It was just four months ago that President Donald J. Trump said the quiet part out loud, declaring that his power could be restrained only by his “own morality, his own mind.” When Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV on social media Sunday night and posted a picture of himself as a Christlike figure, it wasn’t just Catholics who were disgusted. Sadly, this tracks with a man who sells Trump steaks, Trump coins, Trump Bibles and fraudulent Trump degrees. He worships at the altar of Donald J. Trump.
Standing in the breach, Leo and other prominent Catholic leaders have spoken out about Trump’s immoral war, his immigration enforcement overreach and his cuts to health care. They are not responding in political terms but moral ones. If the president’s reaction is any guide, they have struck a nerve.
I am not one to give advice — political or moral — to Trump, especially as he is on the ropes in a midterm election year. As he and Vice President JD Vance belabor a war of words with the pope, anyone would ask why any officeholder, much less the president, would double down on images and statements that alienate voters of faith and other segments of the electorate whose turnout is critical to winning in November. But there are issues to understand that are much larger than politics.
Pope Leo and other prominent Catholic leaders are not responding in political terms but moral ones. If the president’s reaction is any guide, they have struck a nerve.
Let’s be clear about what actually happened: The first American pope, born on the South Side of Chicago, presided over a prayer vigil at St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday and said “enough of the display of power,” arguing against the “delusion of omnipotence.” He said: “Enough of war.” Simply put, he did what popes do. He preached the Gospel. And the U.S. president called him a loser, accusing him of caving to the “radical left.” Trump’s chief sycophant, Vance, himself a recent convert to Catholicism, accused the pope of not understanding his own religion.
If Trump and Vance are offended by what Pope Leo said, they would be offended by what Jesus himself said and did.
I am a Catholic by choice as well as by upbringing, one of nine children raised Catholic in New Orleans. I was educated as a Catholic — St. Mathias, Jesuit High School, Catholic University of America, Loyola Law School. In high school, a Jesuit priest, Father Harry Tompson, told me to “go where you can do the most good for the most people in the shortest amount of time.” That has always stuck with me. The Jesuits taught me that the whole point of the Gospel is not comfort for the comfortable but for the poor and those in need. These are not political positions arrived at through polling. They are convictions developed sitting in church pews and in classrooms where Jesuit teachers pushed us, relentlessly, to ask: What does this mean for the least among us? That centering of social justice is the foundation of everything I have ever tried to do in public life.
Pope Leo XIV was formed in the same tradition. He answered a moral calling that demands exactly the kind of courage he is showing. “I have no fear of neither the Trump administration, nor of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel. That’s what I believe I am called to do,” he said in response to questions Monday as he began a trip to Africa.
That is what moral courage looks like.
Leo has been clear: He will “continue to speak out loudly against war,” advocating for dialogue and multilateral solutions because “too many people are suffering in the world today. Too many innocent people are being killed.” That’s not a radical leftist. That’s Matthew 5:9 — “Blessed are the peacemakers.” That’s the Sermon on the Mount. The pope has also called out Trump’s threats to wipe out Iranian civilization, saying that attacks on civilian infrastructure violate international law, and urged Americans to contact their representatives and demand peace. Other prominent Catholic leaders such as Cardinal Joseph Tobin, archbishop of Newark, have called Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement organization tactics “lawless.”
That is what moral courage looks like.
I have spent my life trying — imperfectly but sincerely — to live out what I learned in those Jesuit classrooms and Catholic pews. To make straight what is crooked. To remember that the Gospel is not a political platform but a moral imperative that cuts across every party line. I have found faith as a guide, a place to reach for guidance and hope. A place for strength and courage. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” turns out to be a good lesson for all of us, in governing and in life.
To be clear, I am imperfect and have lost my way many times. I have also at times found myself opposite the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. There have been times when leaders of the Catholic Church have waded into politics more than I would like. Leo preaching the Gospel was not that, and those who argue otherwise should probably pick up a Bible.
In response to the president’s attacks, Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, put it simply: “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.” Bishop Robert Barron, who is widely considered conservative and serves on the president’s Religious Liberty Commission, called on the president to apologize: “The statements made by President Trump on Truth Social regarding the Pope were entirely inappropriate and disrespectful.”
This is a bigger fight than the president apparently thought he was taking on.
Trump has spent his political career demanding loyalty and punishing conscience. He bullies to capitulation anyone he sees as his opponent. This week he has found that the Bishop of Rome does not play by those rules. The Gospel is not weak. And neither, it turns out, is the first American pope, who looked at all the power of the American president and said: I am not afraid.
We should not be either.
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Mitch Landrieu was lieutenant governor of Louisiana from 2004 to 2010 and mayor of New Orleans from 2010 to 2018. He later served as senior adviser to President Joe Biden. He is co-chair of American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic research and rapid response organization, and founder and president of E Pluribus Unum, a nonprofit that works across the American South to bridge divides.