this?”
Though Leo has generally avoided mentioning Trump by name, the pope has been increasingly vocal in his criticism of Trump’s war in Iran, telling reporters as recently as last week that the president’s threat to destroy “a whole civilization” was “truly unacceptable.”
In a late March sermon widely viewed as a rebuke of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s framing of the war as divinely sanctioned, Leo condemned leaders who have “hands full of blood.”
