The American president meets the American pope

By sheer good luck, I happened to be in St. Peter’s Square last May — together with 150,000 of my best friends — when white smoke from the Sistine Chapel signaled the election of a new pope. Without even yet knowing who he was, the crowd went wild. It went even more wild an hour later, when Pope Leo XIV first appeared on the balcony.

My immediate reaction was two-fold. First, Holy Cow! This guy’s an American — Bob Prevost, from Chicago. Few thought Catholic cardinals would ever choose an American pope. But, as veteran Vatican commentators soon noted, Prevost had spent more time as a priest and prelate in Peru than he had in the United States. He was a pan-American cardinal, not a USA cardinal. That made him acceptable.

Second reaction: I was struck by how, in his first comments as pope, Leo went out of his way to praise the work of Pope Francis, who had been no big fan of President Trump. Watch out, I thought — this might set up an interesting dynamic between the new American pope and the new American president.

And indeed, in less than a year, it has, on two big issues — war and immigration — where Pope Leo and President Trump are on opposite sides. 

On the issue of war, nowhere was that vast gap between Leo and Trump more evident than last weekend. From the beginning, Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have tried to paint the Iran war, now in its fifth week, as part of God’s plan, and where God is clearly on our side.

Hegseth literally wears his Christian faith on his sleeve, with a tattoo on his bicep of the words “Deus Vult,” or “God wills it” — a motto from the Crusades, today associated with Christian nationalism. During a briefing on the Iran war last week, he called on Americans to take a knee and pray to Jesus for the success of U.S. forces in the Middle East. On May 10, he said his inspiration as Defense secretary came from the Bible, Psalm 144: “Blessed by the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.” 

Trump’s personal pastor, Mark Burns, speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, said Trump had a “spiritual obligation” to bomb Iran. And the Military Religious Freedom Foundation said it received more than 200 complaints from service members saying their commander told them they were being sent to Iran as “all part of God’s divine plan.” According to one complaint, soldiers were told that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to earth.”  

Is Trump’s war in Iran a “holy war” and all part of God’s plan? Trump may think so, but not the American pope. In blistering remarks from the Vatican on Palm Sunday, Pope Leo soundly rejected that idea. Without mentioning Trump, or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or Russian President Vladimir Putin by name, Leo condemned any world leader who tries to justify war in God’s name.

“Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” Leo told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square. “He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.’” 

We’ve never heard stronger words from the Vatican. Trump’s advisors may tell him he’s doing the Lord’s work, but the pope says his “hands are full of blood.” He may call for prayers, but the pope says God “rejects them,” saying, “I will not listen.”

On immigration, too, Pope Leo, like Pope Francis before him, has expressed his opposition to Trump’s wholesale round-up and deportation policies. And nowhere was that difference exposed more than when Trump invited the pope to the White House on July 4 to help celebrate America’s 250th birthday.  

The Vatican not only declined Trump’s invitation but also announced that the pope had more important plans for July 4: He would be traveling to the Italian island of Lampedusa — to meet and pray with migrants coming from Africa. If that’s not a clear putdown of President’s Trump immigration policies, I don’t know what is. 

Today, Americans face a clear choice: On what the Bible really says, and on what Christianity is really all about, whom do you believe? The president or the pope? That’s a no-brainer. 

Bill Press is host of “The Bill Press Pod.” He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”

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