{"id":905393,"date":"2026-04-19T20:42:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T20:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/905393\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T20:42:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T20:42:17","slug":"republican-senator-criticizes-trumps-holy-war-with-pope-leo-us-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/905393\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican senator criticizes Trump\u2019s \u2018holy war\u2019 with Pope Leo | US politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Republican lawmaker has condemned what he refers to as Donald Trump\u2019s \u201choly war\u201d against Pope Leo XIV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, a long supporter of Trump and the ultraconservative Maga movement, condemned the president\u2019s attacks on the pope during a Fox News interview on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the president like a taco,\u201d said Kennedy, using an odd turn of phrase. He added: \u201cI don\u2019t always agree with him, but I think he wants a better world. But I don\u2019t agree with him about this new holy war with the pope.\u201d The senator\u2019s criticism, and his choice of words, might not sit well with Trump, given that his critics have been using the word \u201ctaco\u201d<\/a> as an acronym for \u201cTrump always chickens out\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kennedy is a Methodist and not a Catholic, a point he stressed in the interview, perhaps to distinguish himself from the first Catholic president, Democrat John F Kennedy. The Republican senator and his wife founded their local church chapter, according<\/a> to his government biography.<\/p>\n

Kennedy added that he has \u201cgreat respect for Catholicism\u201d and suggested that the pope should be \u201centitled to his opinion\u201d. \u201cWhy do we want to have a fight with the pope?\u201d Kennedy continued. \u201cIt\u2019s a distraction. And the press just sucks it up like a Hoover Deluxe [vacuum cleaner].\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy\u2019s latest interview comes as Trump and the pope have been locked in a days-long feud over the US-Israel war against Iran.<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago, Leo responded to Trump\u2019s threat<\/a> that a \u201cwhole civilization will die\u201d in Iran if the country did not end its blockade of the strait of Hormuz by calling Trump\u2019s remarks \u201ctruly unacceptable<\/a>\u201d, noted \u201cattacks on civilian infrastructure are against international law\u201d and urged Americans to contact their members of Congress to call for peace.<\/p>\n

In a Truth Social post last Sunday, Trump called<\/a> Pope Leo \u201cWEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump added: \u201cI don\u2019t want a Pope who thinks it\u2019s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.\u201d The pope has, in fact, spoken out against what he called<\/a> \u201cthe profound horrors wrought by nuclear weapons\u201d.<\/p>\n

The president has repeatedly praised Pope Leo XIV\u2019s eldest brother, Louis Prevost, an avid Trump supporter who lives in Florida.<\/p>\n

Last week, Trump also posted an AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus Christ, which even some Christian supporters of the president denounced as blasphemous<\/a>.<\/p>\n

JD Vance, whose forthcoming book is about his recent conversion to Catholicism, has defended Trump amid anger among Christian voters. \u201cStick to matters of, you know, what\u2019s going on in the Catholic church,\u201d the vice-president told Fox News when asked if he agreed with Trump\u2019s attacks on the pope. \u201cAnd let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,\u201d Vance added.<\/p>\n

Leo told reporters<\/a> on Saturday that he had no intention of having a back-and-forth debate with Trump, but noted that he has \u201cno fear\u201d <\/a>of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Republican lawmaker has condemned what he refers to as Donald Trump\u2019s \u201choly war\u201d against Pope Leo XIV.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-905393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116433318535159961","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}