Trump takes on Pope Leo and loses

President Donald Trump is in the middle of many wars but the one he clearly is not winning is his war of words with Pope Leo XIV, one of the sharpest critics of the conflict in Iran. 

On Sunday evening, Trump used his Truth Social account to attack the pope as weak and a liberal followed by the post of an image of the president appearing as a Jesus-like figure. The AI-generated illustration depicting Trump as healing a soldier was created months ago by a supporter but Sunday was the first time Trump adopted it. The backlash came quickly, especially on social media where many resorted to calling the president the "anti-Christ" and his message "blasphemy." The image was removed from Trump's account Monday with Trump incredulously saying he misunderstood the image of him in red robes with a healing light emanating from a palm as something to do with the Red Cross and him "as a doctor."

But the president is refusing to apologize for the written social media post, and while it did not reach the vulgar lows of Trump's Easter Sunday message, it was a stunning insult to one of the world's most prominent religious leaders.

In a 9:03 p.m. post Sunday, Trump wrote that "Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy." The boilerplate criminal justice tag game is just bizarre — the pope isn't running for an elected office on Long Island. As for foreign policy, while the Roman Catholic Church has quite a documented history of conflict with governments and with kings, the pope's criticism was a consistent moral statement against injustice and war, not the attack of a political opponent.

Nor did the president evidence any understanding of theology and the papal selection process, going so far as to say that he alone was responsible for Leo's ascension as the "vicar of Christ" or what Catholics believe as the earthly representative of Jesus Christ. "He wasn't on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. IF I wasn't in the White House, Leo wouldn't be in the Vatican," Trump wrote.

As big Trump supporter Riley Gaines tweeted, "a little humility would serve him well."

Catholics believe the Holy Spirit has a pretty big role guiding the College of Cardinals to discern who becomes the church's next leader. Leo was well known to the electors and certainly was a highly qualified candidate. 

Pope Leo responded Monday that he had "no fear" of the Trump administration and gracefully allowed that the two of them don't approach foreign policy "with the same perspective. " 

Trump said he would not apologize. But the pope got the last word on Monday as he headed to Africa, saying "Blessed are the peacemakers." 

Trump should take it as gospel.