President Trump Attacks Pope Leo XIV Over Iran War Criticism, Calls First American Pontiff 'Weak'

President Donald Trump publicly attacked Pope Leo XIV on Sunday, calling the first American-born pontiff 'a very liberal person' and declaring 'I'm not a fan of Pope Leo' after the Catholic leader condemned the US-Israel war in Iran.

The extraordinary clash pits a president who won 55% of the Catholic vote in 2024 against the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide. It marks one of the most direct confrontations between a sitting US president and the Vatican in modern history.

Trump's Truth Social Broadside

Flying back to Washington from Florida, Trump took to Truth Social to fire a lengthy attack on the Chicago-born pontiff. 'Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,' the president wrote, adding that he did not want 'a Pope who thinks it's OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.'

Trump also suggested Leo only became pope because of his American citizenship.

'If I wasn't in the White House, Leo wouldn't be in the Vatican,' he claimed. '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.'

Pope Leo Condemns 'Delusion of Omnipotence'

The president's attack followed days of escalating papal criticism. Leo presided over an evening prayer service on Saturday in St Peter's Basilica, where he denounced the 'delusion of omnipotence' fuelling the conflict with Iran. Days earlier, Leo called Trump's threat to destroy 'a whole civilization' in Iran 'truly unacceptable.'

In an extremely rare move for a sitting pope, Leo directly urged American citizens to contact their congressional representatives and ask for peace rather than war.

'I would like to invite everyone to truly think in their hearts about the many innocent people, so many children, so many elderly, completely innocent, who would also become victims of this escalation,' Leo told reporters outside his residence in Castel Gandolfo.

A Battle Over Divine Mandate

The feud exposes a stark theological divide at the heart of American foreign policy. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly invoked religious justification for the conflict, crediting 'divine providence' for military operations.

'God deserves all the glory,' Hegseth declared at a Pentagon briefing after the ceasefire was announced. 'Tens of thousands of sorties, refuelings, and strikes, carried out under the protection of divine providence.'

The pope directly rebuked this framing during the said prayer service over the weekend. 'Enough with the idolatry of self and money. Enough with the display of force. Enough with war,' Leo said. 'True strength is manifested in serving life.'

American Catholics Caught in the Middle

For approximately 70 million American Catholics, the confrontation creates an uncomfortable collision between faith and political allegiance.

Trump won the Catholic vote by a 15-point margin in 2024, according to exit poll data. Among white Catholics, the margin was even wider at 60% to 37%.

Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, echoed the pope's position.

'The threat of destroying a whole civilization and the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure cannot be morally justified,' Coakley said. 'I call on President Trump to step back from the precipice of war.'

The pope departs today, Monday for an 11-day trip to Africa, leaving the Vatican's sharpest rebuke of a US president in decades hanging over Washington.