Catholic bishops and lay leaders across the political spectrum are expressing their shock and disapproval following U.S. President Donald Trump’s online screed against Pope Leo XIV.

Others have also voiced concern over an image which Trump posted within an hour of attacking the vicar of Christ that appeared to depict Trump as Jesus Christ. Trump deleted the post of him looking like Christ the following day, after an uproar from Christians denouncing the depiction as blasphemous, but he refused to apologize to Pope Leo.

“Pope Leo said things that are wrong,” Trump said, doubling down on a 330-word condemnation of the Pope April 12 as “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” and taking credit for the U.S.-born Pope’s election.

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Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement that evening, saying he was “disheartened that the President chose to write such disparaging words about the Holy Father.” Coakley said that the Pope is not Trump’s “rival,” and “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.”

Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, who was part of an interview on Pope Leo with CBS’ 60 Minutes program that aired April 12, told OSV News in an April 13 statement that Trump’s “recent statements and actions ... convey a grave misunderstanding of the Holy Father’s ministry and a troubling lack of respect for the faith of millions.”

“Pope Leo serves a higher authority and desires to proclaim the Gospel faithfully and advance the Church’s peaceful mission in a world deeply in need of healing,” he said.

“He will continue to speak clearly against war and other offenses against human dignity and to call for authentic dialogue, because the Church’s witness is grounded in the peace of Christ, not in partisan interests.” 

Other prelates rallied around the Pope in the wake of Trump’s broadside, including Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, who in an April 13 post on X called Trump’s statements about the Pope “entirely inappropriate and disrespectful.”

“It is the Pope’s prerogative to articulate Catholic doctrine and the principles that govern the moral life,” he said. “In regard to the concrete application of those principles, people of good will can and do disagree.”

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Barron praised the Trump administration’s engagement with Catholics, noting his membership on the President’s Religious Liberty Commission, and encouraged “serious Catholics within the Trump administration” to meet with Vatican officials “so that a real dialogue can take place.”

“No President in my lifetime has shown a greater dedication to defending our first liberty,” said Barron, adding, “All that said, I think the President owes the Pope an apology.”

But when reporters at the White House asked about Barron’s statement April 13, Trump said he had “nothing to apologize for.”

“Pope Leo said things that are wrong, he was very much against what I’m doing with regard to Iran, and you could not have a nuclear Iran, Pope Leo would not be happy with the end result,” Trump said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations also offered an April 13 message of support, saying, “We stand in solidarity with the Catholic community in the wake of President Trump’s attack on Pope Leo.”

CAIR referenced an earlier post Trump made, in which he threatened to annihilate Iran while “sarcastically praising Allah,” and said that “the President’s mockery of religion is both deranged and insulting.”

Trump’s social media tirade against Pope Leo was compounded by the Truth Social post — delivered 46 minutes later — showing a Christ-like rendering of Trump in white and red robes, laying one glowing hand on a man on a sickbed looking up at him, with Trump’s other hand holding an orb of light. Surrounding the bed were at least four figures appearing to venerate Trump, who was framed by images of the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial, the U.S. flag, warplanes, bald eagles and five heavenly figures in military gear.

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“The graphic exploitation of sacred imagery is deeply offensive and undermines the reverence owed to what believers hold most dear,” Tobin said.

Amid the outrage, the AI-generated image was removed from Trump’s Truth Social feed on April 13. Trump told reporters the same day that he thought the depiction had been of him “as a doctor making people better and I do make people better. I make people a lot better.”