Peacemaking or partiality? Pope Leo and Trump’s confrontation

When Pete Hegseth invoked the wrath of God against the Iranians, it caused alarm to many individuals who were politically left of his own brand of evangelical Republicanism. One of the people triggered by it now seems to have been the Pope.

On Palm Sunday, he offered a homily which rebuked politicians who had blood on their hands. Commentators, who included me, would immediately ask whether or not the Pope was getting involved within the foreign policy issues that governed the Iranian war. 

I, at one point, thought that there might just be just a little little bit of wiggle room – that he was annunciating principles of geopolitical Catholic ethics reasonably than rebuking the American administration.

It looks as if I used to be mistaken.

Suddenly, today, a spat of words has broken out between President Trump and Pope Leo, and other than intensifying antagonism and misunderstanding, it is just not easy to see what good will come out of it.

President Trump has his own type of communication. It is stuffed with provocative aggression, hyperbole, and full-on confrontation. It is how he has done deals the entire of his life. He creates outrage and apoplexy in his opponents. This fairly often has the effect of wrong-footing them. It has worked thoroughly for him.

A phrase has even been coined in response to those that take him too seriously – Trump Derangement Syndrome.

One of the questions we’ve got to ask ourselves is whether or not or not the Pope has an ethical and public duty to comment on President Trump’s tasteless, aggressive, but often effective hyperbole.

Whether or not we predict he has such an ethical duty, the Pope did comment, and maybe almost inevitably this produced a furious response from President Trump.

Pope Leo’s response on his plane flight to Argentina was this:

“I don’t have any fear of either the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly concerning the message of the Gospel. And that’s what I feel I’m called to do, and what the Church known as to do. We are usually not politicians. We are usually not prone to make foreign policy with the identical perspective as he might understand it. But I do consider the message of the Gospel – blessed are the peacemakers – is a message the world needs to listen to today.”

How can one criticise the Pope? Everything he said is true.

The difficulty is that even when he didn’t think he was speaking in a way intended to correct American foreign policy, the President and his advisers heard it in that way – as in the event that they were being rebuked.

One of the questions that arises from this exchange is why the Pope is directing his ethical remarks on the American administration reasonably than the Iranian administration. Why is it that the Iranian administration and its actions don’t discover a place in his public teaching or moral concern. 

A great deal, in fact, depends upon one’s presuppositions. It could also be that being triggered by Pete Hegseth’s aggressive religiosity affects one’s presuppositions.

But on the opposite side of the argument, there are those that consider that Trump can have saved the world from a nuclear winter.

There was a faculty of intelligence that said that the Iranians were only weeks away from with the ability to produce a nuclear bomb.

Whilst mutually assured destruction has saved the world for the reason that atomic bomb was invented, there was at all times going to be an exception to that safety – and that was for those who could not count on the sanity and instinct for self-preservation on each side. 

To those that understand the theological priorities of the Iranian ruling regime, that is one group for whom mutually assured destruction holds no terror and exercises no restraint. The particular brand of Islam they follow teaches that they’ve an obligation to bring on apocalyptic disaster with a view to fulfil their eschatological expectations. 

If you’re thinking that that the Iranians were near having a nuclear bomb, and for those who take seriously their determination to destroy Israel and wipe it out “from the river to the ocean,” and for those who consider that that is consistent with a scarcity of restraint by way of the nuclear exchange this might provoke, then you definitely would reach the conclusion that the work of President Trump has been to avoid wasting the world from nuclear disaster. This is just not a view that will be proved, nevertheless it is definitely a position that should be entertained.

When the Pope proclaimed “blessed are the peacemakers,” is it possible that saving the world from nuclear holocaust might constitute an act of peacemaking?

Some historical curiosity may help.

His predecessor was faced with an invasion of the Huns and their deadly and highly successful advance, sweeping in from the East and threatening Western civilisation with disaster.

The invasions of Attila together with his force of Huns were terrifyingly successful. Beyond the impact of an enormous body count, they created psychological terror, the collapse of cities, mass displacement, and civilisational shock.

Pope Leo I saw it as his duty to travel to satisfy Attila in person – which he did in 452 AD near the River Mincio in Italy.

After the confrontation between the 2 men, Attila withdrew.

Some people claimed it was a miracle. Others said it was in response to disease, threats to his rear, and his need to seek out a face-saving reason for withdrawing. But nonetheless, as a substitute of getting into a confrontation, the Pope became a negotiator with the chief explanation for the threat to civilisation.

Might Pope Leo XIV take some inspiration from Leo I. Instead of confronting the loud, highly hyperbolic, destabilising President Trump, he may need arranged a gathering with the Iranian leaders. 

If he was going to make use of his considerable moral authority to enhance the conditions for peacemaking, it could be that the people he should have been talking to were the Iranians reasonably than the American administration.

It may be very awkward for Catholics to seek out themselves caught up in a confrontation between the office of the Papacy and the Presidency of the United States. Perhaps the perfect news to return out of today’s events is the Pope saying he didn’t intend to proceed the confrontation with the administration.

I discovered myself in demand in media studios after the general public spat – at Times Radio, LBC, and elsewhere – trying to clarify why Catholics may be reluctant simply to side with the Pope against the larger-than-life figure of the Presidency.

Bishop Barron suggested, in a useful intervention, that if Pope Leo and President Trump were unable to speak easily at the extent of megaphone diplomacy between the 2 offices, then senior American politicians ought to satisfy senior Vatican diplomats to see in the event that they could create a less fraught channel of communication. 

What this moment reveals is just not simply a clash of personalities, but a deeper confusion concerning the nature of ethical authority in a disordered world.

The Pope is true to evangelise the Gospel. He is true to remind the world that peace is the final word good. But peace is just not at all times served by directing moral rebuke at those that may – nonetheless imperfectly – be attempting to restrain greater evils.

If the Church is to act as a real instrument of peace, it have to be seen to talk with equal clarity to all parties, especially to those whose actions and ideologies most threaten the delicate order of the world.

Otherwise, even the reality, when unevenly applied, risks being heard not as prophecy but as partiality.

History offers us a lens through which to guage the current. When Leo I rode out to satisfy Attila, he didn’t merely discuss peace – he confronted the source of the threat to it.

That is the burden, and the privilege, of ethical authority at its highest level: not simply to proclaim principles, but to direct them where they’re most needed.

If the Church is to face once more as a stabilising force in a dangerous world, it must be sure that its voice is just not only heard – but rightly aimed. 

Because in times corresponding to these, the difference between peacemaking and misjudgment is probably not measured in words – but in consequences.

Read more from Gavin Ashenden at https://drgavinashenden.substack.com/