Trump versus Pope Leo: A self-inflicted knockout blow 

The gloves are off. Ladies and gentlemen, and fight fans from around the world, welcome to a historic night!

In the left corner, the challenger, in the white robe and wearing the white zucchetto on his head, the spiritual leader of the single largest religious organization in the U.S., the apostle of the Gospel, the Chicago Cherubim, Pope Leo XIV!

And in the right corner, in the red tie and wearing the MAGA baseball cap, the Anti-Vaccines of Queens, who can knock any ancient civilization back into the Stone Age, the champion, President Donald Trump!  

Let’s get ready to rumble. 

Trump is a master of political pugilism. He jabs, he hooks, he switches positions. He uppercuts, he posts, he deletes and dials back. He changes strategy, he bombs, he invades, he assassinates, he blockades.

Pope Leo is newer to the game. The fight started with Leo’s calling for peace in response to the war in Iran, warning of the “delusion of omnipotence.” It escalated when Trump accused Leo of being “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”  

Trump led with his chin, continuing his attacks with another social media post: “Will someone please tell Pope Leo that Iran has killed at least 42,000 innocent, completely unarmed, protesters in the last two months.”

Of course, under Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol are tied to at least eight deaths, including the killing of two unarmed protesters. 

Not to be intimidated, the pope responded with a double negative: “I have no fear neither of the Trump administration nor of speaking out loudly about the message in the Gospel.”

Past popes have not shied away from the field of foreign affairs. But they have rarely named names. The paradigm is Pope Pius XII’s decision to not directly name and denounce Adolf Hitler during World War II. 

In 1965, Pope Paul VI made a historic address to the United Nations, famously declaring “No more war, war never again,” urging an end to the Vietnam War. Pope Francis faced criticism for his ambiguous references to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Leo, the peacemaker, showed he had a good uppercut in his arsenal: “Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!” He did not have to spell out who he was talking about.

American politicians, mindful of the awesome size of the Catholic vote, have been wary of rubbishing a pope. Not Trump, who came back with both barrels blazing. 

 ”I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.” Trump said, adding, “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”

He later told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that he’s “not fighting with” Pope Leo, and falsely claimed the pope said “Iran can have a nuclear weapon.” 

That lie caused media referees to break the fighters apart with a fact and reality check warning. Trump wasn’t elected in a landslide, and the pope had never said that. Rather, he had repeatedly denounced nuclear weapons and made unequivocal calls for the countries of the world to abandon them.

What the pope did was deliver a forceful appeal for peace condemning what he described as “a handful of tyrants” who are ravaging the world. He might have included the Iranian regime by name, but that’s the way it is.

And then, in an even more bizarre episode, Trump, who last year posted to the White House Instagram account an AI-generated photograph of himself wearing white papal robes, posted another AI image on Truth Social portraying himself as Jesus in flowing robes, healing a sick man with beams of light emanating from his hands. Trump was also surrounded by patriotic symbols, including an American flag, the Statue of Liberty and eagles.

The Trump-as-Jesus image sparked outrage among Christians and across the political spectrum. Former Georgia Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene slammed the post and said she was “praying against it” while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) described it as “deranged” and “egomaniacal behavior.”

The Catholic Church has long been a sensitive factor in American politics. “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion” was the politically disastrous phrase used in the 1884 presidential election to target Democrats as aligned with saloons, Catholics and former Confederates. The slogan may have cost Republican James G. Blaine crucial Irish American votes in New York, and the presidency as a consequence.

When Al Smith, a Catholic, ran for president in 1928, he never overcame charges that he would build a “tunnel to the Vatican,” and take orders from the pope.

When John F. Kennedy, also a Catholic, ran in 1960, he had to reassure the protestant clergy in Houston “on the religious issue” that he believed “in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.”

But before Trump, no American president ever dared to take on the pope, for fear of devastating political fallout. The pope is ahead on points — the only knockout blow struck by Trump was to his own chin.

James D. Zirin is a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and a published legal analyst.

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