The Pontiff Does NOT Answer to POTUS

Davis H. Bodie, Ph.D.

04/13/2026

When the President of the United States publicly attacks Pope Leo XIV and the Papacy in language that is ignorant, arrogant, and embarrassingly juvenile, silence stops being prudent and starts looking like surrender at best and acceptance at worst.

The President’s recent post about Pope Leo XIV is deranged in its tone, cartoonish in its ego, and completely dangerous in what it reveals about him. A sitting president looked at the Vicar of Christ (a man calling for peace, moral restraint, and basic human sanity in a world drunk on war) and decided the real problem was that the Pope would not blindly accept what the President says, be the Clement V to his King Philip IV of France. That is not strength. That is not leadership. That is a man so insulated by praise that he now seems to believe even the successor of St. Peter should clear his statements with the Oval Office before speaking about right and wrong.

The Pope does not exist to flatter American power. That is not how this works. The papacy is not an advisory wing of a presidential administration just because the current occupant of the Chair of St. Peter was born in the United States. The papacy is older than the United States, older than every modern political party, and older than the social-media-fueled political obsession that has too many people confusing devotion with citizenship.

The Pope’s job is not to make Caesar feel affirmed. The Pope’s job is to preach the Gospel, defend the dignity of human life, call sinners to repentance, and remind every earthly ruler that they are not God. Which, apparently, is exactly the part that struck a nerve with Donald Trump.

To anyone reading that is non-Catholic: you do not have to believe what I believe about the Church and the Papacy to understand why this is not right. You just need any kind of moral instinct. A President publicly attacking a religious leader for opposing war and criticizing bloodlust should concern anyone who still believes in basic decency, constitutional liberty, and the idea that government is not supposed to bully the conscience of the nation. You do not have to be Catholic to know this is un-American, unpresidential, and unhinged. Loving your country does not mean worshiping its president, no matter how much he thinks you should.

To anyone reading that may be anti-Catholic: even if you dislike the Catholic Church, even if you have spent years criticizing it, this should still bother you. Because once you cheer a politician for humiliating one religious body he does not control, do not be shocked when he turns this same contempt toward someone else, someone you may follow. Today it is the Pope because he spoke against war. Tomorrow it is some pastor, rabbi, imam, minister, school, charity, or private citizen who refuses to baptize state power as holy. If your principles only apply to groups, you already like, then they are not principles. They are preferences.

To any atheists or agnostics reading this: this is not a “Catholic issue.” This is a power issue. This is what it looks like when political egotism collides with religious symbolism and assumes it owns both. You do not need to believe in Apostolic Succession to see the lunacy in a President talking as though the Pope’s legitimacy somehow flows from his own presidency. This is not normal democratic behavior. That is the language of a man who looks at himself and sees greatness no matter what. He has become insulated not only by criticism, but from reality. If you care about pluralism, civil peace, freedom of conscience, or keeping the state from becoming a personality cult draped in flags and Bible verses, then yes, you should care about this.

To my fellow Catholics: support for Pope Leo is not a partisan issue. It is not “left” or “right” to defend the spiritual independence of the Church from politicians. As Catholics, we do not believe the Pope is above criticism. Catholics criticize popes all the time; it is basically an Olympic event for some. But there is a world of difference between faithful disagreement and a President publicly berating the Pontiff because he spoke with moral clarity about war, death, and the abuse of power. If we cannot draw a line there, then we have already let politics catechize us more than Christianity has.

If you are a diehard supporter of the President, you should care about this too. Even if you love Trump, even if you think he fights hard for you, even if you like his policies, his social media posts, his rhetoric, this should set off alarms for you. A conservative movement worth anything at all is supposed to understand limits, institutions, humility before God, and the danger of handing too much emotional and moral authority to one man. If this movement now asks you to go after the Pope for speaking about peace, excuse war talk because it sounds manly, and cheer on a President acting like the Church should fall in line behind him, then what exactly are you trying to conserve? This is not ordered liberty. This is not reverence. And it sure as hell is not common sense.

What makes all this worse is the smugness of it. What makes all this worse is the smugness of it. The President and his administration are not merely aggressive; they are wholly sanctimonious. It has this permanent assumption that power is treated as proof of righteousness. Those critics and anyone who dares disagree with anything they say are weak because they lost, that peace is cowardly, that religious language can be rented like a prop whenever bombs need sanctification, and that anyone who objects is either wrong, not smart, or even anti-American. This is not moral seriousness. This is spiritual corruption in a red necktie made in China.

At some point, outrage must become clarity and action. Condemning this behavior is necessary, but it is not enough alone.

Reject the normalization of this behavior. Do not let these political theatrics lower your expectations for public conduct. Say clearly that attacking religious leaders for moral dissent is beneath the office.

Prove your commitment to liberty is real by defending Catholics and the Pope when it would be easier not to. You do not have to like the Church to recognize a line has been crossed.

Keep insisting on a country where no politician gets to weaponize faith for war or ego.

Pray for Pope Leo, pray for the Church, pray for this country, pray for the President, and then have the courage to speak plainly. No party, no ideology, and no politician gets your soul.

Recover the ability to say, “I support some things this President does, but this is wrong.” If you cannot say that, then you are not following a leader. You are serving a brand.

As for me, I am an American and a Catholic. I love my country enough to tell the truth about its leaders. I love my Church enough to defend her when the powerful mock her moral witness. And I love both enough to say that hatred, violence, war worship, and the constant holier-than-thou posturing of this administration are harming our public life.

The President is wrong. The Pope is right. He is right to speak out against this Administration and all world governments that act this way.

The rest of us need to decide whether we are citizens of a republic, members of the Church, and possessors of a conscience, or just the next audience for another ugly little rant from a man who thinks the whole world exists to applaud him.