{"id":31702,"date":"2026-04-18T14:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T14:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/31702\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T14:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T14:38:10","slug":"now-trump-and-vance-claim-to-more-about-catholicism-than-the-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/31702\/","title":{"rendered":"Now Trump and Vance claim to more about Catholicism than the pope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is the pope Catholic?<\/p>\n

Apparently, that\u2019s an actual question now, thanks to our vice president, who, like the president and the rest of his lickspittles, has a problem with Leo XIV calling for an end to war, cruelty, and violence.<\/p>\n

The pontiff has really been cooking in recent weeks, urging us to \u201cabandon every desire for conflict, domination and power<\/a>,\u201d which are \u201centirely foreign to the way of Jesus Christ.<\/a>\u201d On Palm Sunday, he warned against invoking Jesus to justify war, and quoted Isaiah, in which God says, \u201cEven though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.\u201d On Thursday<\/a>, he spoke of \u201ca handful of tyrants\u201d who are ravaging the earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWoe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re pretty strong words, but such messages are pretty standard for a pontiff, and the pope hasn\u2019t named any names. Still, Trump and Vance know he\u2019s throwing shade directly at them. And they don\u2019t like it one bit. <\/p>\n

The unhinged president, who, like his defense secretary<\/a>, has repeatedly invoked God <\/a>to justify his attacks on Iran, has called Leo \u201cWEAK on crime, and terrible for foreign policy.\u201d Trump followed up this nonsensical insult with blasphemy, posting an AI image depicting him as Jesus healing a sick man. <\/p>\n

Vance, a recent and zealous convert to Catholicism, beclowned himself by questioning the expertise of the head of his church, literally the highest authority on earth when it comes to Catholic doctrine: \u201cI think it\u2019s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology,\u201d the vice president said.<\/a> This is akin to a kindergartner suggesting Einstein should be very, very careful when he talks about matters of physics. <\/p>\n

\"ViceVice President J.D. Vance spoke during the 20th annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 28, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Anna Moneymaker\/Getty<\/p>\n

Vance and others<\/a> have been countering Leo with the argument that the US-Israeli attack on Iran is a \u201cjust war.\u201d That is a specific theological concept<\/a>, and the attacks on Iran ain\u2019t it. A war of choice, entered into rashly, is not a just war. Nor does one include attacking civilian infrastructure and threatening genocide<\/a>. And a just war is certainly not celebrated with gusto by aggressors like Pete \u201cno quarter, no mercy for our enemies\u201d <\/a>Hegseth. <\/p>\n

Most absurdly, Vance also suggested<\/a> \u201cit would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality.\u201d Maybe Vance defines morality differently from the rest of us, but the pope is squarely in his own lane here. His denunciation of the cruelty in which Trumpists delight was certainly at the heart of the Catholicism I was raised in. <\/p>\n

Indeed, the last week or two have reminded me exactly why I loved the church, to which I was devoted for 27 years. Sure, my upbringing \u2014 including 12 years of parochial school \u2014 was replete with all kinds of odd rituals and repressive edicts from on high. But at its heart, the faith tradition I was raised in was super woke, based on a steadfast belief in the essential humanity of all people. <\/p>\n

In my post-Vatican II Catholic church, inequality and cruelty were affronts to God. The nuns made it clear that it was our job to fix those things \u2014 not just to show up to Mass every week, but to actually live in ways that make other people\u2019s lives better. We knew we would fail over and over, but the point was in the trying.<\/p>\n

Jesus, we were taught, was a radical. He was crucified because his values \u2014 his rejection of economic and political hierarchies, his insistence on welcoming outcasts, on replacing all of the arcane rules with a simple, equalizing commandment to love one another \u2014 directly threatened those in power. <\/p>\n

His was always an inherently political message. So yes, the words of Leo XIV are political, just as the pronouncements of every pope are political, if they\u2019re doing it right. <\/p>\n

Just so you know, there is a lot this lapsed Catholic dislikes about the Catholic church, including its retrograde positions on LGBTQ rights and its insistence on controlling women\u2019s bodies. Those obsessions, and the clergy sex abuse coverups, drove me away. <\/p>\n

But it gives me joy to see this pope stand up for basic decency, putting actual Catholic values up against the bloodthirsty proclamations of leaders who act like they\u2019ve cornered the market on the God stuff. <\/p>\n

The pope is clearly Catholic. Is JD Vance?<\/p>\n

Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yvonne.abraham@globe.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is the pope Catholic? Apparently, that\u2019s an actual question now, thanks to our vice president, who, like the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[21446,1123,6931,21449,383,464,3535,169,168,21447,6932,51,6938,21448,2543,21445,438,3231,21450,8345],"class_list":{"0":"post-31702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jd-vance","8":"tag-breakfast","9":"tag-catholicism","10":"tag-color-image","11":"tag-convention-center","12":"tag-government","13":"tag-horizontal","14":"tag-j-d-vance","15":"tag-james-david-vance","16":"tag-jd-vance","17":"tag-occupation","18":"tag-photography","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-politics-and-government","21":"tag-praying","22":"tag-religion","23":"tag-spirituality","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-vice-president","26":"tag-walter-e-washington-convention-center","27":"tag-washington-dc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116426224913417763","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31702","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=31702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}