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I’m sorry, but no.
If it were only about bad opinions, fine. Argue the opinions.
But when you attack the Pope and then pair it with miracle imagery casting Trump in a healer role, that’s not normal issue criticism anymore.
That’s a rival moral-authority play.
But the Pope did it first. Why should the Pope have a monopoly on religious iconography?
Let's rewind a bit. Iran-financed Houthis attacked merchant vessels. No comment from the Pope. The Iranian government, which makes apostasy from Islam punishable by death, kills somewhere between 3,000 and 40,000 protesters. No comment from the Pope.
Then democratically-elected Trump, at the urging of Israel, the US military, and the Iranian diaspora, goes to war with Iran and calls on the people of Iran to reclaim their government for themselves. And then the blue-state Pope comes out to say war is bad, selfishness is bad, money is bad, and he frames all of this not as a political non-argument socialist platitude to make Trump look bad, but as the Gospel message.
So Trump calls him a loser and posts a meme. Well-deserved I say.
I think you’re collapsing two different things.
Arguing the Pope is wrong on issues is normal.
Attacking the Pope while elevating yourself with religious imagery isn’t.
That’s not disagreement.
That’s competing for moral authority.
I’ve been writing about this pattern for a while. This isn’t new:
#1261531
But the Pope attacked US policy while elevating himself with religious imagery. We're even now.
I don’t think that’s even close to even.
The Pope is speaking from a role built on religious authority.
Trump is a political figure borrowing that imagery while attacking it.
That’s not symmetry.
That’s crossover.
I wrote more about that pattern here:
#1466478
The Pope initiated the crossover when he stepped out of his religious role to speak on politics, and in Iran's favor no less.
That’s not a fair read.
He didn’t side with Iran.
He said:
“Enough of war.”
Warned against a
"delusion of omnipotence."
And told leaders:
“Stop! It is time for peace!”
His point wasn’t geopolitical.
It was that invoking God, the God revealed in Yeshua, to justify violence is a misuse of His Name.
That’s not politics.
That’s theology.
Official text:
https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/homilies/2026/documents/20260411-rosario-pace.html
The timing is inappropriate. This statement should have been issued when Iran killed the protesters, not when the US retaliated.
I think it's the exact opposite. I think Trump's concept of "moral authority" is purely based on whether or not the stated moral claims are correct. All of his criticism of the Pope is related to specific issues where he believes the Pope has the wrong opinion. If the Papacy's "authority" is lesser than that of the US Presidency, it's only as a secondary consequence of being wrong. He hasn't criticized the Vatican as an institution or the concept of a hierarchical church delivering opinions. It's the opinions themselves that he has a problem with, and the way he speaks about the Pope isn't much different from how he talks about podcasters or any other influencer.