The White House cannot stop fighting with the pope.

On Tuesday night, Vice President JD Vance — who converted to Catholicism in 2019 — accused Pope Leo XIV of not understanding the Church’s stance on war, saying it was “very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.” Later in the evening, President Donald Trump continued to berate the pope for not supporting his strikes on Iran.

In Leo, though, they’ve found a feistier opponent than they might have expected. He calmly held his ground, hit back with some jabs of his own — he called the Trump-owned platform Truth Social’s name “ironic” — and, perhaps most importantly, has brought support to bear from prominent right-leaning Catholics in the US. The top Senate Republican sounds unnerved. Trump, who is used to quickly cowing nonpartisan public figures into a more conciliatory stance, is not winning this time.

This isn’t the White House’s first run-in with a pope. Trump, and sometimes Vance, were in a long-running conflict with Pope Francis going all the way back to the 2016 Republican presidential primary, when Francis indirectly suggested that Trump “was not a Christian,” because of his focus on “building walls…and not bridges.” Back then, even Trump’s fellow GOP primary contenders, including Catholics like then-Sen. Marco Rubio, backed him up.

As a result, Trump might be surprised by how much stronger the backlash is this time. Even before he doubled down on his initial Truth Social attacks and posted a controversial (and sacrilegious) AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ, many of his usual allies, including conservative Catholics, were calling him out.

“The statements made by President Trump on Truth Social regarding the Pope were entirely inappropriate and disrespectful,” the Catholic Bishop Robert Barron, a member of Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission who is popular with conservative Catholics, said on X — a statement emblematic of right-leaning Catholics’ responses. 

Why is the current spat so different? A lot of it has to do with Pope Leo, who starts with a much stronger base of support from American Catholics on the right. After years of sparring with Francis, Trump and Vance may find they’ve messed with the wrong pope this time. 

Traditionalist and conservative Catholics in the US trust Leo a lot more than Francis

Since assuming the papacy, Leo has shown himself adept at leveraging the optics of his office, winning over critics, and building popular appeal to strengthen his hand — all moves that Trump would surely recognize. 

A lot of the goodwill on the right toward Leo has nothing to do with US politics, but with matters of faith: internal Vatican debates about doctrine and the role of the papacy. He’s made significant inroads with traditionalist and more orthodox Catholics, who were far more suspicious of Francis’ approach, and they’re more inclined to take his side as a result.

When Leo was elected pope, American Catholics, who lean more theologically and politically conservative than in other parts of the world, weren’t sure what to make of him. He wasn’t one of the so-called frontrunners, so his election shocked the world.

He was the first American-born pope, from Chicago, but like the Argentine-born Pope Francis had spent decades in Latin America, where the Church had a reputation for sometimes challenging capitalism from the left. He came from the Augustinian order, a more hermetic and austere tradition, as opposed to the more visible and liberal-leaning Jesuit order that trained Francis. Though elevated by the “liberal” Francis through the Vatican hierarchy, Leo was well-liked by both progressive, conservative, and traditionalist clerics in the Church.

Traditionalist and conservative Catholics were cautiously optimistic, and soon saw signs that Leo was rewarding their faith in him. They cheered on his restoration of the elaborate, grand, traditional symbols of the papacy, which Francis had disregarded. During his first public address, he gave a blessing in Latin — traditionalists strongly opposed the Church’s 20th-century turn away from the language — and wore the more traditional garb of the pontiff, including a red mozzetta, or short cape, (as opposed to Francis’s simple white attire).

These and other symbolic moves were a sign that “at the very least he is intentionally not following directly in the footsteps of Francis” the conservative Catholic editor-in-chief of Crisis magazine, Eric Sammons, said at the time.

And sure enough, the overtures that followed allowed a lot of traditionalists to breathe a sigh of relief. Leo was, at worst, a centrist: traditional in style and conservative in dogma, even if he carried on Francis’s tradition of Catholic social teaching. He did not immediately wade into social and cultural debates, instead prioritizing thinking on artificial intelligence, economic justice, and respect for human rights; he spoke spontaneously less often than Francis, who was known for his off-the-cuff remarks; and he did not antagonize those supporters of the Traditional Latin Mass.

He moved back to the pope’s apartments in the Apostolic Palace, which Francis had abandoned during his papacy, and picked back up old traditions, like carrying a cross through the Colosseum on Good Friday this year — something Pope John Paul II used to do. Even now, Catholic observers look for clues and signs of Leo’s theological and stylistic leanings: looking to see what vestments he wears, what regalia he bears, and who he promotes.

And perhaps most importantly, he seemed willing to reconcile and repair differences between promoters of the traditional Latin Mass and the dominant vernacular Catholic tradition that Francis promoted. Leo has gone so far as to allow discussion of the Latin Mass during gatherings of cardinals, opening up the possibility that previous restrictions might be reexamined, and called for “generous inclusion,” of its supporters, though he has reminded traditionalists not to allow their support for the Latin Mass to become a political tool.

A common knock on Francis in America was that he earned praise from secular liberals, but not new converts to counter shrinking Church attendance in the US. Leo is benefiting from the opposite trend: The American Church, in particular, is seeing a cultural revival: Young Catholics are filling pews in big city parishes and posting their experiences online. Catholicism, and its traditional aesthetics, is trendy again. Converts and baptisms are rising again, albeit slowly. Clergy and Catholic influencers are more vocal. And Leo is part of that revitalization.

The Iran war has actually divided conservative Catholics in the US

It’s not just Leo’s base of support that’s coloring the reaction to his argument with Trump; it’s also the issue that’s at the center of it: the war in Iran, and the rising use of military force more broadly. 

Republicans and Democrats have grown used to ignoring or explaining away certain conflicts with the Church that fall along partisan lines — immigration for Republicans, abortion for Democrats. President Joe Biden was denied communion at one South Carolina church over his support for abortion rights, which fit into a longstanding debate about how to punish pro-choice Catholic politicians.

But Leo is speaking up over an issue that is actually dividing conservative Catholics: the joint US-Israeli war in Iran. Polls show disapproval by Catholics of both Trump’s handling of the war, and the fact that the war is even happening — both departures from the double-digit margin of victory Catholic voters gave Trump in 2024, according to exit polls.

These splits aren’t just theological; they also run into cultural and political divides within the party. But Vance’s leaked reservations about the war and the resignation of Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and a conservative Catholic, show these tensions are present even within Trump’s own White House. 

Francis was seen as the aggressor in his fights with Trump

As mentioned above, popes frequently take principled stands on issues that are divisive in US politics. But they typically try to avoid getting caught up in spats with politicians and keep their critiques more generalized.

As a result, when Francis took on Trump, it was seen by many as a violation of what religion professor Stephen Prothero termed “an unspoken gentleman’s agreement in American politics” that the Catholic clergy steers clear of domestic campaign issues.

In case you need a refresher, back in 2016, Francis took time as he was wrapping up an apostolic visit to Mexico to comment on the news of the day. This was the peak of Trump’s anti-immigrant, nationalistic, “build-a-wall” upstart campaign for the Republican nomination — and just days before the make-or-break South Carolina primary — and Francis injected himself right into the middle of it. 

Though he didn’t use Trump’s name, he responded to a question about the candidate by saying that “a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.” The comments were seen as a direct attack on the candidate. 

Francis came from Argentina, where the Church played a bigger role in commenting on politics, and perhaps didn’t realize how far he was going. He had a knack for spontaneity, which sometimes led him to weighing in on issues on inopportune moments. And perhaps he was a poor fit for doing politics in a polarized time: In singling out a border wall rather than Trump’s more unique takes on moral issues, he named a position widely backed in some form by Republican politicians and even some Democrats. 

Regardless of his intent, it triggered a wave of criticism from Republican Catholics: Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio sided with Trump over the pope: “We should have a strategy to secure our border…that’s not an un-Christian thing to do,” Bush said, while Rubio made the case that sovereign countries have “a right to control who comes in, when they come in and how they come in,” just like Vatican City. 

And of course, Trump fired back, accusing Francis of being a Mexican “pawn” and warning that the Vatican would be “attacked by ISIS” if he were not elected president. And so kicked off the tense and standoffish relationship between the pope and Trump.

By contrast, while Leo has proven willing to respond to Trump, the “feud” this time only really began when Trump launched a lengthy personal attack against him on Truth Social.

In Francis’s case, it also didn’t help that he had already earned skepticism on the right by 2016 for his other forays into politically fraught topics, which made them less inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. His frequent focus on the poor, on immigrants, on the persecuted, and more progressive or nuanced takes on controversial issues like homosexuality, climate change, abortion, and capitalism, all opened him up to attack and dismissal from politically conservative Catholics. 

Taken together, you can see two very different popes: Francis was a trailblazer, but a controversial leader who was viewed as more antagonistic toward politicians and issues conservative American Catholics cared about. Leo has been seen as more temperate and moderate in his stances, giving him more influence when he chooses to speak up, which he has chosen to do on an issue in which he could actually project some sway. 

Trump paid no obvious political price for his fights with Francis. Whether that changes with Leo, either for Trump or for his successor, he’s picked a far tougher foil this time.

To celebrate the second Sunday of Easter, President Donald Trump appears to have decided that blasphemy might be the best option.

Late Sunday evening, Trump posted a wordy attack of Pope Leo XIV on Truth Social, saying the first American-born leader of the Roman Catholic Church was “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.” Leo, by criticizing the joint US-Israeli war on Iran, is apparently “catering to the Radical Left,” “hurting the Catholic Church,” and encouraging Iran to develop nuclear weapons. “I am not a fan of Pope Leo,” Trump later told reporters. 

It’s his most aggressive and direct attack yet on the Vicar of Christ, who has been uncharacteristically vocal this year in his criticism of militaristic foreign policy, including making a direct appeal to the president to end the conflict in Iran and promote peace and respect for human life. The pope indicated he would not back down, telling reporters he had “no fear” of the White House. And he threw in a little barb as well, calling the Truth Social posts “ironic”: “The name of the site itself. Say no more.”

Picking a fight with the spiritual leader for more than 50 million Americans was a risky move, if not unprecedented for Trump, and he faced immediate pushback from some otherwise right-leaning Catholics.

But somehow, things only got worse from there: Trump followed up with an AI-generated image depicting him as Jesus Christ healing the sick, as he’s flanked by symbols of America and both military and spiked figures floating like angels behind him. 

It was that second sacrilege that expanded the blowback into a full-on political crisis: This time not only from Catholics, but from evangelicals and other denominations — including many who are typically aligned with Trump. 

“I don’t know if the President thought he was being funny or if he is under the influence of some substance or what possible explanation he could have for this OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy,” the evangelical writer Megan Basham posted. “But he needs to take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God.”

“God shall not be mocked,” Riley Gaines, the former competitive swimmer and prominent conservative activist, posted. 

“This is gross blasphemy. Faith is not a prop,” the young Christian conservative Brilyn Hollyhand said in a video condemning Trump’s post. 

“It’s more than blasphemy. It’s an Antichrist spirit,” said former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a vocal Christian critic of Israel and Trump’s second term.

“Trump is my President; Jesus is my Lord,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost posted. “I am not confused about which is which, and hope this image is removed.”

By Monday afternoon, Trump had deleted the post, a rare climbdown, while claiming he didn’t understand what he had shared. “I thought it was me as a doctor,” he said, according to Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove. 

It’s hardly news that Trump’s personal behavior doesn’t exactly line up with the Ten Commandments, but critics have pointed out this hypocrisy for well over a decade with little apparent impact on his conservative religious support. 

The big question then is: Why is this time different?

The religious backlash to Trump has been building for months

Trump’s latest religious post set off a firestorm, but the kindling has been catching over the last few months.

Christians in the United States have been divided by the joint US-Israeli war on Iran: Some anti-Israel MAGA Catholics were already turning on Trump, much to his fury; conservative evangelicals and Christian Zionist nondenominational believers have already been chafing against American Catholics on the right; and policy criticisms of Trump’s foreign policy and immigration agenda from the Vatican and American bishops were putting right-leaning American Catholics in an untenable position.

Now, it looks like Trump is seriously testing just how much it would take for religious conservatives to break with his movement. And he’s taking every shot he can.

Start with Pope Leo. Right before Trump’s latest post, Catholics were already dealing with a shocking series of reports about a meeting between Pentagon officials and the Vatican’s top diplomat to the US back in January, in which one Trump aide issued what was reportedly interpreted by some church officials as a threat over the pope’s criticism of military operations. Though the tone and content of this meeting is contested by both the Pentagon and the Vatican, the effect of these reports was the same: the growing sense that the pope and the president are at odds.  

Perhaps for that reason, the response to Trump personally attacking Leo was especially strong compared to prior incidents, like when he posted an image of himself as pope after Pope Francis died. The latest episode raised the specter of the president focusing his frustrations over the war on the church writ large, a problem that could worsen if the conflict continues to spiral and his approval ratings worsen.

The Bishop Robert Barron, a member of Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission who is popular with traditionalist Catholics and the religious right, called his statements “entirely inappropriate and disrespectful,” and urged “that serious Catholics within the Trump administration — Secretary Rubio, Vice President Vance, Ambassador Brian Burch, and others — might meet with Vatican officials so that a real dialogue can take place.” 

Other prominent American Catholics also weighed in: The head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops said he was “disheartened” that Trump would attack Leo, and reminded him that the pope is not a politician, but “the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls.”

Already, there are signs of a clear cleavage opening up between most American Catholics and Trump, particularly over the Iran war. Trump’s net approval is now negative with them, after exit polls reported that he won this religious part of the electorate by nearly 20 points during the 2024 election. The most recent temperature checks of American Catholics on Iran are also negative: they disapprove of the Iran war by 10 points, and disapprove of Trump’s handling of it by a margin of 20 points, per a March Fox News poll.

“Trump has already lost some support from the Catholic right, which leans isolationist, over his decision to go to war with Iran,” Washington Examiner senior editor Peter Laffin, a Catholic writer, told me. “If I were a Republican candidate heading into 2026, I’d be more concerned with how his attacks on Pope Leo are playing among the Hispanic Catholics who swung heavily to the GOP in 2024.”

And this whole episode again brings the future of the Republican Party into the spotlight. It creates a new obstacle for Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, who keeps getting torn between defending the president, managing relations between MAGA factions, and fielding Catholic criticism, all as he defines his political career along the lines of his Catholic conversion (which is the theme of his forthcoming book).

“This will be consequential for JD Vance,” the Trump critic Candace Owens, an emblematic figure of a growing new antiwar, and sometimes antisemitic, Catholic wing of conservative media, posted Sunday. 

“Can we now all admit that this is a cult of personality, the leading worshiper of which is its leader?” Rod Dreher, a conservative Eastern Orthodox Christian writer known for his close ties to Vance, posted. He was also critical of Trump’s posts about Pope Leo.

But in addition to how this plays out with Catholics, it’s with the greater religious conservative community, of evangelical and nondenominational Christians, where Trump has now exposed himself unnecessarily. 

They’ve largely stuck with him as the war carries on, motivated in part by the prevalent Christian Zionist beliefs that underlie their faith and support for the modern Israeli state. Now, Trump’s aggressive sacrilege — casting himself as Jesus on social media — on top of already threatening Iran with annihilation right after Easter, the most sacred time of the Christian calendar, is causing a kind of self-reflection, doubt, and criticism of the president that we have not seen before.

“The media is paying attention to [podcasters] breaking with Trump over Iran,” evangelical radio host Erick Erickson posted. “What they really should be paying attention to are the Christian Trump supporters who have stood with him through Iran, who are waking up to his blasphemy.”

Editor’s note, April 13, 3 pm ET: On April 12, after this story’s publication, Trump posted a tirade against Pope Leo XIV on Truth Social, calling him “WEAK on crime.” In a subsequent interview, Trump told NBC News, “We don’t like a pope that’s going to say that it’s OK to have a nuclear weapon,” and that he was “not a big fan of Pope Leo.” The pope responded by saying he has “no fear” of the White House: “We are not politicians, we don’t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective he might understand it, but I do believe in the message of the gospel, as a peacemaker.” The story below was originally published on April 10.

Most American Catholics were probably not expecting to spend the first week of Easter trying to figure out whether their government was threatening to overthrow the first American-born pope.

Yet a handful of news reports this week raised that very strange possibility. They landed just as both the Roman Catholic Church and right-wing Christian influencers have been ramping up their criticism of the Trump administration over the Iran war.

This burgeoning scandal hinges on news reports that in January, the previous ambassador of the Vatican to the United States was called into an unusual meeting with Department of Defense officials at the Pentagon and dressed down. The Pentagon officials, reportedly, wanted to complain about a speech Pope Leo XIV gave in Rome that appeared to criticize American foreign policy. During the meeting, one official issued what some in the church saw as a veiled threat to the Vatican: a warning that the US wields unlimited military power, and that the pope should be conscious of that.

If true, this episode would mark a low point in modern Vatican-American political relations — on top of being a major religious scandal for Catholics in the US.

The Trump administration denies these accounts; the Vatican is keeping mostly quiet. Meanwhile, the reporters and writers who first surfaced these allegations are standing by their stories.

Whatever the truth ends up being, this scandal points to some important fracture lines in American religious life, and offers a key to understanding the way the Iran war is cracking up the religious right. It  also fits into a broader conflict that is testing MAGA Catholics’ resolve, and setting up the Catholic Church as one of the Trump administration’s most visible and relevant critics. 

So what exactly is the scandal?

This whole saga began with a report from the Free Press on Wednesday, in which Italian journalist Mattia Ferraresi reported on a previously unknown meeting between Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, then-top Vatican diplomat in the US Cardinal Christophe Pierre, and a handful of Pentagon officials.

The meeting, which is now confirmed to have happened, was unusual, Ferraresi and other reports noted, because of where and when it happened: at the Pentagon, instead of with diplomats of the Department of State, and after Pope Leo had delivered a speech decrying the breakdown in the post-war international order and the escalating use of force and violence abroad by nations, including the US, to achieve their aims. 

“War is back in vogue and the zeal for war is spreading,” Leo had said in his speech to diplomats.

That the meeting happened isn’t in doubt; but no one seems to agree on what was actually said in the encounter. The Free Press reported that the meeting was meant to be a warning to the Vatican, a reminder that militarily, the US can do “whatever it wants…and that the Vatican, and Leo, better take its side.” And so, it devolved into a “bitter lecture.”

The Pentagon, meanwhile, said Thursday that the group “had a substantive, respectful, and professional meeting” and that “recent reporting of the meeting is highly exaggerated and distorted.” The US ambassador to the Holy See (the Vatican’s political government) echoed that sentiment, and called media reports exaggerations and fabrications.

But other news outlets also began picking up on the fallout. NBC Chicago, of the pope’s hometown, quoted a Vatican source who called the Pentagon meeting “most unpleasant and confrontational.” The Financial Times reported that the meeting was supposed to deliver a “friendly message” to the pope, and to ask the Vatican to be more supportive of the Trump administration’s policies, but unraveled when Pierre said the pope would follow Catholic values in conducting Vatican foreign policy.

That’s when one specific term jumps out, which caused this whole episode to become an actual scandal. Someone in the room, according to the Free Press, the Financial Times, and independent journalist Christopher Hale, invoked the name “Avignon” — which some Vatican officials reportedly understood to be a military threat against the Vatican. 

Why did this particular phrase set off alarm bells? To answer that, we have to go back 700 years. 

Did a Trump official really threaten the Vatican?

Though these accounts don’t agree on who invoked Avignon, the term is a trigger for Catholics, historians, and history buffs: It references the French city that served as the home base for popes in the 14th century after a French king, Philip IV, sent an army to Italy where they attacked the sitting pope, Boniface VIII, after years of feuding over who was the preeminent political power. 

Phiip IV went on to force the election of a new French pope, who moved the papacy to Avignon. For 70 years, popes held court and governed Christendom from the city’s papal palace — and when the last Avignon pope tried to move the office back to Rome, it spawned a crisis for the church and the rise of rival “antipopes” in Avignon claiming to be the real pope for nearly 40 years after.

As you might now understand, “Avignon” is a loaded term. And combined with the nature of the meeting — at the Pentagon, having to do with comments Pope Leo had made about America’s use of force — you can see how this episode could be interpreted as being a veiled warning about the church staying in its lane when it comes to criticizing the dominant military power.

Why are the US and the pope so at odds?

Regardless of who invoked Avignon or how confrontational the meeting was behind the scenes, it fits into a pattern of growing public conflict between the Church and the Trump presidency. 

This applies to both style and substance: Pope Leo, and the American bishops, have become loud critics of Trump’s immigration and mass deportation policy, his foreign interventions abroad and use of force against other nations, and the breakdown of the US-European alliance. For all intents and purposes, MAGA has forced the Catholic Church to appear like the chief resistance.

But it’s the joint US-Israeli war on Iran that has caused the most visible strain and direct condemnation of Trump and the American government by the Roman pontiff. After spending weeks calling for peace talks and ceasefires, and preaching the Church’s anti-war message during Holy Week commemorations, Leo used Trump’s name for the first time last week, expressing hope that he was “looking for an off-ramp” from the war.

And after Trump warned that Iranian civilization might “die” on Tuesday, Leo condemned the statements as “truly unacceptable” and urged “the citizens of all the countries involved to contact the authorities, political leaders, congressmen, to ask them, tell them to work for peace and to reject war.”

Has Pope Leo weighed in on Avignon-gate?

The pope hasn’t said anything on this latest development, but the Vatican has weighed in — a significant move given their traditional reluctance to address these kinds of political disputes. 

After the Vatican Press Office initially declined to comment earlier in the week, Vatican press secretary Matteo Bruni released a statement on Friday confirming Cardinal Pierre met with Colby “for an exchange of views on matters of mutual interest,” and that “the narrative offered by certain media outlets regarding this meeting does not correspond at all with the truth” — without clarifying which narrative that was, or where existing reporting got things wrong. 

Meanwhile, the Vatican diplomat involved in the meeting, Cardinal Pierre, told one independent journalist he would “prefer not speak.”

But the Free Press report suggested that this dustup is leading the Vatican to keep the US government at arm’s length while Trump is president. The first American pope has declined invitations to come to the US during its 250th celebrations, and will instead spend that time at an island in Italy where migrants fleeing danger in Africa frequently stop off while trying to reach Europe. The Trump administration has openly supported anti-immigrant political parties and leaders in Europe, while also trying to block asylum seekers and refugees from entering America.

Where does JD Vance come into all this? 

Vance, a Catholic convert who has a book coming out later this year on his faith journey, was asked about the Pentagon episode on Wednesday while traveling in Hungary. He denied knowing the Vatican diplomat in question, and said he’d rather not comment on an unconfirmed report.

Vance is the highest ranking of a significant number of Catholics serving in the Trump administration (including Secretary of State Marco Rubio), was one of the last public leaders to meet with the late Pope Francis before his death, and was famously rebuked by two popes (Francis and Leo, albeit before the latter became pope) for invoking his new faith to defend the Trump administration’s immigration policy. 

As Vance’s prior papal feuds indicate, the Free Press story also runs into some intra-Catholic tensions. Colby, the Pentagon official embroiled in the mess and a reported ally of Vance, is also Catholic. Some of the leading intellectual figures on the right in MAGA circles are traditionalist Catholics who have been critical of the current and former popes for what they see as concessions to modern liberal political values.

Within US politics, Vance also represents a wing of the GOP that is being split apart by the Iran war, partly over religious lines — and in ways that could threaten his potential aspirations for the presidency in 2028. This story could make that divide even more difficult to navigate. 

How does this latest story fit into MAGA’s current civil war? 

Beyond being a spectacle, Avignon-gate is also a helpful key to understanding what is happening on the religious right in 2026, and how the Iran war is affecting both the MAGA coalition and the American Catholic Church.

The report landed just as arguments over Israel and Iran were driving a wedge between the GOP’s pro-Trump evangelical base, who tend to be Christian Zionists sympathetic to Israel, and a group of prominent Catholic and non-evangelical commentators who are increasingly hostile to Trump’s foreign policy agenda and critical of Israel. 

Among the latter group, which includes Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Carrie Prejean Boller, and Nick Fuentes, Avignon-gate quickly became a hot topic, with many eager to embrace the most explosive interpretation of events. 

“On the pope thing, that is how you know this administration is the antichrist…these people hate Catholics,” the self-described Catholic and white supremacist Nick Fuentes said on his show Thursday. Boller took aim at Colby on X, saying, “you won’t bully or threaten the Catholic Church into your unjust war.”

Many of these more isolationist and antiwar figures have also been condemned within the right for either tolerating or openly espousing antisemitism. As they rally to the church’s side now over the war, and justify their opposition to Trump in increasingly theological terms, this episode puts more pressure on Leo to address the church’s relationship with them as well. Ferraresi, the author of the Free Press article that kicked off this affair, challenged Pope Leo in the same piece to condemn “the growing choir of Catholic pundits injecting bigotry into the MAGA infosphere,” and not just focus the church’s fire on the pro-war right. 

In short, it’s a mess. Avignon-gate is almost perfectly calibrated to raise temperatures not only between the White House and the Vatican, but within the US Catholic community, and within the MAGA movement. And the issues it raises are nowhere near being resolved.