Pope Leo XIV said Monday he won’t back down from his public opposition to war, brushing off a weekend attack from President Donald Trump as the pontiff boarded a plane for an 11-day trip across Africa.
“I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among states to find just solutions to problems,” Leo said. “Too many people are suffering in the world today. Too many innocent people are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say there’s a better way.”
The remarks came as Leo’s conflict with Washington broke into the open in ways that don’t have many modern precedents. The fight centers on the Iran war, which Leo has condemned repeatedly and which Trump has insisted was both necessary and justified.
Leo is the first American to hold the office of pope. That hasn’t made the relationship with the White House any warmer.
The rupture sharpened over the weekend. On Saturday, Leo addressed a worldwide peace vigil at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, warning global leaders against a “delusion of omnipotence” he said was feeding instability and pushing nations toward military escalation instead of diplomacy. The speech drew wide attention. Trump didn’t wait long to respond.
Sunday night, the President went to Truth Social. His post wasn’t subtle. “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump wrote. “I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.” Trump also circulated an AI-generated image placing himself in the role of Jesus Christ. He offered no explanation for it.
The Vatican’s response came fast. Father Antonio Spadaro, under-secretary of the Dicastery of Culture and Education, posted a pointed reply on social media. “When political power turns against a moral voice, it is often because it cannot contain it,” Spadaro wrote. A Vatican spokesman went further, saying Trump’s posts showed his “impotence” against the Vatican’s criticism of the Iran war.
The weekend’s confrontation wasn’t limited to Leo and Trump. Three American cardinals made a joint appearance on 60 Minutes on Sunday, a rare coordinated public statement from within the U.S. Catholic hierarchy. Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington, spoke for the group with blunt language about the concept of just war in Catholic doctrine. “In Catholic teaching, this is not a just war,” McElroy said. “This is a war of choice.”
That kind of unified, on-camera dissent from senior American clergy is unusual. It signals that the opposition to the Iran conflict inside the Church isn’t confined to Leo’s office or to Rome.
For context on how we got here, initial reporting tracked the early signs of this rift as it developed over the spring.
Leo’s 11-day Africa trip was already scheduled before this weekend’s blowup. He’s going. The attacks from Washington don’t appear to be changing his agenda or softening his public tone.
The broader stakes aren’t hard to see. An American pope in open friction with an American president over a war the United States is conducting, with three cardinals reinforcing that position on national television, that’s not a normal moment in Church-state relations. Trump’s Truth Social posts, including the image depicting himself as Jesus Christ, suggest he’s not looking to quietly manage the dispute either.
What’s less clear is whether any of this changes the political calculus in Washington on Iran. McElroy’s framing, that it’s a war of choice rather than necessity, maps directly onto the arguments that war opponents in Congress have struggled to get traction with. The cardinals appearing together on 60 Minutes Sunday gives those arguments a louder platform than they’ve had.
Leo, for his part, made his position plain before his plane left for Africa. “Someone has to stand up and say there’s a better way.” He’s saying it.