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U.S. President Donald Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV on social media Sunday, saying the first American pope should “stop catering to the Radical Left.”
It was an extraordinary broadside against the global leader of the Catholic Church, exacerbating a feud that began over the Iran war.
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” the president wrote on social media.
He also wrote: “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
A short time later, in a scrum with reporters after Air Force One landed outside Washington after returning from Florida, Trump repeated his comments, saying, “We don’t like a pope who says it’s OK to have a nuclear weapon.”
WATCH | Leo calls for peace in his first Easter Mass as Pope:
Pope Leo calls for peace in 1st Easter Mass
Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S.-born pope, celebrated his inaugural Easter Mass as pontiff on Sunday with a call to lay down arms and seek peace to global conflicts through dialogue.
“He’s a very liberal person,” Trump said of Leo, before adding, “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo.”
Trump’s comments followed Leo having denounced over the weekend the “delusion of omnipotence” that is fuelling the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, and demanding that political leaders stop and negotiate peace.
Leo presided over an evening prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica on the same day the U.S. and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Pakistan during a fragile ceasefire.
The U.S.-born Pope didn’t mention the United States or Trump by name in his prayer. But Leo’s tone and message appeared directed at Trump and U.S. officials, who have boasted of U.S. military superiority and justified the war in religious terms.
Leo is scheduled to leave Monday for an 11-day trip to Africa.
