NEW YORK – Pope Leo XIV’s first Easter address called for peace and dialogue in a time of war in the Middle East.
He got the dialogue, all right – in the form of an ongoing back and forth with the White House over who gets to weigh in on politics and whether war can be righteous.
“On this day of celebration, let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars,” the first US-born pontiff told tens of thousands of people who packed St Peter’s Square on April 5.
US President Donald Trump called the pontiff “weak on crime”, accusing him of “catering to the radical left”.
The president posted an image, created by artificial intelligence, of himself as a Jesus figure and also said the pope owed his papacy to Trump.
He later deleted the image, saying he had thought it depicted him as a doctor.
Vice-President J.D. Vance, who is the highest-ranking Catholic in federal government, has taken the side of his boss.
The vice-president said on Fox News that the pope should “stick to matters of, you know, what’s going on in the Catholic Church” and leave the public policy to Mr Trump.
Around the country, at Catholic churches where Mr Vance and the pope have roots, reporters for The New York Times asked worshippers what they thought of the dispute.
Back in 2019, St Gertrude Church in Cincinnati got frequent visits from a young man curious about Catholicism – and politics.
He was Mr Vance, then a 35-year-old venture capitalist who was raised in the evangelical church but considered himself an atheist at the time.
Mr Vance has said he was drawn to the Catholic Church’s ancient teachings.
On April 19, the church service at St Gertrude featured colorful vestments, incense, a traditional homily and plenty of squirming children – but there was no mention from the altar of the dispute.
Mr Joe Schmidt, 46, a local parishioner, said the parish community was theologically conservative but tried to avoid politics.
He added that he was glad the pope had spoken out about Mr Trump’s threats to destroy Iranian civilisation.
“We always want peace,” he said.
The Reverend Reginald Hoefer, the parochial vicar, said he did not want to weigh in on the back and forth.
“I don’t really follow the news,” he said. “I’m too busy running the church.”
There was far more discussion about the dispute at the university where Pope Leo, then Robert Prevost, earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1977.
The student body at the school outside Philadelphia leans to the left and in 2024 voted for Ms Kamala Harris over Mr Trump by a 2-to-1 margin, according to the student newspaper, the Villanovan.
Reverend Peter Donohue, the university’s president, touched on the disagreement in his homily without calling anybody out by name.
Reverend Donohue likened the back and forth to Luke 24:13-35, which tells the story of two disciples of Jesus so engaged in conversation about the news of his crucifixion that they failed to recognise Jesus himself, as he met them along a road and spoke of Scripture.
He implored his congregation to similarly not get wrapped up in the news but instead to turn to gospel for answers.
Ms Hope DiGiovanni, 22, a senior from New Jersey, said she was happy that Pope Leo was “taking a stand on current issues and standing up for the faith”.
Mr Max D’Amore, a freshman from Massachusetts, said that when a teacher in a freshman humanities course started a discussion about the exchange between the president and the pontiff, his classmates appeared uniformly opposed to Mr Trump’s statements.
Students were particularly turned off by the president posting the image likening himself to Jesus, Mr D’Amore said.
“The reactions were definitely like, you know, who would do something like that?” he added.
At Holy Name Cathedral, the mother church of the Archdiocese of Chicago, where Pope Leo grew up, the Reverend Louis Cameli addressed the dispute head-on at the Saturday evening Mass.
“The church doesn’t offer policies or strategies or directions on how to govern,” he said.
“The church offers a vision of values, values that respect life. Those values – that’s what the Holy Father is reminding all of us about.”
Mr Sam Turner, 49, a physician from Virginia who attended the Mass while visiting Chicago, said he thought that most of Mr Trump’s policies aligned with the Catholic Church, citing the push to limit abortion rights in particular.
“I think he does make some Catholics scratch their heads, but overall his policies are supportive and align with church teachings,” Mr Turner said.
On the morning of April 19, at Christ Our Savior Catholic Parish in suburban South Holland, Illinois, which bills itself as “the de facto home parish of Pope Leo XIV”, the dispute was on the minds of several parishioners.
Ms Mary Onwunah, 60, a nurse, called the president’s criticism of the pope “ridiculous” and said she appreciated that the pope had not gone quiet.
“He’s not going to succumb to the president,” she said. NYTIMES