Pope Leo XIV and President Trump: Allies for Peace

The corporate media is already spilling tons of ink to paint a picture of a pope and a U.S. president with nothing in common. Reports even goad Pope Leo XIV and President Donald Trump against each other. And to the pro-war ruling classes and their agents in the media, there’s an urgent reason to drive a wedge between the two men: They are almost totally aligned on the bedrock moral issue of our time—the worth and dignity of the human person.

From the moment he announced his candidacy in 2015 until now, President Trump has spoken with scandalous plainness about his abhorrence for war. For all the brash and indelicate aspects of his public persona, he will say on grave and formal occasions that nothing means more to him than protecting vulnerable people from war’s dehumanizing horrors. 

“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier,” Trump said in his inauguration speech after resuming office this year. “That’s what I wanna be: a peacemaker and a unifier.”

That’s why, against tremendous pressure from Washington donors and powerbrokers, Trump has confronted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about his inhuman campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. With thousands of women and children starving under an Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid, Trump told Netanyahu to his face: “We’ve got to be good to Gaza. These people are suffering.”

“There’s a very big need for food and medicine,” Trump told reporters later, “and we’re taking care of it … We’re pushing [Israel] very hard.”

Trump is famous for his antagonism toward the media, and operatives in the press love to share clips to make him out to be a bully. But it isn’t just a game to him. His suspicion of the media comes from a well-founded belief that the media are often bullies themselves. He remembers the mainstream press’s complicity in the false narratives that have led to war after dehumanizing war, and he will have no part in helping them pave the way for the next.

As for Pope Leo XIV, it took less than a week for him to establish himself as a voice for peace who would not shy away from applying the Church’s teachings on human dignity and the sanctity of human life in battle-torn regions. It took less than a week for [Pope Leo XIV] to establish himself as a voice for peace who would not shy away from applying the Church’s teachings on human dignity and the sanctity of human life in battle-torn regions.Tweet This

“I am deeply saddened by what is happening in the Gaza Strip,” Pope Leo said at his very first Regina Caeli address. “Cease fire immediately! Let humanitarian aid be provided to the exhausted civilian population and let all hostages be freed.”

Pope Leo also had his own words of admonition for the press. 

At his first meeting with representatives of the media, his primary message was perfectly aligned with Trump’s concerns—and the concerns all people of goodwill should have for the vulnerable who bear devastating consequences thanks in part to the press’s complicity with ruling-class warmongering.

He reserved his highest praise for those journalists “who are imprisoned for seeking and reporting the truth while also asking for their release.”

“The Church recognizes these witnesses – I am thinking of those who report on war even at the cost of their lives – the courage of those who defend dignity, justice, and the right of people to be informed,” the pope said. “The suffering of these imprisoned journalists challenges the conscience of nations and the international community, calling on all of us to safeguard the precious gift of free speech and of the press.”

As for the journalists assembled to hear him speak that day at the Paul VI audience hall in Rome, Pope Leo challenged them with Christ’s beatitude “Blessed are the peacemakers.” 

“This is a beatitude that challenges all of us,” he said pointedly, “but it is particularly relevant to you….”

“Blessed are the peacemakers.” Our Lord’s words really do challenge us all. As someone with access to public media and as the founder of a Catholic apostolate, the Vulnerable People Project (VPP), my plea is that you would answer that challenge. My team and I at VPP are sitting on truckloads of aid for Gaza, particularly for women and children and especially for new moms and their newborns.

We have one truck to send in honor of the late Pope Francis, who with his last breaths called for us to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Gaza, another truck to send in honor of Pope Leo XIV, who in his first public statements as pontiff has taken up the same prophetic message, and a third truck which we will send in honor of President Trump for his courageous efforts to push for the corridors to be opened.

Please pray with me that the witness of our Church and the strength of our president will always be at the service not of the thoughtless and the powerful, but of the vulnerable in whose incomparable dignity we see the Image of God. You can also put your prayers into action by signing a petition calling for an immediate ceasefire and an opening up of Gaza’s humanitarian corridors.