United States President, Donald Trump, has launched a fresh attack on Pope Leo XIV, expressing dissatisfaction with the pontiff’s views on global security, crime, and politics in a post shared Monday on Truth Social.
In the post, Trump objected to what he described as the pope’s stance on key international issues, particularly nuclear policy and US foreign interventions.
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump wrote.
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela,” or a pope who is critical of him doing “exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.”
The US leader also suggested that Pope Leo’s emergence as head of the Catholic Church was influenced by his own presidency, claiming the Vatican saw his nationality as an advantage in dealing with Washington.
“If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican,” Trump claimed.
He went further to draw comparisons within the pope’s family, stating a preference for his brother.
“I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn’t!”
Trump concluded by urging the pontiff to change direction, accusing him of aligning with liberal politics and straying from religious duties. Pope Leo should “get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician,” since it is hurting him and the Catholic church “very badly,” Trump added.
The remarks come amid ongoing tensions between the two figures, with Pope Leo—who became the first American to lead the Catholic Church—having previously criticised several policies associated with Trump, particularly on war and migration.
Earlier in February, the pope declined an invitation from the Vatican to participate in Trump’s Gaza Board of Peace initiative, reinforcing his position that global crises should be handled through multilateral institutions.
At the time, the Vatican’s top diplomat, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, emphasised the role of international bodies in conflict resolution.
The Holy See “will not participate in the Board of Peace because of its particular nature, which is evidently not that of other States,” Parolin said.
“One concern,” he noted, “is that at the international level it should above all be the United Nations that manages these crisis situations. This is one of the points on which we have insisted.”
