A blistering attack by President Donald Trump on Pope Leo, the first American Pontiff, has prompted a backlash from Catholics in the United States.
In a lengthy Truth Social post Sunday night, Trump appeared to take issue with Leo’s recent outspoken comments criticizing the Iran War, called him “weak on crime,” and argued he was a vehicle for the “radical left.”
Around 20% of U.S. adults describe themselves as Catholics, according to Pew Research, which amounts to some 53 million devotees.
Read more: Pope Leo Responds to Attack by Trump, Saying He Has ‘No Fear’ of Speaking Out
Catholic leaders and organizations in the United States roundly criticized Trump for his outburst, even as some Trump-loyalist Catholics stood by the president.
‘Lack of respect for the faith of millions’
Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, Archbishop of Newark and an ally of the late Pope Francis, told TIME in a statement that Trump’s comments “convey a grave misunderstanding of the Holy Father’s ministry and a troubling lack of respect for the faith of millions.”
“I reaffirm that Pope Leo serves a higher authority and desires to proclaim the Gospel faithfully and advance the Church’s peaceful mission in a world deeply in need of healing,” Tobin said. “He will continue to speak clearly against war and other offenses against human dignity and to call for authentic dialogue, because the Church’s witness is grounded in the peace of Christ, not in partisan interests.”
Tobin appeared for a rare interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday alongside two other Catholic leaders, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich and Washington D.C. Cardinal Robert McElroy, all of whom reaffirmed the Pope’s calls for peace in Iran. McElroy also said that Trump’s war with Iran was not a “just” war.
Winona-Rochester Bishop Robert Barron, a member of Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, issued a rare rebuke of Trump’s comments on Monday, calling on him to apologize.
“The statements made by President Trump on Truth Social regarding the Pope were entirely inappropriate and disrespectful. They don’t contribute at all to a constructive conversation,” he said in a post on X.
“I am very grateful for the many ways that the Trump administration has reached out to Catholics and other people of faith. It has been a high honor to serve on the Religious Liberty Commission. No President in my lifetime has shown a greater dedication to defending our first liberty. All that said, I think the President owes the Pope an apology,” he added.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ president, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, said he was “disheartened” by Trump’s comments in a statement Sunday, adding that “Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician.
Pax Christi USA, the national Catholic peace movement, called Trump’s Sunday posts “wildly offensive.”
“As the Holy Father said this morning, he is not a politician; those of us who are citizens of the United States, however, have a moral obligation to hold our elected officials accountable for their words and actions,” a spokesperson for the organization said. “It is past time for those who are closest to the president to step in and to stop enabling this grotesque behavior.”
The Pope is not ‘always and perfectly right’
Not all Catholics rallied to the Pope’s cause, however.
Joseph Arlinghaus, founder and president of Valor America, a conservative superPAC that spent millions of dollars to re-elect Trump in 2024, described the episode as “just another Monday morning.”
Arlinghaus is a devout Catholic and noted previous popes who have criticized American wars, including Pope Benedict and John Paul II’s critiques of the Iraq war.
“I think Trump’s just speaking his mind. Trump’s not a Catholic—he’s a president,” Arlinghaus told TIME.
According to Arlinghaus, Catholics look to their religious leaders to provide guidance, but they do not always agree with everything they say. “I’m not a brainwashed disciple of Donald Trump, nor do I think that every word of the Pope is necessarily always and perfectly right.”
“That’s what prudence is all about,” Arlinghaus says. “The Pope is doing his job, and the President is doing his.”
Pope Leo responds
The President’s lengthy broadside came after Leo last week denounced Trump’s threat to destroy Iran’s “whole civilization” as “truly unacceptable.”
Leo responded to Trump’s post on Monday by saying he had “no fear of the Trump administration, or speaking out loudly.”
“I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among states to look for just solutions to problems,” Leo told reporters on a flight to Algiers.
“Too many people are suffering in the world today,” he said. “Too many innocent people are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say there’s a better way.”
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