President Donald Trump’s feud with the Pope may not go the way he might want. Some Catholic supporters of the president said they took issue with Trump’s fiery comments about Pope Leo, the first American pontiff.
“I like Donald a lot, but he needs to calm down,” said Lola Reese after attending Sunday Mass at St. Patrick’s.
Anita Bauman, a Catholic Trump voter from Pennsylvania, said the president’s comments were “colossally stupid.”
“I don’t think it helps the president at all,” she said. Bauman said she supported the president’s actions in Iran, where, in early April, U.S.-based rights group HRANA said more than 3,600 people had been killed since a joint US-Israeli bombing campaign began in February.
READ: Trump shares AI image of him as Jesus after calling the Pope ‘weak’ (April 13, 2026)
“I do think that things needed to be done in Iran,” she said. “I think that regime was dangerous, but I don’t think picking a fight with the pope or trying to school the pope on theology is a good idea at all.”
As per CNN, the president’s unprecedented — and largely one-sided — conflict with the Chicago-born Augustinian seemingly sparked last week, when Pope Leo said he hoped the president would find an “off-ramp” to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and called the president’s rhetoric about the Iranian people “truly unacceptable.”
Another factor in this escalating feud may be the absence of a language barrier, as a native English speaker the Pope’s words seem to be landing without the benefit of translations to soften the blow.
Vincent J. Miller, the Gudorf Chair in Catholic Theology and Culture at the University of Dayton, told Axios: “Having grown up in the U.S., Leo has both native competence in U.S. English and insight into U.S. culture. Both are important.”
READ: Trump likened to Jesus amid war tensions, triggering criticism (April 2, 2026)
“It’s more than simply being able to read and hear what US politicians are saying without relying on reports or translations. Leo understands the entanglements of religion and politics in the U.S.”
The leader of the Catholic Church has insisted he’s not interested in any feud with the president.
“It was looked at as if I was trying to debate again the president, which is not in my interest at all,” he said Saturday on board the papal plane from Cameroon to Angola, part of an 11-day trip to Africa.
“I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the church is here to do,” he said earlier.
The reactions from supporters also show that political loyalty and religious identity do not always align neatly, leading to internal disagreement within constituencies that are often assumed to be unified.