{"id":165,"date":"2026-06-02T17:12:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T17:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=165"},"modified":"2026-06-02T17:12:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T17:12:44","slug":"why-pope-leo-gets-under-trumps-skin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=165","title":{"rendered":"Why Pope Leo Gets Under Trump\u2019s Skin"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

As is the case with so many of its forays, it\u2019s hard to figure out the endgame of the Trump administration\u2019s belligerent clash with the Vatican. There was more than a touch of mockery to The New York Times<\/em>\u2019 April headline \u201cVance Says the Pope Should Be More Careful When Talking About Theology.\u201d The vice president converted to Catholicism (loudly) seven years ago and has not taken kindly to Pope Leo XIV\u2019s exhortations to avoid bloodshed (or shelter the immigrant, or abide by any number of the core tenets of Catholic social teaching). The contretemps, while alternately entertaining, infuriating, and baffling, does not tell us much we didn\u2019t already know about the current White House. But what does it tell us about the current Catholic Church? What, if anything, do the agnostic, the irreligious, or the non-Catholic religious need to know about it?<\/p>\n

Read more Bruce Springsteen Gave Us Exactly What We Need Right Now<\/a><\/p>\n

The irenic tenure of the late Pope Francis, who welcomed trans Catholics and denounced unrestrained capitalism, piqued a lot of secular interest. And secular, religious, and lapsed observers alike have been trying to read the tea leaves of this new papacy ever since the election of the first American pope last spring. His public statements have been quickly seized upon and claimed (or denounced) by various political factions; there\u2019s an online cottage industry dedicated to interpreting them. Leo\u2019s choices do invite these reactions. It\u2019s hard to imagine that his decision to include Isaiah 1:15 (\u201cEven though you make many prayers, I will not listen: Your hands are full of blood\u201d) in his Palm Sunday homily in St. Peter\u2019s Square was unrelated to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s worship service several days earlier, in which he prayed for \u201coverwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nation<\/em> readers are likely encouraged by the pontiff\u2019s stance on the United States\u2019 illegal and confounding war against Iran. They are probably less happy about his insistence that while the church should de-emphasize traditional Catholic stances on sexuality in favor of the pursuit of social justice, the Holy See still officially doesn\u2019t endorse the formal blessing of same-sex couples. (I share their disappointment.) But secular observers often fail to reckon with the Catholic Church\u2019s sheer age and size: More than 2,000 years old and sprawling across the globe, it is ill-equipped to seamlessly and promptly reconcile with concerns, however real and urgent, that have emerged in more recent decades. There\u2019s something to the writer Madoc Cairns\u2019s quip that \u201cCatholicism is nine times older than the left-right paradigm.\u201d<\/p>\n

But here we are in 2026, when that paradigm (arguably) still holds. The apex of the church\u2019s temporal power is centuries in the rearview mirror, and we\u2019re living in, if you like, a disenchanted world. And yet we find ourselves with a pope to the left of any number of mainstream American institutions and a president enraged by his own inability to dampen the pontiff\u2019s convictions.<\/p>\n

Read more The Troubled History of Charlottesville<\/a><\/p>\n

The artifacts of the Trump administration\u2019s side of the feud\u2014however unprecedentedly hostile\u2014are likely to remain either inscrutable or too daft to warrant parsing. The president keeps mentioning the fracas at inopportune moments, such as at his own public-relations stunt to highlight his tax bill\u2019s \u201cno tax on tips\u201d provision. But how much \u201cthere\u201d is there to Trump\u2019s AI-generated image of himself in papal regalia, or the quickly deleted image of himself as a robed, Jesus-like figure healing a sick man? These are desperate bids for attention from a bellicose lame duck. The richer texts come from Leo, whose provocations remind us that religious and secular concerns can converge beautifully on the matter of human dignity in a world riven with inequality and violence. During a recent visit to Cameroon, the pope didn\u2019t need to name names when he said, \u201cThey turn a blind eye to the fact that billions of dollars are spent on killing and devastation, yet the resources needed for healing, education, and restoration are nowhere to be found.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is less surprising that Leo has refused to back down in the face of Trump\u2019s and his cronies\u2019 attacks than that he has refused to cater to the revanchist elements that haunt his own church, particularly in the United States. For sizable factions of both the laity and the clergy (which are dramatically overrepresented online), the appeal of the church is its ostensible preservation of some pristine, remnant traditionalism. When perpetuating conservative sexual politics takes precedence over everything else, the Gospel is bound to fall by the wayside. This kind of selective thinking has plagued US Catholicism for far too long: Catholic voters are won over by pro-life politicians with policies that harm workers and the poor, while bishops play politics even at the risk of undermining the care of the most vulnerable. (If you have time on your hands, Google \u201cAmericanism heresy.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The pope\u2019s promotion of peace and communal care is not a concession to some woke infiltration but the most organic possible outgrowth of the stated principles of the church he leads. His words at his first Christmas Eve mass at St. Peter\u2019s Basilica were unequivocal: \u201cOn earth, there is no room for God if there is no room for the human person. To refuse one is to refuse the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more From Universities to the Vatican, the AI Backlash Can\u2019t Be Ignored<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comment"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Pope Leo Gets Under Trump\u2019s Skin - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=165\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Pope Leo Gets Under Trump\u2019s Skin - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=165\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-02T17:12:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=165#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=165\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"Why Pope Leo Gets Under Trump\u2019s Skin\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-02T17:12:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=165\"},\"wordCount\":931,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=165#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/d9d1111aad68507531cf84614017b4c7.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Comment\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=165#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=165\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=165\",\"name\":\"Why Pope Leo Gets Under Trump\u2019s Skin - 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