In a previous column (“Exiting the trap,” Inquirer, 3/22/26), I wrote that perhaps someone like the pope could perform the vital function of moral diplomacy to stop the United States-Israeli war on Iran. I had only the vaguest idea then of how Pope Leo XIV might handle that role, or with what consequence. Now we know.
We have seen, in vivid and at times surreal detail, what happens when morality speaks to power—when the world’s two most influential Americans, Pope Leo XIV and President Donald Trump, confront each other in full public view.
Power, it turns out, follows a predictable script. First, it questions the authority and competence of the moral speaker. Then it attacks the person himself. And when moral speech refuses to retreat and shows no signs of fear, power resorts to caricature—distorting the very message it cannot answer.
So it was with Trump and Leo. The president began by accusing the pope of “selective morality”—for supposedly ignoring the atrocities of the Iranian regime against its own people. He then escalated to the blunter verdict that Leo was “weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy.” When Leo responded, gently but without flinching, that he had no fear of the Trump administration and would continue speaking the Gospel’s message of peace, Trump reached for something stranger. He posted two AI-generated images in rapid succession: the first depicted him as a supreme healer ministering to the sick and dying; the second showed him being tenderly embraced by a Christ-like figure. Both fit precisely what Leo had already denounced as the “delusion of omnipotence.”
It is difficult to say what Trump hoped to achieve with these images. They could be read as claiming that he is the true healer of nations, and that God is therefore on his side. They could also be read as something more disturbing: that he himself is God and stands beyond accountability. In an uncanny way, both reminded me of the blasphemous outburst Rodrigo Duterte once made during his imperious presidency: “Who is this stupid God?” Different men, different occasions—but the same stubborn refusal to recognize any authority beyond their own will.
I suspect Leo more or less expected this reaction. But he was not speaking primarily to Trump, and he had no interest in a tit-for-tat with a narcissistic president. What he was doing was far more important: speaking to the moral imagination of the American people. Many Americans are troubled by the war launched in their name but hesitate to say so, fearing it will be seen as unpatriotic. Leo’s intervention gives them permission to speak. He has said as much directly, urging Americans “to seek ways to communicate, perhaps with congressmen, with the authorities, saying that we don’t want war, we want peace.”
It is not uncommon for popes to speak out against war. In 1965, Paul VI addressed the United Nations to call for an end to the Vietnam War; President Lyndon Johnson responded with careful diplomacy. In 1979, John Paul II stood at the same podium to call for a just settlement of the Palestinian question; President Jimmy Carter welcomed him at the White House. In 2003, the same pope opposed the American invasion of Iraq—and President George Bush said nothing. Pope Francis pleaded for peace in Syria, opposed Russian military intervention, and called the building of walls rather than bridges “unchristian.” Trump called his remarks “disgraceful,” before later softening and calling Francis “a wonderful guy.”
But Leo’s words have landed differently. No American president before Trump has attacked a sitting pope so directly and so insultingly. The reason may lie in the fact that Leo is not only the pope but also an American. As sociology professor Michele Dillon of the University of New Hampshire observed in a NPR podcast: “If you have a pope who was born and raised in Chicago and really a true out-and-out American criticizing in pointed terms, I actually think that carries more weight.” It cannot be dismissed as anti-Americanism. It lands as the voice of a conscience that shares the same citizenship.
And beyond the American public, Leo is speaking to the world. The Iran war will not be resolved on the aggressor’s terms alone. It will require the patient restoration of diplomatic channels that have been carelessly destroyed—and that reconstruction needs voices of moral authority. Leo has made clear he intends to be one of them.
When a superpower feels the urgent need to attack a pope, we can be fairly sure it is not because the pope has said something wrong. It is, rather, because the truth hurts—and inflicts its deepest wounds on those who have built their power on lies.
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