Donald Trump’s pivot to blasphemy
To celebrate the second Sunday of Easter, President Donald Trump appears to have decided that blasphemy might be the best option.
Late Sunday evening, Trump posted a wordy attack of Pope Leo XIV on Truth Social, saying the first American-born leader of the Roman Catholic Church was “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.” Leo, by criticizing the joint US-Israeli war on Iran, is apparently “catering to the Radical Left,” “hurting the Catholic Church,” and encouraging Iran to develop nuclear weapons. “I am not a fan of Pope Leo,” Trump later told reporters.
Key takeaways
- President Donald Trump on Sunday escalated preexisting tensions between the Vatican and his government by criticizing Pope Leo XIV, calling him “weak” and in the service of the “Radical Left” for criticizing the US-Israeli war on Iran.
- It was the most direct attack yet he’s made on the pontiff, and sparked criticism from Catholics, including Republicans who have supported Trump before.
- That backlash only grew among other evangelical Christians and religious conservatives when Trump posted an AI-generated image casting himself as Jesus Christ. He deleted that image on Monday.
- It’s an unforced move that is causing new consternation among the religious right.
It’s his most aggressive and direct attack yet on the Vicar of Christ, who has been uncharacteristically vocal this year in his criticism of militaristic foreign policy, including making a direct appeal to the president to end the conflict in Iran and promote peace and respect for human life. The pope indicated he would not back down, telling reporters he had “no fear” of the White House. And he threw in a little barb as well, calling the Truth Social posts “ironic”: “The name of the site itself. Say no more.”
Picking a fight with the spiritual leader for more than 50 million Americans was a risky move, if not unprecedented for Trump, and he faced immediate pushback from some otherwise right-leaning Catholics.
But somehow, things only got worse from there: Trump followed up with an AI-generated image depicting him as Jesus Christ healing the sick, as he’s flanked by symbols of America and both military and spiked figures floating like angels behind him.
It was that second sacrilege that expanded the blowback into a full-on political crisis: This time not only from Catholics, but from evangelicals and other denominations — including many who are typically aligned with Trump.
“I don’t know if the President thought he was being funny or if he is under the influence of some substance or what possible explanation he could have for this OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy,” the evangelical writer Megan Basham posted. “But he needs to take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God.”
“God shall not be mocked,” Riley Gaines, the former competitive swimmer and prominent conservative activist, posted.
“This is gross blasphemy. Faith is not a prop,” the young Christian conservative Brilyn Hollyhand said in a video condemning Trump’s post.
“It’s more than blasphemy. It’s an Antichrist spirit,” said former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a vocal Christian critic of Israel and Trump’s second term.
“Trump is my President; Jesus is my Lord,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost posted. “I am not confused about which is which, and hope this image is removed.”
By Monday afternoon, Trump had deleted the post, a rare climbdown, while claiming he didn’t understand what he had shared. “I thought it was me as a doctor,” he said, according to Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove.
It’s hardly news that Trump’s personal behavior doesn’t exactly line up with Ten Commandments, but critics have pointed out this hypocrisy for well over a decade with little apparent impact on his conservative religious support.
The big question then is: Why is this time different?
The religious backlash to Trump has been building for months
Trump’s latest religious post set off a firestorm, but the kindling has been catching over the last few months.
Christians in the United States have been divided by the joint US-Israeli war on Iran: Some anti-Israel MAGA Catholics were already turning on Trump, much to his fury; conservative evangelicals and Christian Zionist nondenominational believers have already been chafing against American Catholics on the right; and policy criticisms of Trump’s foreign policy and immigration agenda from the Vatican and American bishops were putting right-leaning American Catholics in an untenable position.
Now, it looks like Trump is seriously testing just how much it would take for religious conservatives to break with his movement. And he’s taking every shot he can.
Start with Pope Leo. Right before Trump’s latest post, Catholics were already dealing with a shocking series of reports about a meeting between Pentagon officials and the Vatican’s top diplomat to the US back in January, in which one Trump aide issued what was reportedly interpreted by some church officials as a threat over the pope’s criticism of military operations. Though the tone and content of this meeting is contested by both the Pentagon and the Vatican, the effect of these reports was the same: the growing sense that the pope and the president are at odds.
Perhaps for that reason, the response to Trump personally attacking Leo was especially strong compared to prior incidents, like when he posted an image of himself as pope after Pope Francis died. The latest episode raised the specter of the president focusing his frustrations over the war on the church writ large, a problem that could worsen if the conflict continues to spiral and his approval ratings worsen.
The Bishop Robert Barron, a member of Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission who is popular with traditionalist Catholics and the religious right, called his statements “entirely inappropriate and disrespectful,” and urged “that serious Catholics within the Trump administration — Secretary Rubio, Vice President Vance, Ambassador Brian Burch, and others — might meet with Vatican officials so that a real dialogue can take place.”
Other prominent American Catholics also weighed in: The head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops said he was “disheartened” that Trump would attack Leo, and reminded him that the pope is not a politician, but “the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls.”
Already, there are signs of a clear cleavage opening up between most American Catholics and Trump, particularly over the Iran war. Trump’s net approval is now negative with them, after exit polls reported that he won this religious part of the electorate by nearly 20 points during the 2024 election. The most recent temperature checks of American Catholics on Iran are also negative: they disapprove of the Iran war by 10 points, and disapprove of Trump’s handling of it by a margin of 20 points, per a March Fox News poll.
“Trump has already lost some support from the Catholic right, which leans isolationist, over his decision to go to war with Iran.”
Peter Laffin, Washington Examiner senior editor
“Trump has already lost some support from the Catholic right, which leans isolationist, over his decision to go to war with Iran,” Washington Examiner senior editor Peter Laffin, a Catholic writer, told me. “If I were a Republican candidate heading into 2026, I’d be more concerned with how his attacks on Pope Leo are playing among the Hispanic Catholics who swung heavily to the GOP in 2024.”
And this whole episode again brings the future of the Republican Party into the spotlight. It creates a new obstacle for Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, who keeps getting torn between defending the president, managing relations between MAGA factions, and fielding Catholic criticism, all as he defines his political career along the lines of his Catholic conversion (which is the theme of his forthcoming book).
“This will be consequential for JD Vance,” the Trump critic Candace Owens, an emblematic figure of a growing new antiwar, and sometimes antisemitic, Catholic wing of conservative media, posted Sunday.
“Can we now all admit that this is a cult of personality, the leading worshiper of which is its leader?” Rod Dreher, a conservative Eastern Orthodox Christian writer known for his close ties to Vance, posted. He was also critical of Trump’s posts about Pope Leo.
But in addition to how this plays out with Catholics, it’s with the greater religious conservative community, of evangelical and nondenominational Christians, where Trump has now exposed himself unnecessarily.
They’ve largely stuck with him as the war carries on, motivated in part by the prevalent Christian Zionist beliefs that underlie their faith and support for the modern Israeli state. Now, Trump’s aggressive sacrilege — casting himself as Jesus on social media — on top of already threatening Iran with annihilation right after Easter, the most sacred time of the Christian calendar, is causing a kind of self-reflection, doubt, and criticism of the president that we have not seen before.
“The media is paying attention to [podcasters] breaking with Trump over Iran,” evangelical radio host Erick Erickson posted. “What they really should be paying attention to are the Christian Trump supporters who have stood with him through Iran, who are waking up to his blasphemy.”