Don’t want to get into ‘debate with him’: How Trump’s feud with Pope on war could backfire

• Pope Leo plans to continue speaking against war, despite criticism from US ‌President Donald Trump.
• Trump slammed Leo as “terrible”.
• Trump’s posture may upset Christians ahead of the midterm elections.

Pope Leo told Reuters on Monday that he plans to continue speaking out against war after US ‌President Donald Trump’s direct attack on the leader of the 1.4-billion-member church.

In comments aboard the papal flight to Algiers, where the first US pope is starting a 10-day tour to four African countries, the pontiff also said the Christian message was being “abused”.

“I don’t want to get into a ⁠debate with him,” Leo told Reuters as he greeted journalists on the plane.

“I don’t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing.”

“I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among the states to look for just solutions to problems,” he said, speaking in English.

READ | Trump ‘not a big fan’ of Pope Leo XIV who made plea for peace

“Too many people are suffering in the world today,” said ‌Leo.

“Too ⁠many innocent people are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say: ‘There’s a better way.‘”

He said:

Leo, originally from Chicago, has emerged as an outspoken critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran in recent weeks and decried the “madness ⁠of war” in a peace appeal on Saturday.

Trump, in an apparent response to the pope’s criticisms of both the conflict and the White House’s ⁠hard-line immigration policies, said late on Sunday that Leo was “terrible”.

“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

AFP reported that Trump risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections.

The US president has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticised the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war.

The clash shows no signs of abating.

“There’s nothing to apologise for. He’s wrong,” the 79-year-old Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday.

On Sunday, Trump posted an AI-generated image seemingly depicting himself as a figure like Jesus Christ, which he later deleted.

He insisted on Monday that he believed the image showed himself as a doctor.

Three-times married billionaire Trump has long reached out to America’s evangelical Christians with his conservative, nativist vision.

They backed him in his election wins in 2016 and 2024, despite a series of scandals and an ambiguous personal relationship with religion.

But Trump, who has previously hawked $60 Bibles branded with his name, appeared to have had something of an awakening during his second term.

At his inauguration in 2025, he said he had been “saved by God” after a 2024 assassination attempt on the campaign trail and has taken a more explicitly religious tone.

Yet over the recent Easter period, which is sacred to Christians, Trump has made a series of eye-opening posts when it comes to religion.

On the morning of Easter Sunday, as Christians were celebrating around the world, Trump posted a profanity-laced warning to the “crazy bastards” of Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or else – bizarrely signing off: “Praise be to Allah.”

Then, amid what appeared to be increasing frustration after talks with Iran produced no breakthrough, came Sunday’s attacks on Pope Leo.

“I am disheartened that the president chose to write such disparaging words about the Holy Father,” the head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Paul Coakley, said in a statement.

At least one prominent Catholic in Trump’s administration backed the US president over the pontiff.

US Vice President JD Vance, a recent convert, told Fox News on Monday, “in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality… and let the President of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.”

There was no immediate reaction from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also Catholic.

Perhaps more worrying for the White House is the ire on the religious right, particularly among former allies.

Any slackening of support for Trump will add to concerns among Republicans that they could lose control of Congress in November’s mid-term elections, with the economy already a worry amid high oil prices caused by the Iran war.

“On Orthodox Easter, President Trump attacked the Pope because the Pope is rightly against Trump’s war in Iran and then he posted this picture of himself as if he is replacing Jesus,” one-time ally and former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene said.

“This comes after last week’s post of his evil tirade on Easter and then threatening to kill an entire civilisation. I completely denounce this and I’m praying against it!!!”

Conservative commentator Riley Gaines also railed against the apparent Jesus image.

“Seriously, I cannot understand why he’d post this,” Gaines said on X, urging Trump to show humility and adding: “God shall not be mocked.”