We start the week, some news devours others with a portentous speed. Pope Leo has begun his third apostolic journey, this one to Africa starting with Algeria, following in the footsteps of Saint Augustine. Trump has exploded and it seems that the differences between the Vatican and the President of the United States are much deeper than we thought until now. Let’s try to tell where we are now, perhaps in a few hours we will be in another scenario. The balances of the Second World War have ended and we don’t know very well where all this will end, it’s all stirred up, the old formulas have fallen and the new ones resist appearing.
The trip to Africa has begun.
Trump explodes against Pope Leo.
The power that cannot bear to be judged and Trump, in his vulgar and deranged attack against Pope Leo XIV in the last hours, without realizing it, has painted his own most faithful portrait : that of a man who confuses strength with authority, consensus with legitimacy, the silence of others with surrender. His words would not deserve a response if they were not an unsettling symptom of something broader and more dangerous: the tendency of certain populist politicians to treat every moral institution as an obstacle that must be demolished, every critical voice as an enemy that must be delegitimized, every spiritual authority as a tool that must be manipulated for electoral purposes.
The world is filled with politicians who have adopted his same methods: the reckless assertion, the opportunistic slander, the lie repeated until it seems true. We see it daily in a scenario where verbal violence has no price and the truth is always negotiable. People attack, slander, distort, and when someone points out the error, the publication disappears silently, without rectification, without apology, as if it had never existed. This is the grammar of populism: arrogance in the attack, cowardice in the retreat. What makes all this not only reprehensible, but dangerous, is that Trump is not an anonymous neighborhood provocateur. He is the President of the United States of America. And when the most powerful man in the world adopts the tone of a bully, he does not do it in a vacuum: he legitimizes it, normalizes it, transforms it into a model.
Trump accuses Leo XIV of being «indulgent with crime», of not understanding the «greatness» of the United States, of playing into the hands of the radical left. He exhorts him to «return to normality». He even goes so far as to claim credit for his election, declaring that without him, «Leo would not be in the Vatican». These claims are not only false, but radically alien to any understanding—even the most minimal—of what the Catholic Church is, its nature, its mission, its mystery. Romano Guardini in Power (1951): «Power is not evil in itself, but it becomes destructive when it is considered absolute and refuses to be judged by any higher authority». This is precisely what happens when a head of state arrogates to himself the right to judge the Vicar of Christ and tell him how he should behave.
The president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops responded with measured but unequivocal words: «I am saddened that the President has chosen to write such offensive words about the Holy Father. 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 » .
What Trump has done is an attempt to publicly humiliate the leader of one of the oldest and most rooted spiritual institutions in human civilization , using language typical of bullies—disrespectful, fallacious, arrogant—to assert that no moral voice has the right to exist outside his control. It is not the first time that political power has tried to silence the Church. Henry VIII did it, the Jacobins did it, Bismarck did it with the Kulturkampf , the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century did it. But those episodes occurred within the framework of complex historical conflicts, in times when the structures of international law did not exist or were incipient. Today, in 2025, a democratically elected president insults the Pope on a social network because he dared to remind him that there are values—peace, human dignity, care for the poor—that are not measured in stock points or crime statistics.
This is an act of institutional intimidation that the free press, diplomacy, and politics—of all kinds—have the duty to condemn without ambiguity. Silence or minimization would be complicit.
Hannah Arendt, in The Origins of Totalitarianism , observed that one of the characteristics of totalitarian thinking is the denial of any reality that is not functional to the system of domination: «The totalitarian does not debate: it erases. It does not refute: it destroys». Trump does not go—as far as now—to physical destruction. But symbolic destruction, public delegitimization, the reduction of his adversary to a puppet manipulated by enemies, these are his tools.
In the midst of the controversy, the Pope has undertaken his third apostolic journey —the longest since the beginning of his pontificate— and his priorities demonstrate, better than any denial, how little the invectives from Washington affect him. Journalists will undoubtedly try to involve him in the dispute during the press conference upon his return from Equatorial Guinea; that is their method, and it would be naive to expect otherwise, but Leo will not lower himself to that ground. Not responding is not weakness; it is the highest expression of authority.
«I am not afraid, I am not going to argue with him».
«I am not afraid of the Trump government. I speak of the Gospel. I will continue to speak out against the war », the Pope responded to the media on the way to Algiers after Trump’s attack. «I have no intention of debating with him». The attack by the US president comes after the pontiff’s comments on the threat from Trump on the day of the ultimatum to Iran, when the US leader declared: «Tonight an entire civilization will die.» «This is unacceptable». There are certainly issues of international law, but much more: the moral issue of the good of the people, and I would like to invite everyone to reflect deeply on the many innocent people, the many children, the many elderly, totally innocent, who would also be victims of this escalation of a war that has already begun». «From the first days» of the conflict «we said: let’s return to dialogue, let’s seek a way to resolve problems without reaching this point». It is about finding «how to communicate with the authorities to tell them that we do not want war. We are a people who love peace».
The Vatican’s response.
«He has excommunicated himself» is the cold and silent comment that is leaking from the Vatican . The harsh statements of the president Donald Trump have caused surprise in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See. An unprecedented attack that marks an unimaginable breach between the White House and the Vatican. While the Western world begins to become aware of Trump’s penultimate diatribe, the silence of the Vatican is more emblematic than ever. Disarmed and captivating, the brilliant smile of blessing from Pope Leo XIV, as he departed for the birthplace of Saint Augustine, a giant of the faith capable of speaking to the heart of anyone and the inspiration of his pontificate, will find the right words during his trip to Africa to forgive, appease, and leave even the indomitable Trump in the whirlwind of history.
Cupich, McElroy and Tobin in 60 Minutes.
The president’s post came immediately after CBS aired a 60 Minutes segment dedicated to Leo XIV’s Church. In the interview, the three American cardinals who lead archdioceses—Cupich, McElroy, and Tobin—defended the Pope’s positions in an unprecedented joint interview. Cardinal Robert McElroy denied that the conflict in Iran meets the criteria for a just war according to Catholic doctrine: «It is a war of choice». Cardinal Blase Cupich denounced the «gamification» of war in White House videos: «We are dehumanizing the victims by turning suffering into entertainment». Cardinal Joseph Tobin reiterated his characterization of ICE as a «lawless organization» and noted that attendance at Spanish masses in his archdiocese had decreased by 30 percent in a year. Archbishop Paul Coakley , president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, responded to the attack with the following statement: «The Pope is not the president’s rival, nor a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ, who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls».
The reaction of the American bishops.
Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops responded to President Trump’s attacks against Leo XIV. «I am saddened that the President has chosen to write such offensive words about the Holy Father. Pope Leo XIV is not his rival, nor is he a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls».
The Italian bishops support the Pope.
The Presidency of the Italian Episcopal Conference, renewing its «full communion with the Holy Father Leo XIV», expresses its «regret for the words addressed to him in the last hours by the President of the United States, Donald Trump». «In a moment marked by international conflict and tension, his voice represents an imperative call to human dignity, dialogue, and responsibility. The Churches in Italy renew their closeness, affection, and prayers to the Holy Father, hoping for respect from all toward him and his ministry».
Spadaro SJ : «Trump’s declaration of impotence».
«Donald Trump attacks Pope Leo XIV. And in doing so, he reveals a deep unease. When political power attacks a moral voice, it is because it cannot contain it. Trump is not talking about Leo XIV: he is begging him to return to a language that can be imposed». «But the Pope speaks a different language, one that cannot be reduced to the grammar of force, security, or national interest». «In this sense, the attack is a declaration of impotence. Unable to assimilate that voice, those who hold power try to delegitimize it. But in doing so, they implicitly recognize its weight. If Leo were irrelevant, he would not deserve a word. Instead, he is questioned, named, challenged: a sign that his words have impact. This is where the moral strength of the Church emerges. Not as a counterpower, but as a space in which power is judged according to a criterion it does not control. Leo does not respond with polemics, and for this very reason, he remains out of reach. He is free. And that freedom, disarmed and disarming, is perhaps the most unsettling. And, at the same time, the most important».
Between charity and philanthropy: secular holiness.
Mattarella, the President of Italy, awarded 28 young people for their civic spirit and courage: a ceremony with shades of secular religiosity, in a world that pretends to function as if God did not exist. The «secular saints» are fine, but first we need «Christian saints». President Sergio Mattarella awarded the title of Standard Bearer of the Republic to 28 young people who distinguished themselves for their civic spirit, responsibility, and courage. Among them were a 13-year-old boy who saved a friend’s life who was drowning by performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, a 17-year-old poet, and a young woman deeply committed to the Red Cross who organizes first aid courses.
The context was that of republican institutions and, therefore, secular, but the idea of a «secular holiness» may also have arisen in many, a concept that evokes religion. The argument is that if it is possible to be altruistic and disinterested without religion, then the world has reached maturity, it is capable of acting on its own, of autonomously guaranteeing its own moral resources and no longer needs God. Everything in the world seems to function as if God did not exist, including social ethics, which has its own values and defenders who embody them. This «secular religion» even emerges as superior to the «religious religion», becoming the criterion of admissibility and public legitimacy.
It is presumed that those young people were motivated solely by secular ethical reasons, but who can confirm it? Moreover, the young people awarded by Mattarella were certainly not driven to those acts of commitment by the Constitution, but rather by a natural morality inherent in every human being, which invites us to do good. It was the natural moral law that drove that thirteen-year-old boy to save his friend from drowning, not the principles of the Republic. The preservation of the principles of the natural moral law in common sense is also due to Christianity, which does not arise once the natural plane has followed its course, but questions it from the beginning, preserving and purifying it. As secularization advances, the defense of natural law also weakens, but it remains, though unnoticed, in its intimate bonds with religion. Even if the secular world considers itself adult and mature, a world in which God is invisible, the sediments of Christianity are still present.
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