President Donald Trump’s feud with Pope Leo XIV has only escalated since the president posted an AI-generated image of himself Sunday night dressed like a Christlike healer, laying hands on the forehead of a sick man as light pours from his fingers. The image was removed after backlash, but the message seemed clear: In Trump’s imagination, he is not just president — he’s the savior.
Asked about it, Trump insisted he thought it showed him “as a doctor.” Right. Because apparently doctors now make house calls dressed like Jesus.
The Catholic Church does not exist to flatter political leaders. It exists to challenge them.
Let’s be serious for a moment. Trump’s feud with the pope is not just another political spat. On one side is a president who treats faith like a loyalty test. On the other is the spiritual leader of a two thousand year old moral tradition.
And it’s a tradition I know personally. Before I was lieutenant governor of Maryland or chair of the Republican National Committee, I was an Augustinian seminarian at Villanova, the same seminary Pope Leo attended. So I know something about the church Trump seems to think he can bully into silence.
The Catholic Church does not exist to flatter political leaders. It exists to challenge them. This has been particularly true since the papacies of Benedict XV who made moral appeals and efforts at mediation during WWI; or Pope Pius XII who pressed the Vatican’s neutrality during WWII while engaging in quiet diplomacy creating rescue networks across Europe. That role has not changed in the modern era as we have witnessed popes from John Paul II to Leo XIV confronting power on war, poverty and human dignity, because the Gospel demands it.
So when Trump complains that the pope shouldn’t criticize him, what he’s really revealing is a basic delusion: He believes everyone must see the world exactly the way he does. But the church does not bend to presidents. History shows the danger when religious institutions cozy up to political power, including the tragic failures of some churches in Nazi Germany, which is precisely why the Catholic Church’s moral voice must remain independent of it.
It’s possible there’s something else at play here: jealousy. Trump cannot stand that there exists an American on the world stage more popular than he is. And the pope, inconveniently, is exactly that. The idea that millions look to a humble priest in a white cassock instead of a gold-plated strongman could conceivably be unbearable for Trump. As the world confronts economic, political and cultural stresses exacerbated by wars in Africa, Ukraine and now the Middle East, Catholic teaching calls all of us to welcome migrants, lift up the poor and reject cruelty. As the pope said very clearly, “Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!”
Trump’s politics misread history and revolve around his push for mass deportations, economic plunder and war.
Leo, to his credit, did not blink. Speaking aboard the papal plane Monday as he traveled to Africa, he said plainly he has no fear of speaking out. The church, he reminded the world, is not in the business of politics as Trump understands it. Its mission is to proclaim the Gospel and to be a peacemaker. In other words, the pope leaned into something simple and radical: love thy neighbor. Care for the vulnerable. Seek peace instead of war. Whether you are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or no faith at all, those principles, that moral code, speak to our shared humanity.
Trump treats everything, especially politics, like a loyalty test. It is not enough for members of his party or Cabinet to agree with him; they must submit.
Trump, meanwhile, keeps turning religion into a personal branding exercise. We have seen the pattern before: the staged photo outside St. John’s Church holding a Bible after protesters were cleared, the reposted images of Jesus supposedly sitting beside him in court. Trump treats religion as a prop, something he pulls out when it serves his personal or political interests.
Trump treats everything, especially politics, like a loyalty test. It is not enough for members of his party or Cabinet to agree with him; they must submit. And as we recently learned, he expects the same from the church. What Trump wants is a pope who falls in line.
Even Christ never demanded that kind of loyalty.
And that, more than any AI image or deleted social media post, is the real problem: Trump does not just misunderstand this pope as the Vicar of Christ, he misunderstands the danger of state overreach into spiritual domains — not to mention the history, power and the nature of the Catholic Church itself.
Michael Steele
Michael Steele is a co-host of "The Weeknight," which airs Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. ET on MS NOW. He is a former lieutenant governor of Maryland and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.