(COVER PHOTO: Reuters via CNN Newsource)
(CNN) — Pope Leo XIV on Monday strongly pushed back against criticism from Donald Trump, defending his position of seeking peace and rejecting violence amid the Iran war.
“I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the church is here to do,” the pontiff told reporters aboard his plane as he started a 10-day trip to the African continent.
“We are not politicians, we don’t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective (as) he might understand it,” he continued. “But I do believe in the message of the Gospel, as a peacemaker.”
The comments came after Trump tore into the pope on Sunday evening, denouncing his stance on the Iran war and saying he’s “terrible for foreign policy.”
“We don’t like a pope that’s going to say that it’s OK to have a nuclear weapon. … He’s a man that doesn’t think that we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world,” Trump told reporters, adding, “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo.”
Leo, the first American pope, has become increasingly vocal about the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran, last week condemning Trump’s rhetoric against the people of Iran as “truly unacceptable.”
That comment was prompted by Trump’s threat that “a whole civilization will die tonight” in the hours before a two-week ceasefire with Iran was struck.
Both Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have invoked God in public messaging during the conflict, with Hegseth framing the war effort as divinely supported and even using scriptural justification.
Leo has repeatedly pushed back against this idea.
“Jesus is the king of peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” he said on Palm Sunday. “He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war but rejects them.”
The president’s remarks about the pope on Sunday night came shortly after he posted a similar lengthy critique of the pontiff on Truth Social.
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” Trump wrote, going on to say he doesn’t want a pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon or who thinks it’s “terrible that America attacked Venezuela.”
After the U.S. operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January, the pope called for the “will of the Venezuelan people” to be respected and a return to stability in the country.
“I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States,” Trump added in his post.
The president went on to claim Leo “wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”
Shortly after Trump’s comments, the president posted an image to Truth Social depicting himself as a Christ-like figure healing a sick person with American flags and eagles in the background.
By early afternoon Monday, the post was deleted. Speaking to reporters, Trump said he thought the image depicted him as a doctor.
“I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor, and had to do with Red Cross,” he told reporters Monday afternoon at the White House. Trump said that “only the fake news” could come up with the idea that it depicted him as Jesus.
Trump’s remarks Sunday came shortly after CBS News’ “60 Minutes” aired a story featuring senior American cardinals voicing their support for the pope’s stance on the war and his previous opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
CNN has reached out to the White House on whether Trump was reacting to the “60 Minutes” report.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a key Trump ally in Europe and a Catholic, strongly denounced the U.S. president’s comments, saying she found his “words toward the Holy Father unacceptable.”
“The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, and it is right and normal that he calls for peace and condemns all forms of war,” she said in a statement.
Responding to Trump’s comments, Vatican official Antonio Spadaro said the president was taking aim at “a moral voice” because he “cannot contain it.”
“Trump doesn’t debate Leo: he begs him to retreat into a language that he can dominate. But the Pope speaks another language, one that refuses to be reduced to the grammar of force, of security, of national interest,” said Spadaro on X.
“The attack is a declaration of impotence. … If Leo were irrelevant, he wouldn’t merit a word. Instead, he is called out, named, fought: a sign that his word cuts deep,” he said.
Pope Leo has previously spoken out against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
“The commitment to building a safer world free from the nuclear threat must be pursued through respectful encounters and sincere dialogue to build a lasting peace, founded on justice, fraternity and the common good,” he said last June, as Trump was weighing striking Iran’s nuclear sites.
Elise Ann Allen, a Rome-based correspondent for the Catholic media outlet Crux, said Trump’s comments were a sign he was “feeling threatened that Leo was emerging as a stronger figure on the international scene.”
“I think what is happening is Donald Trump is starting to feel the heat,” she told CNN. “(He) has to be careful, because he has to remember that it’s the moderate Catholics who got him elected in both elections.”
Leo advocates for a “disarmament of our speech” and is “not going to match this kind of rhetoric,” she added.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
