President Donald Trump refused to apologize for his weekend comments tearing into Pope Leo XIV as a “weak” leader who caters to the radical left.
Trump on Sunday blasted the Pope as “weak” on multiple issues, and said the Christian leader should “focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.” Trump ran through a list of complaints on issues from Iran and Venezuela to crime and drugs in the Truth Social post. That fury came after the pontiff took issue with Trump’s comments about the Iran war and his threat to end a “whole civilization.” At an Oval Office presser on Monday, Trump doubled down on his criticisms after he was asked by a reporter whether he owes the Pope an apology.
“I don’t, because Pope Leo said things that are wrong. He was very much against what I’m doing with regard to Iran, and you cannot have a nuclear Iran. Pope Leo would not be happy with the end result,” Trump told reporters. “You have hundreds of millions of people dead and it’s not going to happen, so I can’t. I think he’s very weak on crime and other things, so I’m not. I mean, he went public.”
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“I’m just responding to Pope Leo,” Trump continued. “And, you know, his brother is a big MAGA person and he’s a great guy, Louis. And I said, I like Louis better than I like the Pope. Now you have to have law and order in our country and that’s what we have now. We have the lowest crime numbers we’ve had in a long time, despite the fact that many criminals were allowed into our country, but we’ve gotten a lot of them out. We’ve done a great job on crime.”
The reporter noted that Bishop Robert Barron, a Roman Catholic clergyman who serves on the Religious Freedom Commission, called for Trump to apologize in a Monday morning post on X.
“The statements made by President Trump on Truth Social regarding the Pope were entirely inappropriate and disrespectful. They don’t contribute at all to a constructive conversation,” Barron posted. “It is the Pope’s prerogative to articulate Catholic doctrine and the principles that govern the moral life. In regard to the concrete application of those principles, people of good will can and do disagree.”
“I would warmly recommend that serious Catholics within the Trump administration – Secretary Rubio, Vice President Vance, Ambassador Brian Burch, and others – might meet with Vatican officials so that a real dialogue can take place,” Barron continued. “This is far preferable to the statements on social media.”
Trump doubled down on his criticisms in remarks to reporters, saying that he has nothing to apologize for because the Pope is “wrong.”
“So we have the lowest murder rate in 125 years since 1900, the lowest murder rate. So we believe strongly in our order and he, he seemed to have a problem with that,” Trump said. “So there’s nothing to apologize for. He’s wrong. And the other thing is he didn’t like what we’re doing with respect to Iran, but Iran wants to be a nuclear nation so they can exterminate the world. Not going to happen.”
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