Trump calls Pope Leo ‘terrible’ in unusual direct attack on church leader

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WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump forcefully criticised Pope Leo late on April 12 in an unusual direct attack on the leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church that drew immediate rebuke from believers.

The President, in an apparent response to the Pope’s growing criticisms of the US-Israeli war on Iran and the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies, said Pope Leo was “terrible”.

“Pope Leo is weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy,” Mr Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Catholics on social media quickly lambasted Mr Trump for attacking the leader of their Church, whom they believe is the successor of Peter, one of Jesus’ 12 apostles.

“There is no ambiguity about the situation now,” Professor Massimo Faggioli, an expert on the papacy, told Reuters.

He compared the comments to efforts by the leaders of Germany and Italy during World War II to draw the late Pope Pius XII to support their causes.

“Not even Hitler or Mussolini attacked the pope so directly and publicly,” said Prof Faggioli.

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was disheartened by Mr Trump’s comments.

“Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls,” he said in a statement.

‘Madness of war’

Pope Leo, originally from Chicago, is the first US pope.

Known for choosing his words carefully, he has ​emerged as an outspoken critic of the Iran war in recent weeks and decried the “madness of war” in a peace appeal on April 11.

In 2025, he also questioned whether the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies were in line with the Church’s pro-life teachings.

“Someone who says I am against abortion but I am in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life,” the pontiff said in September.

Mr Trump wrote in his post on April 12 that “Leo should get his act together as Pope”, later telling reporters he was “not a big fan” of the pontiff.

He also accused Pope Leo of being “weak on nuclear weapons”, several days after the Pope said the US President’s threat to destroy Iranian civilisation was “truly unacceptable.”

In a speech on Palm Sunday in March at St Peter’s Square inside the Vatican, Pope Leo said God rejects the prayers of leaders who start wars and have their “hands full of blood”, calling the conflict in Iran “atrocious”.

Pope Leo has also called on Mr Trump to find an “off-ramp” to end the conflict and “decrease the amount of violence”.

In his post, Mr Trump suggested that Pope Leo was elected to lead the Catholic Church in 2025 only “because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump”.

The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Pope is due to leave on April 13 for an ambitious 10-day tour of four countries in Africa.

Pope Leo has called for “deep reflection” about the way migrants are being treated in the US.

His call for a more compassionate approach to immigration – a sentiment expressed by several of his predecessors – stands in contrast to the stance of Mr Trump, who has argued that the US must curtail immigration from developing countries to reduce crime.

“He’s a very liberal person, and he’s a man who doesn’t believe in stopping crime,” Mr Trump told reporters.

Mr Trump also had a rocky relationship with Pope Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, who criticised Mr Trump’s immigration policy proposals when he first ran for president and suggested he was “not a Christian”.

Mr Trump called Pope Francis “disgraceful” in early 2016. REUTERS