Some Moral Arguments Are Complicated. Not these.
Contrary to some headlines, there is not a feud between Pope Leo and Donald Trump. There is something much more serious and worse. First off, Pope Leo isn’t feuding, “he is preaching the Gospel and exercising his ministry as the Vicar of Christ,” as the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine explained. Second, Trump is flat-out lying about the pope — for example, by claiming that “The pope made a statement, he says Iran can have a nuclear weapon,” when of course he said no such thing.
Bearing false witness is second nature to Trump. He breaks the Ninth Commandment on a daily basis, almost every time he speaks about someone who’s not aligned with him. He isn’t feuding with the pope, he’s at war with honesty, decency and the core teachings of Christianity as a whole, as well as Judaism and Islam. Adding insult to injury, Trump even posted an AI image portraying himself as Jesus — and then lied about it when the backlash caught him by surprise.
And it’s not just Trump. His secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, read a phony Bible verse from the movie Pulp Fiction in the midst of an unconstitutional prayer meeting at the Pentagon. And his vice president, JD Vance, arrogantly told the pope that he was wrong theologically and should shut up. Arrogance, of course, is a sin. “The Lord abhors every arrogant person,” Proverbs 16 says, “rest assured that they will not go unpunished.”
In short, we’re witnessing a blasphemous government at war with core teachings taught by virtually all world religions — Buddhism and Hinduism as well. Pope Leo and Donald Trump may help illustrate that war and the religious response. But they are not the sum total of it.
To broaden the lens, Random Lengths reached out to local parishes, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and others. Most, unfortunately, were reluctant to talk.
“The president will continue for the next three years to attack or praise whomever he chooses. The pope will continue for the rest of his life to pray for everyone,” one San Pedro Catholic said, before asking that her name not be used.
Neither Holy Trinity nor Mary Star of the Sea responded to repeated requests, and the archdiocese declined comment. Media director Yannina Diaz politely explained that “Matters related to the Holy Father are addressed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.”
Fortunately, when we explained our broader concern, she referred us to Jesuit Father Allan Figueroa Deck, a distinguished scholar in pastoral theology and Latino studies at Loyola Marymount University, who spoke graciously about what’s clearly a challenging situation. And Susan Dietrich, a member of Los Angeles Catholic Worker, spoke openly with us as well. Both recognized that individual Catholics hold a wide range of views, while clearly communicating their tradition-based perspectives.
“At the Catholic Worker we are a prophetic witness. That is what we are called,” said Dietrich. They vigil every Friday from 1 to 2 in front of the federal building, “and it’s an anti-ICE protest,” she said. “We do not think that what we do will stop Trump immediately. But we believe that we must stand up and speak truth to power and say no to ICE and the administration for what they are doing to immigrants. They are literally kidnapping people off the streets,” she explained.
“Also, recently with the war … we have a dual focus. … Those are the two issues that we feel that we can actually concentrate on,” she added.
Speaking more broadly of the Church, she said, “We are the mystical body of Christ. And when one part suffers, we all suffer. And that is why I stand against ICE and immigration practices and that is why I stand in opposition to this war.”
Her view of Trump is simple. “He’s a convicted rapist, he’s a criminal,” she bluntly observed. “One of my favorite signs that I [saw at] No Kings rallies is ‘if you put a convicted rapist in the White House, expect to get screwed.’”
“To know that Catholics voted for Trump, it’s beyond me,” she said. “Something like 56% of Catholics voted for him. That shocked me. But the only thing I can think of is the abortion issue.”
Historically that makes sense, even though a majority of Catholics are pro-choice: 57% of white Catholics and 62% of Hispanic Catholics said abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to a poll released by the Public Religion Research Institute on April 23.
A significant number of these Catholics are personally pro-life, with an outlook similar to Dietrich.
“I don’t like abortion but I don’t judge,” she said. “I do not think that it is up to Catholics to enter the political system to make abortion illegal. I think that that is a decision between the person and God.”
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose views are similar, was denied communion by the archbishop of San Francisco, but received communion at a Vatican mass with Pope Francis in June 2022, a reflection of Church fissures on the subject.
But similar fissures haven’t been seen on immigration or the Iran war. Last November, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a special message opposing “the indiscriminate mass deportation of people,” with 216 votes in favor, and only five against. The war has happened too recently for any similar response, but on April 12, three American cardinals appeared on 60 Minutes, and forcefully echoed Pope Leo XIV’s calls for peace — based on Catholic just war doctrine — as well as his pro-immigrant stance. And three days later, the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine echoed that support.
Fr Deck helped explain why these issues are different, and how much deeper, and long-standing the Church’s shared understanding is.
On immigration, there was never any doubt. “I think that the consistent teaching of the Church in defense of the dignity of immigrants was a source of considerable irritation to Mr. Trump and people who wanted to pursue a rather extreme policy of deportations characterized by really a lot of cruelty,” Deck said. “The Church is very much concerned about the impact that the policies of ICE, of the whole deportation program, is having on the life of the community. And not only the Catholic community, but other other churches as well.”
This set the table for the escalated rhetoric around the war.
“Pope Leo is focusing very clearly and very straight in a very straightforward way,” he said. “There’s a very long tradition of thought about this matter, and yes there is the development of it, but it goes all the way back to thinkers like St. Augustine, in the end of the fourth century.”
Part of that tradition is that “wars that you choose on your own — that is where your free discretion is to just go to war, you just decide to go to war — are immoral,” he explained. “So he’s only expressing this in a simple and straightforward way.”
One example was when Pope Leo said that “Jesus, King of Peace … does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: Your hands are full of blood.’”
This led Vice President Vance to object, invoking just war theory without knowing what it meant. As a professor of theology, Fr Deck was not impressed. “Mr. JD Vance, who is a newly formed Catholic, still has a considerable way to go in learning about what his church teaches,” he said. “It was pretty absurd, really absurd to hear a newly converted Catholic lecturing a Pope about a particular theology as it pertains to just war theory — and then also saying that the Pope should stay in his lane which is morality, when the Pope is staying in his lane, which is morality, because the issue at hand is a moral one, namely the morality of war, which is a pretty serious topic.”
Vance’s view reflects a common misunderstanding “regarding the connection between faith, religion and politics,” Deck added. “In the Catholic tradition, we respect policymaking … And for that reason the Catholic Church does not separate religion from politics understood that way. It separates it from partisanship, it separates it from party politics; but not from politics understood as the public square where decisions are made about pretty fundamental questions — like, ‘Can we eat?’ ‘Do we have food to eat?’ ‘Do we have access to medical care?’ ‘Do we have security?’ ‘[Are] our human dignity and human rights being preserved?’ All of these are political, they have important political aspects,” Deck explained.
“So the teachings of the faith can and often do touch upon how we exercise, how we guarantee, how we bring about those conditions for a more humane life, a better life for people, a fuller life for people. So the idea that Mr. Vance would separate, or would claim that what the Pope was doing was entering into politics really doesn’t stand up to analysis if you would have what we would consider in the Catholic tradition a proper understanding of the relationship between faith and action.”
Returning to Trump’s conflict with Pope Leo, Fr Deck’s comments touched on three levels.
At a surface level, “Part of the situation that captures our attention is the contrast between the Pope and Mr. Trump,” Fr Deck noted. “The Pope is a mild-mannered and very measured person, and … he doesn’t … say things off-the-cuff very easily,” in contrast to the former Pope Francis. “When the Pope speaks, I think people are paying attention in a way that they’re not paying attention to what Mr. Trump is saying. Because Trump kind of sometimes prevaricates, he says things that are contradictory, changes his mind, and he goes on and on. But Pope Francis is not speaking that way. So when he speaks, people pay attention.”
Then there’s the substantive policy level.
After World War II, “the most devastating war in the history of humanity,” America helped establish a framework of international law and institutions to ensure against it ever happening again and “Catholic social teaching, Catholic teaching on war, the just war theory really played an important role in providing the intellectual context for that,” Deck explained. The UN Charter, which forbids wars of aggression, was a key part of that.
In contrast to that cooperative effort, “We know that, unfortunately, Mr. Trump’s approach to international affairs has been characterized by a go it alone mentality. Certainly not one that plays into the need to build understanding among nations and cooperation among nations, but rather one that is characterized by who has more power, who has more influence, by a purely transactional way of proceeding that thinks of international relations making an analogy with business deals and this is not very helpful,” Deck said.
“There may be some aspects of international affairs that are like business deals,” he acknowledged, “But there’s more to it than that. And he has been overlooking the many, many generations of reflection and thought and rules that have been established, that are conducive to bringing about understanding, peace and mutuality among nations.”
Finally, “I could give you the example of what is happening to the relationship of our country with Canada. I think it’s heartbreaking,” he said, “That’s just one example, but there are many, many of them and it’s very sad.”
In stark contrast to Trump, “The Catholic Church in its participation in world affairs in the 20th century and certainly in the 21st century is very committed to what is called multi-lateralism,” Deck stressed. “In the dealings among countries a regard has to be given to the whole [of] all of the countries, not just the ones that are on the top, that have the economic advantage, or what have you. But that there has to be a sense of working together, not just for one nation’s interests, but for the common good of the whole human family,” he explained. “That may be difficult. That may be challenging. But that’s what Christianity as it’s understood in the Catholic Church demands of us.”
Underlying that is the question of the relationship between a person’s faith and how they participate in matters of political affairs.
“There’s a tendency to make religion a purely private matter and in the Catholic tradition we’ve never thought that religion is a purely private matter … But in a Christian way of thinking and I would venture to say in a biblical way of thinking — that would impact also Muslims and Jews — religion isn’t a private matter, because religion has to do with how we relate to other people in the world,” Deck explained. “The Catholic Church is in favor of the separation of church and state,” he went on to say, “But it doesn’t mean that the church isn’t able to comment on what’s going on in the state or vice versa, by the state to comment was going on in the church, if what the church is doing is abusive.”
If this is true about faith and politics in general, then it’s obvious why the Pope would speak out against war.” Deck said, “Because war makes a big difference. It’s about the destruction of people’s lives, of people’s livelihoods and so forth. So of course he’s going to speak out about the necessity to be promoting peace. And as Pope Leo said, in the Scriptures, It’s very clear: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ not ‘blessed are the warmongers.’”