Trump's attacks on Pope reveal crisis of faith and anger over defeat to Iran: Priest

By Mohammad Ali Haqshenas

After Pope Leo XIV denounced what he called a “delusion of omnipotence” behind US aggression against Iran, a Catholic priest and researcher said President Donald Trump’s attacks on him reveal both a crisis of faith and a strategic failure.

In an interview with the Press TV website, Christopher Clohessy pointed to the “anger” of the US president over his failure in the war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which led him to launch a verbal attack on Pope Leo XIV after the latter slammed the aggression.

“Donald Trump, like many of those around him, claims Christianity as his faith and way of life, but this is a massively questionable claim considering his words and actions,” he said.

“Quite clearly, he knows that America has not won its war against Iran – in fact, it is Iran who is at this moment victorious,” he said, adding that Iran’s victory is “morally and from the point of view of what is right and just, and also because against all odds it held out against an unjust attack.”

The unprovoked US-Israeli aggression on Iran, which began on February 28 with airstrikes assassinating senior Iranian officials and expanded to target schools, hospitals, energy and road infrastructure, and residential areas, drew sharp condemnation from the Vatican.

Over the weekend, Pope Leo XIV condemned a “delusion of omnipotence” fueling the US-Israeli aggression, explicitly denouncing the dragging of God's name into discourses of death.

Trump retaliated on Sunday, declaring he was “not a fan” of the pontiff and claiming the Pope was “weak on Crime, and terrible for foreign policy.”

Clohessy noted that the president's outbursts stemmed from deep, visible frustration. Trump was under relentless pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fight “Netanyahu’s long desired private war against Iran.”

Simultaneously, the American public desperately wanted the president to withdraw from the “latest in American disasters in the Middle East,” Clohessy said.

The senior Catholic priest noted that Trump initially misjudged the Vatican's leadership.

“Trump was, in fact, highly critical of Pope Francis, who at the beginning thought might be easily manipulated, and now that Pope Leo has not proven to be malleable, Trump has begun to criticise him,” he said.

Trump’s recent behavior culminated in a bizarre, AI-generated image portraying him curing a man like Jesus Christ. The president deleted the post following massive public backlash from across the political spectrum, including from his own conservative supporters.

For Clohessy, this erratic behavior pointed to severe underlying issues. “Quite clearly, he is mentally unstable,” the scholar asserted. “Portraying himself as the Christ figure and then afterwards denying that it was Christ suggests something seriously wrong.”

The researcher added that it remained constantly surprising that the US lacked a mechanism to curb a president “who is not only dangerous but also bringing shame upon the nation.”

Trump’s attacks were directed at the person of the pope rather than his message, Clohessy said, adding that Pope Leo was merely fulfilling his pastoral duty to speak against war, violence, and the genocide of Palestinians.

“We would be shocked as Catholic Christians if he did not do this,” Clohessy emphasized.

There is a clear distinction in Christianity between church and state, he explained, noting that the Pope was not merely interested in foreign policy.

“He is interested in justice and in peace, since this is the true job of the pastor,” he noted.

International snubs also compounded Trump's anger. Pope Leo XVI recently refused a White House invitation to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, choosing instead to spend the day with migrants and refugees in Lampedusa.

To maintain support, Trump surrounded himself with a specific religious demographic.

“Donald Trump seems to have aligned himself with a rather odd group of what we could be called ‘evangelical Christians’ who have no central authority, no fixed agreement in their Christian doctrine, and no real issue with the sort of morality that Pope Leo would preach,” Clohessy told the Press TV website.

These advisors, the expert argued, had little time for the Catholic Church and therefore had no problem with Trump speaking out against Catholicism, all while being boosted by the “so-called ‘prayers’” of his inner circle.

While US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth attempted to frame the aggression on Iran as a holy war, Clohessy dismissed the administration's religious posturing entirely.

He pointed out that Christianity’s historical "just war" theory, worked out by theologians like Thomas Aquinas, required violence to be an absolute last resort.

“What we have with Trump is not a last resort or a just war of self-defence —the constant but false claim of the Israeli regime— but an unjustified aggression against a nation that has not threatened anybody,” Clohessy explained.

“Clearly, Donald Trump is interested in the gains for America —such as oil” rather than a “just war,” the priest pointed out.

The expert drew a historical parallel to the aftermath of 9/11, when George W. Bush used the word ‘crusade’ in his responses. It was “an exceptionally foolish word to use,” Clohessy noted, but Bush did so to keep Christians on his side by framing the conflict as a holy war of self-defense. Trump, he argued, utilized a similarly hollow, pseudo-Christian narrative.

This geopolitical failure is rooted in a fundamental American ignorance of the Arab-Islamic world and Iran's governance structure, specifically wilāyat al-faqīh. Because of this blind spot, Clohessy said, America "has always been defeated and will continue to be defeated when it launches attacks against Islamic or Arabic countries."

Clohessy also criticized the broader global community, noting the “complete failure” of the worldwide Islamic Ummah to defend massacred Muslims, and pointing out that two Christian nations—Ireland and South Africa—had to take the lead where almost every Islamic nation, aside from Iran, faltered.

On Tuesday, the pontiff reiterated that he did not fear the Trump administration, tweeting that God's heart "is not with the wicked, the arrogant, or the proud."

By mocking religious leadership and exploiting sacred imagery for a political agenda, Trump may have severely miscalculated his standing with Christian voters, Clohessy said.

“Curiously, Trump seems to have forgotten that a large number of Americans are Catholic.”

The scholar hoped that Catholic voters would reexamine their consciences and change their path following the president's attack on the pope, whom Catholics view as the representative of Christ on earth.

“He has mocked in an exploitative way religious imagery and religious leadership and he may well find that he has alienated a substantial number of his followers,” Clohessy noted.

“As with authentic Islam, so too with authentic Christianity, there is a horror of blasphemy, of the misuse of the name of God, and the exploitation and misuse of theology or spirituality for secular purposes.”

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir