Who’s afraid of the big, bad Trump? Not Pope Leo.

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times to be a Catholic in the U.S.

Evidence of the best? The enthusiasm Pope Leo XIV has generated since his election to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May. That fervor has manifested in everything from a surge in the number of people joining the Roman Catholic Church to the pride evinced in the U.S.-born pontiff’s Creole and Chicago roots. The internet has even resurfaced a 1982 photo of a young Pope Leo dressed as one of the Blues Brothers, usually paired with one of the movie’s iconic lines: He’s “on a mission from God.” Catholicism hasn’t been this popular for a long time.

But then there is the worst: Sunday night, President Donald Trump issued an extraordinary post attacking the pope on Truth Social.

“Leo should get his act together as Pope,” Trump wrote, after enumerating all the ways the pope is saying things the president doesn’t like. Namely, that Pope Leo has repeatedly spoken out strongly against war. Our thin-skinned but always bellicose commander in chief’s screed was seemingly prompted by Pope Leo’s words closing out a global Holy Rosary for Peace event held on Saturday, in which the pontiff decried the “delusion of omnipotence” that is fueling conflict across the world.

» READ MORE: Pope Leo’s pointed message to Catholics the day after the U.S. bombed Iran | Sabrina Vourvoulias

Though Pope Leo, from his very first address from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica after being elected pope May 8, has been saying that “peace in the world” is the mission of the church, in his Truth Social post, Trump characterized that focus as “catering to the Radical Left” and took it personally: “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.”

For his part, Pope Leo responded to Trump’s attack by saying, “I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what the church works for.”

It shouldn’t really surprise us that someone like Trump, who governs in the dark — relying heavily on instilling fear, telling lies, and issuing threats — is actually a snowflake that melts at first light. We’ve seen it before (albeit too sparingly) from the universities, media organizations, law firms, and legislators that have stood up to his increasingly unhinged demands.

But why does Trump, someone who didn’t take his oath of office on a Bible (or any other sacred text for that matter), who has been divorced twice, and who a jury found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, even care what the head of the Roman Catholic Church says? Is it because first lady Melania Trump is Catholic? Or because a significant number of the people in his administration are? Or is it because 60% of U.S. Catholics disapprove of how he “has handled the conflict with Iran,” according to the right-leaning National Catholic Register?

Even the most conservative Catholics — a demographic that has, overall, been solidly pro-Trump — have balked at the president’s attack on the pope. Bishop Robert Barron, for example, has said he believes Trump owes the pontiff an apology.

» READ MORE: Sorry, MAGA Christians, you aren’t the only ones praying | Sabrina Vourvoulias

And staunch conservatives were recoiling from the AI-generated image Trump posted Sunday, immediately after his attack on the pope, of himself as Jesus healing the sick. Some evangelicals — another demographic, overall, that has also been solidly pro-Trump — including leaders of conservative churches, labeled it blasphemous. On Monday, the president told reporters that the image wasn’t of him as Jesus, but just as a doctor, and that it depicted the work of the Red Cross.

Right.

The pushback was significant enough that CNN is reporting that the image has been taken down — something that last happened after the president reposted a repugnantly racist video depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as primates.

These are hopeful signs that those whose moral compasses allowed them to vote for a man who once believed he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters” may have finally reached their limit with this president.

I hope so.

Then again, I was one of those people who joined Pope Leo in praying a rosary for peace on Saturday.

Because no matter how many times a wolf huffs and puffs and blows down houses of straw and sticks, the edifice of peace is built with bricks — and we can all fit in it together.