The dope versus the pope

On many subjects large and small, the level of Trump’s ignorance is deep and unfathomable. Of course, that does not stop him from commenting on things about which he knows nothing. Now he claims to have a searing insight into one of the most secretive activities on the planet: a papal conclave.

Pope Leo XIV has been speaking out against war from the very start of his pontificate last year. And he hasn’t slowed down since Trump and Bibi Netanyahu launched their war against Iran. That war has brought Iranian retaliation that has people in Israel hiding in shelters and people in America counting the war dead and paying billions of dollars, for weapons of war and for higher-priced gasoline.

Unsurprisingly, the Commenter-in-Chief was not pleased about the pope’s remarks. In a typically long, incorrectly uppercased, oddly reasoned post on his social media platform, Trump called Leo “Weak on Crime”—Trump’s uppercasing, not mine—and “Weak on Nuclear Weapons.” No surprise there. Republicans routinely accuse Democrats of being soft on crime and national defense. Too often, Democrats whimper, in effect, “Please don’t accuse us of being soft on crime and national defense.” Then Democrats often back down timidly from the policies that Republicans have fictitiously labeled as soft.

In this case, in addition to using language typical of political campaigns and directing them at the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, Trump went a bizarre step further:

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.

So, now Trump claims to know what went on in the Sistine Chapel last year—in effect, making the election of Pope Leo all about Trump. Having written about popes for Newsday, I have some sense of how papal conclaves work. The first time I had an advance inkling about how a conclave might end was in 2005, after the death of Pope John Paul II. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church’s orthodoxy watchdog, was close to JP II, and he had a lot to do with arranging the funeral rites. So I figured he probably went into the conclave ahead by about 40 votes. Sure enough, he won, taking the name Benedict XVI. When he resigned in 2013, the first pope to resign since 1415, I had no idea who would emerge from the conclave that would elect his successor. But I did offer a suggestion in an essay just before the conclave:

Finally, wouldn’t it be inspiring if the new pope looked at today’s church and realized that it is as much in need of restoration as it was in the time of St. Francis of Assisi, who heard Jesus tell him: “Repair my church.” The new leader of a billion Catholics could even signal a roll-up-the-sleeves attitude by naming himself Pope Francis I. When the Spirit breathes, you never know.

I was stunned and pleased when the new pope, an Argentinian Jesuit named Jorge Mario Bergoglio, chose to call himself Francis. Like most Catholics, though, I’d never have predicted the name of the new pope. The same was true in 2025 when Francis died and Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, an American from Chicago, was elected to succeed him. Prevost chose the name Leo XIV, an obvious homage to Pope Leo XIII, whose 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum, affirmed the rights of workers and the duty of the church to protect the vulnerable.

Of course, protecting the vulnerable is not at all what Trump is about. His mass deportation campaign is one horrific example of the way his policies oppress the vulnerable. So it was inevitable that Leo would speak out. His prophetic speech in support of immigrants and other vulnerable peoples has moved some American bishops to speak out boldly. On Sunday, April 12, the CBS program 60 Minutes carried a segment with three cardinals: Joseph Tobin of Newark, Blase Cupich of Chicago, and Robert McElroy of Washington, DC. They made clear their criticism of Trump’s war.

A widely published Jesuit priest, James Martin, offered an analysis of what prompted Trump’s anti-Leo outburst, in an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! Here’s what he said:

Well, it’s actually hard to explain. But I think what probably happened was, on 60 Minutes, there was a special with Cardinals McElroy, Tobin and Cupich, you know, who were very strong against the war. Cardinal McElroy, who is a theologian and a political scientist, called the war unjust. And that seemed to have sparked the outrage from President Trump, who did launch into this personal ad hominem attack against the Holy Father, and then, as you said, followed it up with the tweet of him as Jesus. So, it seems to have been, you know, a kind of late-night anger that he took out on the pope, and that he decided that he wanted to place himself in the role of Jesus. That’s how I see it.

In fact, Trump’s anti-Leo rant appeared on Truth Social on Sunday evening, not long after the 60 Minutes episode ended. So Martin’s analysis seems right on point. Trump concluded his rant with this:

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!

Of course, Trump didn’t calm matters by posting an image of himself as Jesus curing a man, and surrounded by bizarre imagery. Even some MAGA voters found that too much. Trump eventually deleted the Jesus image, admitted that he had posted it, but denied that he was comparing himself to Jesus. Instead, he said, he was comparing himself to a doctor. That laughable claim gave rise to social media speculation: When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the Trump-as-Jesus image had been “doctored,” did that enter Trump’s scrambled brain and lead him to talk about himself as a doctor? Though his doctor dodge provided material for the late-night comedians, it didn’t stop people from accusing Trump of blasphemy. Commenting on that, Martin offered this analysis during his Democracy Now! interview:

Secondly, this idea of President Trump posting a picture of himself as Jesus, you know, some have called it blasphemous, which is, you know, speaking ill words against God. But I think it’s more idolatry. I mean, the first commandment says, “You shall have no other gods before me,” right? And that includes President Trump. So, the idea that someone could see themselves in the role of Jesus and then actually post it online like that really sort of is hard to imagine, and particularly for someone who calls himself a Christian….I mean, if you’re saying that President Trump is equivalent to God and that what President Trump does and thinks and how he acts is equivalent to God is idolatry. And that’s against the first commandment. So, I think it’s—I think it’s kind of just insane.

The way Trump’s followers appear almost to worship him, despite all his faults, does seem like idolatry, and he insanely encourages that worship. His assertion that the conclave chose an American in order to deal with Trump is equally loony. It ignores entirely the history of Robert Francis Prevost, who had diverse experiences within the church: his years among the poor in Peru, his time in Rome as the prior general of the Order of Saint Augustine, and his two years of service as the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, which oversees the appointment of bishops around the world. Pope Francis trusted him with that pivotal role, which is just one piece of evidence that Prevost and Francis had a close working relationship. So the election of Leo XIV has a lot to do with his predecessor and nothing to do with Trump.

Pope Leo showed no signs of backing down after Trump’s rant. As he flew to Algeria for the start of his trip to Africa, the pope told reporters on the papal plane:

I have no fear neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the Church is here to do. We are not politicians. We are not looking to make foreign policy, as he calls it, with the same perspective that he might understand it. But I do believe in the message of the Gospel: “Blessed are the peacemakers” is the message that the world needs to hear today….

Too many people are suffering today. Too many innocent people have been killed, and I believe someone must stand up and say that there is a better way….

I 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 to problems.

The pope grew up in Chicago and suffered through decades of subpar seasons by the White Sox. So, like many baseball fans, he can appreciate irony. In that spirit, he threw a gentle dig at the site, Truth Social, where Trump posted his rant: “It’s ironic—the name of the site itself. Say no more.”

In the aftermath of the rant against Leo, followed by the Trump-as-Jesus image, some Trump supporter posted an image of Jesus tenderly embracing Trump. The Commenter-in-Chief posted that image himself. “The Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!” Offering another analysis of the Trump-as-Jesus-or-doctor image, one of Trump’s past supporters, Marjorie Taylor Greene, said, “It’s more than blasphemy. It’s an Antichrist spirit.”

We are all better off listening to what Jesus said in the Gospel, rather than envisioning him as Trump, or even imagining the nonviolent Jesus as punching Trump in the nose, as an Iranian embassy video did. But I can’t resist closing with an image someone posted online, in response to Trump’s messing with Easter Sunday: Jesus holds out his hand, expresses impatience with all of this, and asks Trump to surrender his phone. If only he would.