“Well, the pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don’t think that’s very good,” Trump told right-wing commentator Hugh Hewitt. “I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics, and a lot of people, but I guess if it’s up to the Pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
As has been explained and repeated in countless publications at this point, Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons. Our own intelligence agencies concluded as much and Ayatollah Khamenei — who Trump assassinated — maintained a religious ban against such armaments. Ironically, now that the United States has attacked, Iran has a greater incentive than ever to pursue nukes.
What’s more, Trump is the one who endangered Catholics, and indeed everyone on this planet, by starting an illegal war on behalf of Israel that could easily escalate into a new world war.
While Pope Leo didn’t mention Trump by name, a tactic often used by former President Barack Obama, it was clear who he was responding to.
“I have already spoken from the first moment ‘peace be with you.’ The mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace. If anyone wants to criticize me for proclaiming the Gospel, let them do so truthfully,” Leo told reporters in Italian. “The Church has spoken out against all nuclear weapons for years, so there is no doubt about that.”
Of course Pope Leo doesn’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons because the Catholic Church doesn’t want anyone to have them. At the same time, he won’t support a bloody, genocidal war of aggression being waged against innocent women and children to prevent weapons that were never being built in the first place.
Trump’s fixation on Leo stems from a frustration with his own powerlessness to stop the Vatican from criticizing this war. He’s used to Evangelical Republicans who claim to believe in Jesus but in practice believe in nothing beyond raw power. Now that he’s going up against a real Christian, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
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