A battle for the soul of the world is happening right now right out of the Bible – and I’m not just talking about the Middle East.
In one corner are President Trump and his followers, who insist that everything they do is approved by God. They have consistently invoked a violent version of God as they deport undocumented immigrants, try to whitewash the United States, break long-standing alliances, drop bombs like a biblical plague on what are thought to be narco boats and strangle nations they consider a threat or covet their resources.
They are the ones teaching religious leaders about what Jesus stood for, seeking blessings for Trump’s actions – or else.
Just look at the recent allegations in The Free Press that senior defense officials blackmailed the Vatican’s ambassador to the US in January because of Pope Leo XIV’s lack of enthusiasm for Trump’s imperial ambitions. Or Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, he of tattoos glorifying the bloodthirstiness of the Crusades (another eternal war in the Middle East lost on the “civilized” side), who compared the rescue of a downed American pilot in Iran over Easter weekend to the resurrection of Jesus.
It is a playbook straight out of the Book of Revelation, which describes the Beast in the End Times “with a mouth that speaks great and blasphemous things” in his quest to gain dominion over the earth.
On the other side of this ongoing battle is a real man of God: Pope Leo XIV.
Rather than cower in front of a ruler who makes the Pharaoh in the Old Testament seem stable and kind like St. Francis, the first American pope opposed Trump as a protester at the “No Kings” rally. He has yet to criticize anyone on the president’s agenda – but Pope Leo has repeatedly returned to their actions in his first year as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
He began his papacy by greeting the cheering crowd with “Peace be with you all” – what Jesus told his disciples after his Resurrection and a wise, biblical way of calling his presence in our bellicose times.
On Palm Sunday a few weeks ago, the pope announced during Mass at St. Peter’s Square that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who fight the war” – a vague accusation from Hegseth, who prayed just after the US launched an “all-round” war on Iran. [to] they have received your mark” and “many acts of violence against those who do not deserve mercy.”
In his first Easter message, Pope Leo wrote, “Let those who have the power to end wars choose peace! Not forced peace, but through dialogue!”
Meanwhile, President Trump told a reporter that God supports the destruction he is doing in Iran because “God is good, God wants to see people taken care of.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks to reporters at the Pentagon, July 16, 2025, in Washington.
(Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Associated Press)
According to a Free Press article, the Vatican declined an invitation from Vice President JD Vance for Pope Leo to visit the US, fearing that Trump would use him as a political agent. Instead, Chicago-born Robert Prevost plans to spend July 4 — America’s 250th birthday — on the Mediterranean island that has long served as a gateway for migrants trying to reach Europe.
Critics will accuse Pope Leo of Trump Derangement Syndrome and call him short-sighted, as he stands to thwart the aspirations of many American Catholics.
Although not Catholic, Trump has favored Catholicism more than any other major Christian denomination, from acknowledging feast days to filling his administration and the Supreme Court with supporters in a way that even Joe Biden — a lifelong Catholic — never did.
About 55% of Catholics voted for Trump in 2024, according to the Pew Research Center. A survey conducted last year by the Catholic Project at the Catholic University of America found “a clear generational shift in self-identification” among young priests. Dioceses across the country are reporting the highest number of converts in decades, many of them drawn by mainstream Catholic activists.
But Trump’s embrace of Catholicism, like everything else in his life, was conditional on his faith. His administration has pulled tens of millions in federal funding from Catholic charities because they help immigrants regardless of legal status — something the American Catholic church has done for more than a century. Vance, himself a convert to Catholicism, accused the bishops of being “concerned about their own consequences” for daring to criticize the move and the banishment of his boss Leviathan.
The Free Press also reported that Trump’s lackeys invoked the Avignon Papacy — where 14th-century French kings exiled a succession of popes to the Vatican and made their own puppets — when they attacked the Vatican ambassador.
Reclaiming history is the Trump administration’s obsession, so bringing up the medieval episode was a threat to Leo to shape — or else.
That is what makes Pope Leo’s stand against modern Babylon even bolder. The main role of the pope is to confirm the words of Christ, who spoke more about caring for the meek and turning the other cheek than he did about fighting.
The best popes, from John XXIII to John Paul II, know that their words stand as a challenge to all people, believers and not, to create a better world that paves the way for the world to come. Trump is fighting a war for himself; Pope Leo urges us to stand for something other than ourselves.
At this point in his reign, Trump is a dead singer of the Antichrist, described in Second Thessalonians as “a man of sin … a son of perdition who opposes and exalts himself above all.”
Pope Leo would not express his opposition to Trump in such terms, of course. But his stance against presidential dictatorship is a call to action in the same vein as John Paul II’s admonition that the free world is against the Soviet regime.
“Let us abandon all desires for conflict, dominance, and power,” said Pope Leo on Easter, “and ask the Lord to give his peace to a world ravaged by wars and characterized by hatred and indifference that makes us feel powerless in the face of evil.”
Amen, amen, amen.
