President Trump and the Pope don’t see eye to eye on the war with Iran.
That put Vice President J.D. Vance in a tough spot.
And Trump called the pope one name that led to this shocking J.D. Vance response.
As West Wing Daily reports:
The battle between President Trump and Pope Leo escalated after Leo posted on social media that God didn’t “bless any conflict.”
“God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs,” Leo wrote.
This was Leo’s most aggressive broadside against the war in Iran, as Catholic Church teachings oppose wars outside of the “just war” doctrine.
Trump fired back on Truth Social, ripping Leo as “WEAK” on foreign policy and crime.
The President then blasted Leo, declaring that he didn’t want a Pope who criticized America’s policy choices.
“I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do, setting Record Low Numbers in Crime, and creating the Greatest Stock Market in History,” Trump added. “Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise.”
Vice President J.D. Vance addressed the Trump-Leo feud during a Turning Point USA event at the University of Georgia.
Vance, a convert to Catholicism, argued that the Pope’s saying God didn’t “bless any conflict” wasn’t backed up by Church teaching, which holds that nations are justified in going to war as a matter of self-defense and as a last resort.
“So number one, when the pope says that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword, there is a thousand-year– more than a thousand-year tradition of just war theory, ok? Now, we can of course have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just,” Vance began.
Vance then contended that the Pope needed to be “careful” when discussing matters of theology because the world’s more than 1 billion Catholics see him as a Holy Figure and take his word as authority on the church’s positions.
“But I think that it’s important in the same way it is important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology,” Vance stated.
“I think that one of the issues here is that if you’re going to opine on matters of theology, you’ve got to be careful, you’ve got to make sure it’s anchored in the truth. And that’s one of the things that I try to do, and it’s certainly something I would expect from clergy, whether they’re Catholic or Protestant,” Vance concluded.
