I have spent much of my life involved in some way in religion: practising it, studying it, criticizing its excesses, crimes and harms, but rendering it the respect due to a large, important and influential force in historical and human affairs.

Plus, I find “spiritual” people more interesting to talk to than “pure” secularists. Whatever their spirituality means.

So it is with some amazement that I find we are at a point in modern life where I am grateful for the phenomenon of global religious leader Pope Leo, head of the Roman Catholic Church — the world’s largest — taking on, with moral authority and persuasive power, fellow American Donald Trump and all that he represents in evil.

Pope Leo, who is Robert Prevost, uses words powerfully.

He is a monk of the Augustinian order, who spent 20 years in Peru, speaks Spanish, has a global vision, along with a doctorate in theology, and was brought to Rome by Pope Francis in what seems to have been a prophetic action.

America under MAGA has become a major world threat and menace, and perpetrator of harm.

Better to take that on if one speaks with cultural familiarity. Leo and Donald: the best and the worst faces of modern America.

That Pope Leo is speaking out at all is astonishing. Someone observed, “Even Hitler and Mussolini didn’t speak out against the pope at that time.”

And yet not so astonishing.

Modern papacies have long sought to be relevant. Pope Francis once described the church as “a field hospital.” Especially in matters of war and state-sponsored violence and the human suffering brought about by their reality, moral leaders find they are driven to condemn.

Such condemnation does not sit well with the U.S. president, as we well know. He flails out, in profane overnight Truth Social posts, showing his venom and lack of learning. He cannot deny that his warlike decisions have brought blood onto his hands. And it is this that the Pope has condemned

“I am not a politician,” Pope Leo has said, “but a preacher of the gospel.” Now on a five-day visit to Africa, he takes off his shoes in the great Mosque of Algiers. He is strong, humble, and determined.

He has said no to an invite from the Trump administration to come to Washington on July 4 to celebrate 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. He has indicated that he will spend the day on the refugee island of Lampedusa, where African migrants wash up.

Trump’s regime is odious. Vance and Hegseth and Leavitt line up to show off their thin religious credentials for all to see.

It makes this Canadian wonder where are the checks and balances in American democracy? Congress ineffective, the courts neutered, the media under attack, the will of one man supreme.

Canadian commentator Charlie Angushas said, “We are watching the collective moral failure and complicity of America’s political institutions.” Angus has been suspicious of this man since 2016. In Cleveland, he attended the nomination of Trump at a Republican convention.

The pope seems to be a major warrior against MAGA today. He said recently, “Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”

In what must be a welcome endorsement, the newly-elected Archbishop of Canterbury Rev. Sarah Mullally said this week, “I stand with my brother in Christ.”

But my ringing endorsement of the recent public speech on peace in no way diminishes my ongoing criticism of his inaction on women in the church.

© Peterborough Examiner