By midday Monday, the episode that has drawn rare dismay among U.S. Catholics was no longer just a dispute between the White House and the Vatican—it had spread across Catholic leadership, Catholic political allies, and parts of the conservative evangelical base that helped keep Trump in power.
The tension centers on Trump’s broad verbal assault on Pope Leo XIV, described as unprecedented by experts and church historians, and on the pope’s public criticism of the United States’ role in the Iran war. The clash follows Leo’s appeals for peace and critique of attitudes fueling the war, with Leo saying he was delivering a Gospel message rather than directly attacking Trump or anyone else.
Among Catholic leaders, Archbishop Paul Coakley—head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops—criticized Trump, and Minnesota-based Bishop Robert Barron condemned the president’s remarks as “entirely inappropriate and disrespectful,” urging Trump to apologize. Barron’s rebuke landed after his earlier role as an Easter guest at the White House, a detail that heightened the sense of dismay even for Catholics who generally supported Trump.
The disapproval also reached conservative-leaning Catholic and evangelical figures who back Trump politically. David Brody, a prominent Trump-supporting commentator with the Christian Broadcasting Network, posted “TAKE THIS DOWN, MR. PRESIDENT,” writing that “You’re not God. None of us are. This goes too far. It crosses the line.” Brody’s post prompted attention to a separate Truth Social attack in which Trump posted an image depicting himself in Christ-like “savior” terms.
The Truth Social image was taken down by midday Monday, and Trump said during a White House appearance that he never intended to liken himself to Jesus when he shared the picture. “How did they come up with that?” he asked, adding, “It’s supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.”
On the pope itself, Trump took a defiant line, saying, “There’s nothing to apologize for. He’s wrong.” The dispute, which comes about six months before voting begins in this fall’s midterm elections, tests Trump’s relationship with religious constituencies that have been described as loyal to him, even as dissension grows within his MAGA base over the war with Iran.
Some Trump allies framed the conflict as something that would fade. Ralph Reed, who sits on the president’s faith advisory board, told The Associated Press that there is “a deep reservoir of appreciation for the president and his faith-based policies that transcends and eclipses any disagreement over a social media post.”
Scholars said the scale of the public exchange between a U.S. president and a pope stood out even historically. David Campbell, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame, said via email that the pope-versus-president confrontation is “unprecedented criticism of a Pope from a US president.” Campbell also said it was an open question whether it would change Catholic attitudes toward Trump, adding that attitudes are largely driven by party preference, which is “hard to move.” David Gibson, director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture, suggested the moment could become a turning point only if it shifted Catholic dynamics “in a marked way,” warning that otherwise it could become “a watershed moment … with American Catholics choosing a Catholic-baiting president over their own pope.”
For Pope Leo XIV, the dispute appears grounded in the pope’s continuing peace messaging tied to the Iran war. In a prayer service Saturday, the pontiff denounced what he called the “delusion of omnipotence” fueling the war, saying “Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!” Without citing Trump or the U.S. specifically, Leo’s remarks then shifted to a more direct reply on Monday, when he said “I have no fear of the Trump administration.”
Vice President JD Vance, who has clashed at times with church leaders over criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, dismissed the social media episode as a joke. Speaking in an interview on Fox News Channel on Monday night, Vance said the president’s Jesus-like post was “a joke,” and he argued the image was removed because “he realized a lot of people weren’t understanding his humor.” Vance also told the network that disagreements with the Vatican happen “from time to time,” and he said the pope-versus-president fight “isn’t particularly newsworthy.”
Vance also suggested where he thinks the Vatican should focus, saying, “I certainly think that in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what’s going on with the Catholic church, and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.”
Catholics Vote Common Good urged Vance to speak out, arguing it was not neutrality for him to stay quiet while the pope faced criticism. “At a moment when the Holy Father is being attacked and the dignity of the Church is being undermined, silence is not neutrality. It is complicity,” said Denise Murphy McGraw, the organization’s national co-chair.
Beyond Catholic leadership, evangelical leaders also issued unusually direct criticism of Trump’s image. Willy Rice, a candidate for president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Calvary Church in Clearwater, Florida, said “It isn’t hard to condemn this outright,” according to his post on X. Doug Wilson, co-founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, wrote on X that he was “very grateful to see how many conservative Christians immediately denounced the blasphemous Jesus/Trump image.” Megan Basham, a conservative evangelical commentator, said she agreed with Trump’s criticisms of Leo as “Weak on crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” but she criticized the meme as “OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy,” urging Trump to “ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God.”
In the context of election politics, the dispute arrives as numbers on religious blocs remain central to Trump’s coalition. In 2024, white evangelical Protestants formed a significant part of Trump’s winning coalition, according to AP VoteCast: about 34% of Trump voters identified as white evangelical or born-again Christians, compared with 8% of Harris voters, and 79% of white evangelicals voted for Trump. An AP-NORC poll in February found about two-thirds of white born-again Protestants approved of how Trump was handling his job as president, while about one-third disapproved.
But the same polling described Catholics as less satisfied, with only about 4 in 10 approving of his handling of the presidency. William Barbieri, a Catholic University ethics professor, said Trump’s remarks seemed aimed more at his political base than at Leo himself, adding that Leo’s response has been calm and measured—an approach Barbieri said created a contrast.
“What Pope Leo’s response does,” Barbieri wrote via email, was oppose “resorts to lethal force” while expressing solidarity with suffering people in many countries, and he contrasted Leo’s pastoral start of a journey to Africa with Trump’s appearance at an Ultimate Fighting Championship event.