Pope Leo XIV said on Monday he had “no fear” of President Donald Trump’s administration, following the president’s lengthy post on Truth Social over the weekend, in which he criticized the pope.
“I have no fear of the Trump administration, or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do,” Pope Leo told reporters on his flight to Algeria, according to The New York Times. Regarding the Truth Social post, Pope Leo said: “It’s ironic — the name of the site itself. Say no more.”
On Sunday, President Donald Trump criticized Pope Leo in a Truth Social post, calling the first American pope “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy.” He invoked the COVID-19 closures and said he preferred Pope Leo’s brother, “because Louis is all MAGA.”
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump wrote. He went to to say that he didn’t want a pope who criticized the U.S. president. He inferred that Pope Leo was selected because of being an American as a way of taking on Trump. “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican,” he wrote.
In conversation with reporters, Trump called the pope “a very liberal person,” according to The New York Times. Trump went on to post an image of himself as Jesus, donning a red and white robe and giving a blessing to a man laying on a bed against the backdrop of the Statue of Liberty and the American flag. He has since deleted that post.
Pope Leo told reporters on Monday that he did not see his “role as being political.” Neither was he intending to attack the president, he said. “I don’t want to get into a debate with him. I don’t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing.”
Pope Leo said he was committed to looking for “ways to avoid war any time that’s possible,” according to NPR.
In the past few weeks, Pope Leo emerged as an ardent critic of the U.S. war on Iran, urging political leaders to peace. On Easter Sunday, Pope Leo extended an invitation to “abandon every desire for conflict, domination and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars.” He continued the theme of confronting the growing power and aggression.
In a homily on Saturday, Pope Leo said: “A Kingdom in which there is no sword, no drone, no vengeance, no trivialization of evil, no unjust profit, but only dignity, understanding and forgiveness. It is here that we find a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive.”
Prominent Jesuit priest Father James Martin believes Leo’s call for peace has been in line with “exactly what a Christian leader should do,” he said on a recent episode of the Deseret Voices podcast.
“So it’s really important to say that this is someone who understands the American scene, who understands American politics but, again, who’s trying to be, you know, a faith leader, you know, not a political leader,” he said.
Martin said believers should be vocal about political issues, but not partisan. “So I think it’s one thing to say we need to care for the poor, we need to care for people who are on the margins,” he said. “... To say you should vote for this candidate or that candidate, you should vote for this party or that party, that’s another thing. So I think that they should be faith leaders, not political leaders. And that’s a difficult tightrope to walk.”