By Kanishka Singh and Joshua McElwee
WASHINGTON/ROME, April 13 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized Pope Leo as “terrible” in an unusual, direct attack on the pontiff, who responded by vowing to continue denouncing war and suffering.
The president’s comments came after the pope had spoken out, with growing force, against the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies.
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social late on Sunday.
Pope Leo, the first pontiff from the U.S., responded on Monday by saying he would continue to denounce war, adding that the Christian message, rooted in the primacy of peace, was being “abused”.
‘SOMEONE HAS TO STAND UP,’ POPE SAYS
“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,” Leo told Reuters aboard a papal flight to Algiers, where he is embarking on a 10-day tour to four African countries.
“Too many people are suffering in the world today,” he said. “Too many innocent people are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say there’s a better way.”
Catholics on social media lambasted Trump for attacking the leader of the 1.4-billion-member Catholic Church, who they believe is the successor of St. Peter, one of Jesus’ 12 apostles.
“There is no ambiguity about the situation now,” 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 Two to draw the late Pope Pius XII to support their causes.
“Not even Hitler or Mussolini attacked the pope so directly and publicly,” said Faggioli.
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was disheartened by 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.
TRUMP SAYS LEO SHOULD ‘GET HIS ACT TOGETHER’
Leo, originally from Chicago, is known for choosing his words carefully. He has emerged as an outspoken critic of the conflict with Iran in recent weeks and decried the “madness of war nL8N40U0B8” in a peace appeal on Saturday.
Last year, he questioned whether the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies were in line with the Church’s pro-life teachings, and called for a “deep reflection about the way migrants are being treated in the United States.
“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.
Trump wrote in his post on Sunday that “Leo should get his act together as Pope”, later telling reporters he was “not a big fan” of the pontiff.
Trump’s broadside against Leo also accused him of being “weak on nuclear weapons”, several days after the pope said the U.S. president’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization was “truly unacceptable”.
POPE SAYS HE IS NOT A POLITICIAN
In a speech on Palm Sunday last month in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican, the pope said God rejected the prayers of leaders who start wars and have their “hands full of blood nL1N40H029,” calling the conflict in Iran “atrocious”.
Leo has also called on Trump to find an “off-ramp” to end the conflict and “decrease the amount of violence”.
In his post, Trump suggested that Leo was only elected to lead the Catholic Church last year “because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump”.
Leo said on Monday that he was not a politician and did not want to be drawn into a debate with Trump.
“The message of the Church, my message, the message of the Gospel: Blessed are the Peacemakers. I do not look at my role as being political, a politician,” he said.
Trump also had a rocky relationship with Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, who criticized Trump’s immigration policy proposals when he first ran for president and suggested Trump was “not a Christian”.
Trump had called Francis “disgraceful” in early 2016.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Chris Kirkham in Los Angeles; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus, Crispian Balmer and Alison Williams)
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