Who would have thought. An American pope at loggerheads with the White House. After the attack launched by US President Donald Trump on the pontiff (and the latter’s response) it is now Vice President JD Vance’s turn. Who in an interview with Fox News immediately sided with the occupant of the Oval Office. “In some cases it would be better for the Vatican to stick to moral issues” by focusing on “what happens in the Catholic Church” and leave it to the president of the United States “to dictate American public policy.” Vance then concluded by trying to minimize the extent of the controversy: “I don’t worry too much about it. I think it’s a natural thing, it’s not that serious.”
Vance: I certainly think that in some cases it would be better for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what going on in the Catholic Church and let the President to dictate American public policy pic.twitter.com/HcFoMpKGYT
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 13, 2026
The words of the US president
Trump himself had triggered the fuse, annoyed by the mobilization invoked by Prevost for peace in Iran. Pope Leo is “weak on the crime front and terrible at foreign policy” the president of the United States wrote in Truth.
“I much prefer his brother Louis because he is totally Maga. He understood everything” Trump continued, accusing Leo XIV of “considering it acceptable that Iran possesses nuclear weapons”. “I don’t want a pope who finds it terrible that America attacked Venezuela – we read in the post -, a country that was sending enormous quantities of drugs to the United States and which, even worse, was emptying its prisons, pouring murderers, drug dealers and violent criminals into our country. And I don’t want a pope who criticizes the American president because I’m doing exactly what I was elected to do, with a landslide victory, which is to bring crime to historic lows and create the largest stock market in history.”
The pontiff’s reply
Words to which Pope Leo had responded without delay. “I am not afraid of the Trump administration. I will continue to speak out loudly against war.” Today the pontiff spoke during a visit to the home for the elderly of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Annaba, Algeria. The heart of God, he said, “is not with the wicked, with the arrogant, with the proud: the heart of God is with the small and the humble, and with them he carries forward his Kingdom of love and peace, day by day. As you try to do here in daily service, in friendship, in living together”.
Meloni also takes sides
The words of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni who defined Trump’s words as “unacceptable” should also be noted regarding the ongoing conflict. “I expressed and renew my solidarity with Pope Leo” explained Meloni speaking on the sidelines of Vinitaly in Verona. “And I say more: frankly I would not feel comfortable in a society in which religious leaders do what political leaders say, let’s say not in this part of the world.” Salvini instead defined the tycoon’s attack as “out of place”, inviting the White House to engage in diplomacy. ”There is no need for clashes, the situation is already complicated without someone getting up in the morning attacking the Holy Father, there is a limit to human patience.”