Donald Trump hearing from angry Republican Catholics who are disgusted by his obsession with His Holiness Pope Leo

A president cosplaying as Christ and trashing the pope crosses a moral red line | Echo Opinion published in the Miami Herald by Mary Anna Mancuso.

I’m a Republican. I’m also Catholic. And this weekend, both of parts of my identity were at odds when President Trump attacked Pope Leo, the first American pope in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Trump called Leo, “WEAK on Crime and terrible for Foreign Policy,” in a post on Truth Social on Sunday evening. He then boasted it was because he was in the White House that Pope Leo is in the Vatican. But Trump didn’t stop there, in the same post, he made it political saying, “I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA.”

More troubling was the AI-generated image Trump shared on Truth Social depicting himself as Jesus Christ. When a sitting president borrows sacred religious imagery and attacks the head of the Catholic Church, it’s not just political rhetoric but blasphemy. The image has since been deleted after backlash, but the point remains: Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo are morally wrong. 

No other American president has ever done this.

Catholics believe the pope is the successor to St. Peter, the spiritual leader of more than a billion worldwide. 

But, here in South Florida, this isn’t some distant theological concept — it’s personal. The Archdiocese of Miami is home to roughly 1.3 million Catholics, the single-largest religious group in South Florida. That’s more than a number, it’s families across Miami-Dade County, and 30% of adults, according to Pew Research. 

You don’t have to be Catholic to understand that the pope’s role is moral, not political. Criticizing the pope isn’t new, it’s happened for centuries. Catholics have debated and disagreed with Church leaders before. But, morally, this is different from theological differences. Treating the papacy as a political opponent to be mocked crosses a line as red as the pope’s vestment.

When the president ridicules a spiritual leader, it makes the office of the presidency look small, not powerful. When every institution is treated as political and something to be conquered, nothing is left above politics. Democracy requires shared ground — institutions that are beyond the reach of one man’s ambition. The Catholic Church is one of them.

For two millennia, the church outlasted empires and survived wars. And it’s always emerged from centuries of political turmoil with its mission intact. Indeed, the Catholic Church will outlast Trump’s insolence, too. 

Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was “disheartened” by Trump’s comments, saying, “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.” GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said, “I saw a lot of Republicans commenting in it last night. Some saying he’s just trolling, and others saying it’s anti-Christian. 

When you divide your own party it is self destructive. To me it was a gaudy and juvenile post.” Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, called it “inappropriate and embarrassing.” 

These are not liberal critics. These are Republicans telling Trump he went too far. And the post’s deletion suggests the White House knew it, too. On Monday, Leo told reporters he is “not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what the Church works for.”

“We are not politicians,” Leo said. Leo didn’t mince words and conservatives must defend that distinction. A president who portrays himself as Christ while treating the pope as a political enemy is doing more than attacking a religious leader. Trump is claiming authority that no American president is meant to have. But the deletion of the image wasn’t an act of contrition. There hasn’t been an apology or statement issued. Under pressure, Trump retreated — which is telling. It shows the backlash worked and that a line still exists. And it means Americans — including conservatives and Christians who support Trump — will not follow him past it. The papacy isn’t a political target, and Jesus Christ isn’t a brand. Any president who refuses to acknowledge that diminishes the office he holds. 

Mary Anna Mancuso is a member of the Miami Herald Editorial Board. Her email: mmancuso@miamiherald.com

Where are the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops? Thank you Bishop Mark J. Seitz, El Paso

Much has been written about how the sex-abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church has undermined the credibility and moral authority of Catholic bishops. 

Bishops must take action on immigration!

Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, holds photos of two migrant children who died in U.S. custody.
(CNS photo/David Agren)

Editorial echo opinion published in Commonweal Magazine

Their many failures in addressing that crisis have diminished their ability to bear prophetic witness to the Gospel at a moment when this country is in desperate need of it. The mostly self-inflicted wounds to episcopal authority will not heal overnight, as at least some of the bishops appear to understand. It takes a long time to build trust, and longer still to rebuild it.

Now, another crisis could provide an occasion for the bishops to show that they are more than just company men preoccupied with institutional self-preservation—if only they would recognize this opportunity and seize it. The Trump administration’s vicious mistreatment of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers, most of them Catholics from Central America, demands a vigorous response from the church’s leadership. That response cannot be limited to carefully modulated expressions of even more carefully qualified disapproval—nor indeed to any mere expression: it must also involve actions. If, in the abuse crisis, the U.S. bishops got in trouble by trying too hard to protect themselves and the material resources of their dioceses, in this crisis they can succeed only by taking risks and making some serious sacrifices.

Among the things they may have to surrender is their cozy relationship with the GOP. Afraid of alienating a party they still want to influence, and grateful to it for its official opposition to abortion, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has so far been unwilling to denounce Trump’s border policies as emphatically as it denounced the Obama administration’s contraception mandate. 

The latter was treated as an existential threat to the Catholic faith in America, while the former has too often been lamented as if it were just a lapse of judgment, perhaps a little excessive. The circumstances require something much stronger.

Something like what Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, did on June 27.

First, he led a group of migrants who had been denied entry to the United States across the Good Neighbor International Bridge into Ciudad Juárez.

Then, after speaking and praying with priests and activists gathered there, Seitz walked with seven other migrants back across the bridge into El Paso, where they were met by border officials. The bishop reports that a “tense” exchange followed, but in the end these migrants were all allowed to enter the country.

Before crossing the bridge into Mexico, Bishop Seitz spoke the following words:

"A government and society which view fleeing children and families as threats; a government which treats children in U.S. custody worse than animals; a government and society who turn their backs on pregnant mothers, babies, and families and make them wait in Ciudad Juárez without a thought to the crushing consequences on this challenged city.… This government and this society are not well. We suffer from a life-threatening case of hardening of the heart.[…] In the America of today, is there no more Golden Rule? Have we forgotten the lessons of Scripture? Have we forgotten the commandment to love? Have we forgotten God?"

That such questions now need to be asked indicates the gravity of the situation. This is not a time for the bishops to pull their punches or hedge their bets. This is a time for them to call on Catholics to do whatever it takes to assist those who are being rounded up in ICE raids or detained in wretched, dehumanizing conditions at the border; a time to demand that children separated from their families be reunited with them as soon as possible.

Whatever-it-takes may include civil disobedience; and if it does, then the bishops should lead by example. When seventy Catholics, including men and women religious, were arrested near the U.S. Capitol during a recent demonstration against President Trump’s border policies, several bishops issued statements of strong support for them. So long as those policies remain in force, there should be more such protests all over the country, and the bishops themselves should participate, even at the risk of arrest. A few Catholic parishes and retreat centers have offered themselves as sanctuaries for families in danger of being separated by ICE agents. That is a good start. Now the bishops should collectively encourage Catholic churches throughout the country to do the same, and they should show they’re serious about this by turning vacant diocesan buildings into sanctuaries and opening the doors of their own chanceries to those in need of refuge. This may entail serious legal complications. 

If it does, so be it. Bishops are pastors before they are property managers, and they must be ready to override the advice of their lawyers. It’s time for them to join Bishop Seitz—to cross the bridge from cautious criticism of the Trump administration’s cruelties to open defiance of them.