Trump’s attacks on the pope reverberate at a historic Market East church: ‘I’d vote for the pope’

Tucked away like a medieval castle a block from City Hall, St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church is a sanctuary for many Center City Catholics, and Father Thomas Betz, spectacled and steely, is their shepherd.

For the last few weeks, Betz has felt forced to add a new duty to his crowded ministerial dance card: explaining longstanding Catholic doctrine and theology to his parishioners in light of the Trump administration’s recent papal insults.

Like the big guy in Rome, the first U.S.-born pope — and everybody’s favorite former Villanova Wildcat — Betz, a welcoming friar of the Franciscan Order, refrained from critiquing the president directly when he sat down in his spare parish office last week to pen a forthcoming letter to parishioners for the church bulletin.

That is not his way. Father Betz’s way is prayer and quiet service and assuring all those who cross the arched threshold of St. John’s — the downtown workers, nurses, doctors, cops, judges, attorneys, tourists, and conventioneers, the walking wounded of Market East — that they are loved by a God who embraces everyone.

So you see the problem.

The bulletin publishing deadline runs a week ahead, and Father Betz felt it necessary to address the president’s explosive papal eruption, coming, no less, in response to something popes have been doing for nearly two millennia. It is the papal equivalent of a boilerplate postgame quote, and one of the first job requirements of any supreme pontiff: condemning war.

“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” President Donald Trump posted April 12 on Truth Social. “I don’t want a pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.”

Without explanation, Trump took credit for Pope Leo XIV’s appointment as the Bishop of Rome in May 2025. And he followed by posting an artificial intelligence-generated image of himself as a Jesus figure.

“I have no fear of the Trump administration, or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do,” responded the pope, who had described the conflict in Iran as “unjust” and “atrocious,” adding that “God does not bless any conflict.”

Politics ends at the doors of St. John’s, Betz, who wears a plain brown habit and abides a vow of poverty, likes to say. But he knew his parishioners would find the president’s unprecedented attack on the Holy Father unnerving, as he did.

“While there may be Catholics who would agree with the war in Iran, many of them don’t like to hear the pope spoke of so disrespectfully,” he said. “It feels personal.”

The pews filled for the 5:15 p.m. Mass last Saturday. About 700 parishioners still attend weekly services, Betz said, a robust crowd even as the church undertakes a $1,000,000 capital campaign to address crumbling bricks and a sputtering electrical system. Many more, who are not parishioners but are enchanted by the elegance of the old church, drop in for one of the nearly two dozen weekly Masses, or hold weddings and baptisms and funerals in the church founded in 1832.

“Poor people and rich people,” Betz said. “People who commit crimes and the judges who adjudicate the crimes. People from all across the region, the country, and the world — they come to Philadelphia, and they come to St. John’s.”

Nadine Boulware, 67, a retired legal secretary from North Philly, has been an altar server and Eucharistic minister at St. John’s for nearly 20 years. Wearing a small, plain wooden cross around her neck, she eagerly rode two buses to arrive early. She needed time to mentor a new 16-year-old altar-server named Messiah.

“Look at that,” she said, smiling sweetly at the boy’s divine designation.

At St. John’s, Boulware’s worries — the rising costs of groceries and property taxes and the work she needs on her home — ease.

“I find peace here,” she said, in the quiet of the old church. “That spirit drew me in.”

She had pushed aside the president’s words, but they lingered.

“No president in history, whether he disagreed with the pope or not, he never expressed it this way. If he did not like what the pope said, he kept it to himself, or maybe he had a private conversation,” she said. “That man has no character.”

Luke O’Connell, 30, of Callowhill, sat down near the cantor’s lectern, where he had a good view of the marble Virgin Mary statue, carved in Italy in the 1850s and one of the only church statues to survive a fire that destroyed the interior of the original church in that decade. One night last winter, a burglar smashed a stained-glass window to steal a bejeweled gold crown from the Madonna. The unnerving crime — which has not been solved — happened to fall on the one-year anniversary of O’Connell’s return to church, a coincidence that deepened his admiration for the striking statue.

Originally from New York, O’Connell had broken from the church, and had been struggling with his faith and the state of the world, when he was welcomed at St. John’s two years ago. He is now a member of parish’s vibrant LGBT Prayer Group, one of the first in the archdiocese, and the Young Adult Community group, which boasts about two dozen members, and a parish environmental group.

“Its sort of like a big hug from all of my friends,” he said of the community at St. John’s. “Friends across the political aisle. Friends from all walks of life. We have doctors, lawyers. We have people who come from addiction, who rebuilt their lives. People in the process of rebuilding their lives, and being able to be friends with all of them on an equal level has been incredible.”

In 2016, Trump had dismissed Pope Francis and his progressive teachings as “disgraceful.” It had been Francis’ message of inclusion that had partly drawn O’Connell back. And during the last meeting, the Young Adult group had discussed Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo XIV with equal parts frustration and sadness.

“The mistreatment that the pope is dealing with just for preaching the gospel — the most basic message of the gospel — it’s disgusting,” he had said.

Mass began.

Running late, TJ DeLuca, 39, of Springfield, a cantor at St. John’s for 18 years, sang the first notes of the hymn, “Christ the Lord is Risen,” as Father Betz, finished with his bulletin about the president and war, processed to the altar.

DeLuca had first discovered St. John’s while he was a young student at the University of the Arts. An adviser, Annette DiMedio, who happened to be musical director at St. John’s, suggested he come sing at the church. At the time, he had grown disillusioned, feeling lost after considering a life in the priesthood. But St. John’s opened its arms — and saved his faith, he said.

Usually, he drowns the president out. But so little feels normal anymore. He was proud of the pope. As he sang, he forgot it all, resting in the music and the happiness and joy he finds at St. John’s.

“When you sing, you pray twice,” he likes to say, quoting an adage attributed to St. Augustine.

In the pews, Michelle and Fred Harde, retirees who live in Center City, sang along. The couple, originally from Moorestown, still glowed from the thrill of a recent trip to Rome, where they attended a special Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, where Pope Leo XIV blessed sacramental holy oils and urged priests everywhere to embrace their mission with God and bring peace.

“It was wonderful,” Michelle Harde said.

Neither is a fan of the president, but they were still shocked when they came home from their trip to the Holy See and saw the president’s words.

“It literally was blasphemous,” Fred Harde said.

“I’d vote for the pope,” Michelle Harde said.

The Prayer of the Faithful was read, and intercessions were made for the needy and the hurting — and for peace.

Up front sat a former soldier, young, strong, and square-shouldered, and praying the rosary, with tattoos peeking out of a crisp blue oxford. Because of the details of his service, he did not want his name published. But the soldier had fought wars — and saw some reason to fight another in Iran. But still, the president’s words saddened him. So he prayed for the president.

When it came time for his homily, Father Betz left Trump at the door. Left him for his pastor’s note in the bulletin, which appears on Page 2 of the April 26 edition, under the title “From the Pastor’s Desk.”

In it, he outlines the Catholic Church’s doctrine on war, which presumes that all war is wrong, except in exceptional cases, and that it is immoral for any country to start a war.

“There is no new teaching,” he wrote. “Pope Leo did not create a teaching on war and he is not speaking only of his opinion … he is not talking politics, but morality and theology.”

He tells about the wars in his lifetime, and the innocents lost in them, and about the innocents, including schoolchildren, now perishing in Iran. How “boasting and bellicose talk is never right for a country at war,”

“Even if a war is justified, one must regard the enemy as human with dignity and rights,” he wrote, adding: “Pope Leo is right.”

For his homily, standing in sunlight filtering through stained glass, Betz preached about times of darkness and despair, when, amid “the glitter of politics and entertainment,” we may feel lost and abandoned. And how God walks with us then, even if we don’t sense it.

“When you think you could never be hopeful again, hope begins,” he said.

“Amen,” said the people in the pews.