{"id":28847,"date":"2026-04-15T23:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T23:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/28847\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T23:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T23:32:18","slug":"theological-squabble-distracts-from-tax-day-messaging-roll-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/28847\/","title":{"rendered":"Theological squabble distracts from Tax Day messaging \u2013 Roll Call"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a day when they had hoped to focus messaging on last year\u2019s tax cut law, congressional Republicans spent Tax Day focusing on theology.<\/p>\n

A dayslong spat between the Trump administration and the Vatican left lawmakers urging the White House to stay in its lane on matters of liturgy and refocus its messaging.<\/p>\n

The first question Speaker Mike Johnson took during a Wednesday morning press conference on Tax Day was about Trump\u2019s social media posts criticizing the pope. In the Senate, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., also faced questions about the feud.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never a good idea to get into a tit-for-tat with a respected religious leader,\u201d said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., a Southern Baptist who led a delegation to the Vatican in February and personally met with Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pope.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think it\u2019s to be avoided,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has taken umbrage at Leo\u2019s critique of the president\u2019s aggression in Iran as \u201ctruly unacceptable\u201d when Trump threatened to wipe out the \u201cwhole civilization\u201d last week. Trump took to social media on Sunday to call Leo \u201cWEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.\u201d He said that if he \u201cwasn\u2019t in the White House, Leo wouldn\u2019t be in the Vatican.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The next day, Trump posted an AI-generated image depicting him wearing a Christ-like garment. He later deleted it, contending<\/a> that it was meant to portray him as \u201ca doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump reposted<\/a> another AI-generated photo on Wednesday of Jesus Christ embracing him. \u201cThe Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!\u201d he wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday defended<\/a> Trump\u2019s posts at a Turning Point USA event, saying that it\u2019s \u201cvery, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can you say that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword?\u201d asked Vance, a Catholic convert. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to opine on matters of theology \u2026 you\u2019ve got to make sure it\u2019s anchored in the truth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the 119th Congress, 127 House members are Catholic \u2014 29 percent of the entire chamber. They are split between 69 Democrats and 58 Republicans, and are the largest Christian denomination represented. There are 24 Catholic senators: 13 Democrats and 11 Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asked about Vance\u2019s comments Wednesday, Thune told reporters: \u201cIsn\u2019t that the [pope\u2019s] job?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., a self-proclaimed \u201clife-long Catholic,\u201d added that politics and the pope shouldn\u2019t mix.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t expect any pope of any stripe from any country to do a liturgy talking about the sanctity of a war,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s contrary to their teachings, which is why I think politicians are at their best when they don\u2019t mingle politics and religion, and they\u2019re at their worst when they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rationalizations<\/p>\n

House GOP leadership maintained the pope started it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday the pope should expect some political response if \u201cyou wade into political waters.\u201d He argued Christian theology supports the war in Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a very well-settled matter of Christian theology. There\u2019s something called the \u2018just war doctrine.\u2019 There\u2019s a time to every purpose under heaven,\u201d Johnson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan, a Catholic, said she\u2019s not surprised Trump fired back once the pope commented on the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, it would be nice if everyone stayed in their lane,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we all know Trump well enough that if the pope is going to have a comment on political issues \u2026 I think that it\u2019s pretty predictable that the president would comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Catholic Republicans took different approaches to rationalizing the White House\u2019s comments Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pope comes from a very different place. He\u2019s about peace and love and all those things. So they have different roles, and both are important,\u201d Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said. \u201cAs you know, I\u2019m Catholic. But by the same token, in this case, we have to use force. Iran has given us no choice. There are bad actors in this world, and unfortunately, good guys have to step up and take military action against bad guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican Sen. Mike Rounds, a Catholic from South Dakota, said, \u201cLook, I think there\u2019s a difference between the role that the pope plays and the role that the president or the vice president has. One is a political position. The other is a position of being, literally a pope, which is a moral guide.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth of them have a role to play in this world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A distraction<\/p>\n

The focus on Leo was not what congressional Republicans were expecting when they returned this week from their recess. Wednesday is Tax Day, with Republicans on Capitol Hill holding events and press conferences<\/a> to tout tax returns following the passage of their tax cut legislation, nicknamed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But much of that oxygen has been sucked up by Trump and Vance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d stay focused on the economic issues, the pocketbook issues that I think most Americans care about,\u201d Thune, who is evangelical, said of the administration. \u201cLet the church be the church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Senate Republicans agreed the White House should refocus its messaging. \u201cI think the president needs to stay focused on the effort with Iran, with the negotiations, with the embargo,\u201d Hoeven said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, when we have one of these kinds of situations, it becomes a very unfortunate case where, rather than staying in their own lanes, they\u2019re getting out of their own lanes,\u201d Rounds continued. \u201cThat\u2019s not good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that this matter can be dropped now,\u201d Wicker said. \u201cMy suggestion to the president and vice president would be to say that they\u2019re not going to comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and a Catholic, represents Leo\u2019s hometown of Chicago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the pope has been clear and within his bounds as a leader of a major church in America,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., a Catholic, put plainly: \u201cI\u2019m with \u2018Team Pope,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a day when they had hoped to focus messaging on last year\u2019s tax cut law, congressional Republicans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[1060,4865,477,486,1066,1490,961,8263,34,1070,475,1071,483,1072,513,524,1332,7679,4866,1073,19490,1075,51,2543,1076],"class_list":{"0":"post-28847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-john-thune","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-brand-safety","10":"tag-congress","11":"tag-democrats","12":"tag-executive-branch","13":"tag-foreign-policy","14":"tag-house","15":"tag-illinois","16":"tag-iran","17":"tag-john-hoeven","18":"tag-john-thune","19":"tag-leadership","20":"tag-louisiana","21":"tag-media","22":"tag-michigan","23":"tag-mike-rounds","24":"tag-military","25":"tag-mississippi","26":"tag-north-carolina","27":"tag-north-dakota","28":"tag-peter-welch","29":"tag-policy","30":"tag-politics","31":"tag-religion","32":"tag-republicans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116411337429371465","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}