Trump's tirade against Pope Leo XIV
For the first time in history, a US president has verbally attacked the Pope. In a lengthy social media post Donald Trump said the Pontiff was "terrible for foreign policy" and was damaging the Catholic Church. Leo XIV has repeatedly criticised Trump's policies, from migration policy to the war in Iran, albeit indirectly. In response to Trump's tirade, the pope said he was proclaiming the message of the Gospel.
In the name of religion
Tages-Anzeiger sides firmly with the Pope:
“The Vatican generally exercises great diplomatic restraint in order to maintain its room for manoeuvre. It deliberately avoids getting drawn into day-to-day politics and takes pride in exerting influence behind the scenes as a soft power with one of the world's largest diplomatic networks.Now, however, the Vatican has abandoned this restraint. And that's a good thing. Who, if not the Pope, will stand up against war and destruction – especially when it is waged in the name of religion?”
Not entirely wrong
The Pope has no special insight into political matters, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung points out:
“Other politically naive holy words come to mind. The critiques of capitalism in many a doctrinal statement, for example, have certainly not always been on the level of nuanced reflection, to put it mildly. Even where Church doctrine on war and peace is politically interpreted as a pacifist stance – as Leo sometimes seems to suggest – there is no mention of any criteria developed by the Church regarding just and unjust wars. Perhaps that's what prompted Trump's tirade.”
Clever marketing or personality disorder?
Trump's behaviour prompts journalist Kostas Giannakidis of News247 to question his mental health:
“Trump became the first Western leader since Henry VIII to pick a fight with the Pope. ... Then he posted a picture of himself as Jesus. ... Trump has already presented himself as the Pope, Superman, Uncle Sam, Rambo, Rocky, Captain America, a Star Wars Jedi, Moses, a Viking, a fighter pilot, an astronaut and a hiker with a penguin in Greenland. ... Is this a symptom of a profoundly narcissistic personality disorder or sophisticated marketing? I fear it's both. ... This is one of those cases where you would take away his car keys and install an app on his mobile phone to monitor his movements. Yet he is the President of the United States.”
Demigod versus Pontiff
For La Stampa, Trump has yet again overshot the mark:
“He failed to consider that the Vatican is not a room full of cheering fans. Before him stands an institution that has existed for millennia in a space where power is subject to scrutiny. In the words of Pope Leo, the Church's position is not the product of a 'debate', but the expression of an ethical and moral judgement on reality. And yet we should remember that the flamboyant president now believes himself to be the lord of earth and heaven, so accustomed is he to being treated like a demigod by the fanatical evangelical preachers with whom he regularly surrounds himself.”
Obvious cognitive deficit
Avvenire is outraged:
“The vulgar attack by the American president is not just an unrestrained political act: above all, it reveals a cognitive deficit. An inability to understand the Pope's words when he reminds us that 'the future belongs to men and women of peace' or repeats that 'violence will never have the last word.' Leo is not proposing strategies, he does not go into details of foreign policy. ... Over the past ten days from Easter until yesterday, Pope Leo has done nothing but repeat that too many people are dying. Too many children, too many innocents. Which is why we must 'end the war'. This is not an alternative political programme. It is not a countervailing force, it is a moral and spiritual discourse; it is purely about humanity.”
Head of the Church is misrepresenting the facts
The Pope should stop criticising the Iran war, The Times protests:
“Presenting this as a war of unjustified aggression is nothing less than moral inversion. The Pope has chosen to ignore totally the deliberate and mass shedding of innocent blood by the Iranian regime, which earlier this year murdered around 40,000 innocent protesters and has spent the past 47 years waging war on America and the West through murderous terrorist atrocities. According to both the US and Israel, it was also within a few months or perhaps weeks of getting the nuclear bomb. It is one of the world's most evil regimes and a direct and acute threat to the innocent.”