Donald Trump, you may have heard, is not a fan of Pope Leo.

The president’s social media post explaining as much appeared on Sunday almost immediately after the broad cast of a CBS interview with Cardinals Cupich, McElroy and Tobin – the usual suspects – deploring the Iran war and mass deportations.

Trump repeated the comments, either side of a rambling tirade against Covid restrictions on public worship, at an airbase that evening. Not long after that he posted an AI-generated image portraying himself rather like Jesus. After a while, he took it down.

Funny to think that just days earlier, both Washington and the Holy See had been earnestly denying reports that the apostolic nuncio had been subject to a “bitter lecture” at the Pentagon back in January, complete with invocations of the Avignon papacy. A diplomatic crisis caused by medievalist pseudery, typical of the tight-suited integralists now staffing most US departments, felt rather quaint by the start of the week. At the time of writing it’s far from certain that Trump’s papal whinge will seem such a big deal over your Saturday morning café and cornetto.

Leo couldn’t avoid the questions aboard his flight to Algiers on Monday, but his response was disarming: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” That’s not playing fair. Everybody wanted him to respond in kind, joining the rotating cast of the culture war. (Trump said Leo is “a very liberal person”; a member of the Privy Council told me the same thing, with different import but based on the same information.) The Pope had finally joined the UN, Canada and Stephen Colbert as a subject of Trumpian invective.

Get Instant Access

Continue Reading

Register for free to read this article in full

REGISTER

Subscribe for unlimited access

SUBSCRIBE NOW

From just £37.50 quarterly

  Print copy of The Tablet delivered directly to your door.
  Complete access to all Tablet website content including all premium content.
  Access to the weekly digital copy of The Tablet.
  Full access to The Tablet’s archive – over 180 years of back issues.

Already a subscriber? Login