It has indeed been an intriguing season of near anomie, not just with the devastating airstrikes throwing economies into turmoil and systemic atrophy, threatening to end centuries of treasured civilisations. The season has also been marked by the outbreak of verbal, imagistic tantrums and unguarded toxic exchanges especially emanating from President Donald Trump. When he took on the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, referring to him as being badly treated by his wife and still recovering from injury sustained on the right jaw, the world had thought that was as unwarranted as it was the basest a president could go. When it however comes to Trump, there are no surprises as there are no clear lines of distinction between the banal, the hoax, historic sublime and the nationalistic noble crusades. The arrest of the Venezuelan Sitting President Nicolas Maduro, 3 January 2026 in Caracas remains a thorny, perhaps turning point in the history of the sovereignty of States and charted patterns in international justice system. We have also in a racist fury and effusion of disdain seen previous occupants of the White House being portrayed as monkeys. And now the big one as Trump squares it out with Pope Leo XIV. Both are American citizens with one as President while the other is the head of the Vatican and by extension symbolic head of the Christian faith. The constituency of one is America with a sprawling, undeniable influence across the world while the other has the world as his constituency, oneness of humanity as the concern of his office with a cardinal faith to stand for and astutely defend. Now, coming in the background of the Iran war which has disrupted global peace and dislodged economies of nations. The Pope had called for peace at a time that Trump is sprawling for more war against Iran, calling on NATO to come out in full support of the America- Israeli war initiative which has anti-nuclear justification and religious manifestation. Trump considered the anti-war position a weak one to take and did put it across to Pope Leo that he was in Vatican because he, Trump was in the Whitehouse. As if that was not enough affront, Trump made public his AI artistic portrayal of himself as Jesus Christ administering some strength to a weak, ‘liberal’ Pope Leo. This is akin to elevating banality to a state craft. This represents infamy of unprecedented proportion. For a moment, I sensed at that point that the world was face to face with a modern King Nebuchadnezzar. And to imagine that this is a product of the most popular democracy in the world remains a puzzle generations after will keep struggling to comprehend. The Pope has since responded to Trump’s tantrums asserting that his mission is rooted in the Gospel of peace, tolerance and global unity which he will continue to propagate without any fear of the American president. What a position to take for the unity of faiths, peace and reconciliation of a currently troubled world.
Speaking to journalists during a flight to Algeria on the first leg of his African tour, the Pontiff addressed Trump’s labels and accusations regarding global security.
The Pope made it clear that he does not see his role as that of a politician and would prefer not to enter into a debate with Trump.
Addressing Trump’s claims, where the President called the Pope a ‘liberal person’ who ‘doesn’t believe in stopping crime’, the Pope said, “I do not think the message of the Gospel should be abused as some are doing.
‘I continue to speak strongly against war, seeking to promote peace, dialogue, and multilateralism among states to find solutions to problems’.
He then reiterated his mission of peace, urging all world leaders to pursue reconciliation.
His words ‘Too many innocent lives have been lost, and I believe someone must stand up and say there is a better way. I say this to all world leaders, not only him: let us end wars and promote peace and reconciliation’. That indeed is an inspired voice of wisdom on a mission to heal the world of deepening ethno-religious and ideological divergences.
President Trump, by now, should be getting used to criticisms from Catholic leaders.
We still can recall how his hardline immigration policies, promised in his campaign and cheered on by supporters, were promptly condemned by church leaders.
This however is nothing compared to the broad backlash over his attack on Pope Leo and his sharing of an AI image of himself as a Christ-like figure. Many Catholics across the world see this as crossing the line of decorum and expected decency.
Equally striking is where some of the criticism is coming from – loyal, conservative Catholic allies of the President.
They are unhappy, not just because of Trump’s public friction with Pope Leo, but at a much deeper level over the Iran war.
The uproar over Trump’s lengthy social media attack on the first American pope, as too liberal and too ‘weak on crime’, together with the AI image, have marked a shift in opinion among many Catholic conservatives since the war began
In the face of the unfolding starkly competing White House and Vatican narratives regarding the war in Iran and the wider Middle East, many Catholic Bishops especially in America are already aligning with the position of the Vatican.
Bishop Strickland known to have been a staunch supporter of Trump has made a rare break from the administration.
His words, ‘I do not believe this conflict meets the criteria of a just war. I stand with the Holy Father and his call for peace. This is not about politics. It’s about moral truth’, adding that the scale of death and suffering faced by innocent civilians meant the war could never be viewed as ‘just’.
‘It becomes very dark when religion is used to justify immoral behaviour… using religion to justify especially dropping bombs is contradicting what the faith is about’, the Bishop added.
When asked about Trump’s attack on Pope Leo and the image some have referred to as ‘AI Jesus’, which Trump said he thought was a doctor not Jesus, Bishop Strickland said he felt it was his ‘duty’ to remind the US president of the Gospel of Matthew. He pointed to a passage that teaches that supreme power resides with Christ and not with any man.
‘When world leaders forget this truth, all are in peril’, he said.
Trump’s attack on Pope Leo has therefore brought about a shift in the way conservative Catholics regard the president. This comes with some predictable political perils, given that he increased his support among that group in the 2024 election.
There are however those who have maintained that ‘The Pope is the Pope, we owe him a certain amount of deference, but don’t think that Catholicism wants the obedience of cadavers. We are living, thinking persons’.
Peter Wolfgang for instance, insists that ‘President Trump does not understand how Catholicism works. The Pope is not merely a head of State; he is the Vicar of Christ. Attacks on him are received as attacks on the Church itself. The more Trump attacks the Pope, the more his support will drop among his Catholic voters’.
It remains remarkable that no senior US Catholic member of clergy has publicly supported the war in Iran.
Trump’s Jesus-like image and criticism of the Pope have continued to spark backlash bringing also to the fore the ‘Just War Theory’
It remains significant that the Vatican has stuck to the narrative that what the world has seen play out in recent weeks is not a battle between Pope Leo and President Trump at all, but a Pope clearly drawing on his faith to oppose the logic of a war largely considered as painful, avoidable and unjust.
Trump may have deleted the image of him as AI Jesus attending to a weak pope but the impression created in the minds of millions across the world will obviously linger far longer than the president may have imagined. It remains rather instructive that Pope Leo’s position on the war and the urgent need for world peace keeps resonating with many across nations of the world.
Disagreements between the Oval Office and the Vatican are not particularly new but had never degenerated to this level of banality.
It can still be recalled how Pope John Paul II lobbied hard against both Gulf wars. Francis also called Trump ‘not Christian’ during the 2016 campaign over his anti-immigrant language.
In a continuation of that strange narrative we see Leo and Trump openly at odds not only on the U.S. and Israel-Iran war but on immigration, foreign policy and the moral framing of American power itself.
If Trump can go public with such an offensive depiction of Pope Leo, then, the world should expect more from him even in the coming days and months.
