<\/p>\n
By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Monday, April 13, 2026<\/span>Pope Leo XIV shakes the hands and greets people of the press after an audience with thousands of journalists and media workers on May 12, 2025, at Paul VI Hall in Vatican City, Vatican. The audience with journalists has become a tradition among newly elected popes. <\/span> | Christopher Furlong\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n Pope Leo XIV has responded to President Donald Trump, who targeted him in a social media post for opposing the Iran War.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump described the pontiff as \u201cWEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.\u201d According to Trump, \u201cHe talks about \u2018fear\u2019 of the Trump administration, but doesn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn\u2019t!\u201d Trump added. The president\u2019s comments referred to the American-born pope\u2019s brother, Louis Prevost, an outspoken supporter of the president who has criticized Democrats on social media and who visited the White House last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s comments did not go unnoticed by the pontiff. Speaking to NBC News on a flight to Algeria Monday, Leo addressed Trump\u2019s criticism directly: \u201cI have no fear of either the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel. And that\u2019s what I believe I am called to do and what the Church is called to do. We\u2019re not politicians. We\u2019re not looking to make foreign policy, as he calls it, with the same perspective that he might understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI do believe that the message of the Gospel, blessed are the peacemakers, is a message that the world needs to hear today,\u201d he proclaimed. In additional remarks aboard the papal plane, Leo told reporters, \u201cI do not look at my role as being political. I don\u2019t want to get into a debate with him.\u201d<\/p>\n After expressing admiration for Prevost, Trump resumed his criticisms of the pontiff: \u201cI don\u2019t want a Pope who thinks it\u2019s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don\u2019t want a Pope who thinks it\u2019s 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. And I don\u2019t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I\u2019m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLeo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn\u2019t 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\u2019t in the White House, Leo wouldn\u2019t be in the Vatican,\u201d Trump insisted. \u201cUnfortunately, Leo\u2019s Weak on Crime, Weak on Nuclear Weapons, does not sit well with me, nor does the fact that he meets with Obama Sympathizers like David Axelrod, a LOSER from the Left.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Trump concluded his post by calling on Leo to \u201cget his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.\u201d He maintained that \u201cIt\u2019s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it\u2019s hurting the Catholic Church!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The president doubled down on his criticism of the pontiff when delivering remarks to reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Sunday. \u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s doing a very good job,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI\u2019m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He\u2019s a very liberal person, and he\u2019s a man that doesn\u2019t believe in stopping crime.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n During his remarks to the press on the papal plane, Leo also seemingly took issue with Trump\u2019s insistence that God was blessing the war efforts in Iran: \u201cI don\u2019t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among the states, to look for just solutions of the problems,\u201d he continued. \u201cToo 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 \u2018there\u2019s a better way to do this.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s criticism of the pontiff comes after Leo disagreed with comments the president made at a press conference last week, where he said \u201cI do\u201d in response to a reporter\u2019s question asking if he thought God supported the U.S. military actions in Iran.<\/p>\n The president shared his belief that \u201cGod is good and God wants to see people taken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGod doesn\u2019t like what\u2019s happening,\u201d Trump added in response to the deal toll. \u201cI don\u2019t like what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n In a post on X Friday, Leo wrote:\u00a0\u201cGod does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs. Military action will not create space for freedom or times of#Peace, which comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ‘If I wasn\u2019t in the White House, Leo wouldn\u2019t be in the Vatican’ By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Monday, April 13, 2026Pope Leo XIV shakes the hands and greets people of the press after an audience with thousands of journalists and media workers on May 12, 2025, at Paul VI Hall in Vatican City,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[6513,6634,3825,141,109,174,777],"class_list":{"0":"post-26720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-christian-living","8":"tag-blasts","9":"tag-criticism","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-leo","12":"tag-pope","13":"tag-trump","14":"tag-weak"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}