“I Am Not Afraid” — Pope Leo XIV Responds to Trump’s Tirade Against the Church

Sources tell Letters from Leo that Trump became enraged watching the 60 Minutes cardinals segment aboard Air Force One. Archbishop Coakley and Bishop Barron have both responded — from very different positions.

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Pope Leo XIV boarded his flight to Algiers on Monday morning and told reporters aboard the papal plane that he has no fear of the Trump administration.

“I am not afraid of the Trump administration,” the pope said, responding to a Truth Social tirade that President Trump launched against him Sunday night — roughly an hour after CBS aired a 60 Minutes segment featuring three of the pope’s most prominent American cardinals criticizing the administration’s Iran war and mass deportations.

Sources close to the situation tell Letters from Leo that Trump became enraged after watching the 60 Minutes segment aboard Air Force One.

The president’s fury spilled onto Truth Social within the hour, where he called Pope Leo “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible for foreign policy” and claimed credit for the pope’s election — writing, “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”

Trump repeated the criticism to reporters at Joint Base Andrews. “I don’t think he’s doing a very good job,” the president said on the tarmac. “He likes crime, I guess. I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person — and he’s a man that doesn’t believe in stopping crime.”

Aboard his flight to Algiers, Pope Leo told the Associated Press that he had no intention of accepting the president’s terms.

“I am not a politician, and I have no intention of entering into a debate with him,” he said. “I will continue to speak out loudly against war, to seek to promote peace and multilateral dialogue.” He grounded the position in scripture: “The message of the Church is the message of the Gospel: Blessed are the peacemakers.”

The 60 Minutes segment that provoked the outburst featured Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago, Robert McElroy of Washington, and Joseph Tobin of Newark in their first-ever joint interview. Cardinal Cupich accused the White House of “the gamification” of warfare, calling the administration’s videos splicing movie clips with actual bombing footage “sickening.”

Cardinal McElroy acknowledged that Iran’s regime is “abominable” but called the conflict “a war of choice” and warned of “the possibility of war after war after war.”

Cardinal Tobin held firm on his description of ICE as “a lawless organization” whose agents “hide their identities to terrify people.”

Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, responded Sunday evening.

“I am disheartened that the President chose to write such disparaging words about the Holy Father,” Coakley said. “Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls.”

Bishop Robert Barron, who serves on Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, weighed in from a markedly different position. Barron criticized Trump’s rhetoric about the pope while simultaneously praising the administration’s Catholic outreach.

“I am very grateful for the many ways that the Trump administration has reached out to Catholics and other people of faith,” Barron wrote on X. “It has been a high honor to serve on the Religious Liberty Commission. No President in my lifetime has shown a greater dedication to defending our first liberty.”

The contrast between Coakley and Barron illuminates the fracture inside American Catholic leadership. The pope, his three cardinals, and the USCCB president see the Church’s obligation as prophetic witness against the violence of the state.

Barron’s careful balancing act represents something else: a desire to preserve access to a president who has courted Catholic institutions while waging a war the Church considers unjust and deporting the faithful from their parishes.

Pope Leo showed no interest in that balancing act aboard his flight Monday morning. His statement offered no gratitude for the administration’s Catholic outreach and no acknowledgment of the Religious Liberty Commission. He spoke as a pastor whose flock is being scattered by the policies of a president who expects gratitude in return.

“I speak about the Gospel,” Pope Leo said. “I am not a politician.”

Trump framed his attack as a political critique — calling the pope “terrible for foreign policy,” as if the Bishop of Rome were a cabinet secretary who had lost the president’s confidence.

As I told CNN this morning, Pope Leo refused to accept those terms. The pope operates in the language of the Gospel, where peacemaking is a commandment from Christ and not a policy position subject to presidential review.

Archbishop Coakley said it well Sunday evening: Pope Leo is not Trump’s rival. He is the Vicar of Christ. And the Vicar of Christ, as of Monday morning, has made clear that he will keep speaking — loudly, without fear, and from the only authority he recognizes.

At Letters from Leo, we stand with Pope Leo XIV, Archbishop Coakley, and the three cardinals who told the truth on national television — that this war is unjust, that the deportations are immoral, and that the Church will not be bullied into silence by a president who confuses obedience with loyalty.

In an era when the powerful demand that the Church kneel before the state, we remain rooted in a faith that answers to a higher authority — the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which calls the peacemakers blessed and commands us to welcome the stranger.

This is the fastest-growing Catholic community in the country because people are hungry for a Church that speaks the truth even when it costs something.

They are looking for moral clarity in a moment when the most powerful man in the world is telling the Vicar of Christ to sit down and be quiet. That hunger has never been more urgent.

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Thank you for reading. I’ll see you on the road.