As Trump attacks Pope Leo XIV, Philly-area Catholics speak out against the president’s war

President Donald Trump’s social media screed against Pope Leo XIV, following the U.S.-born pontiff’s criticism of the war in Iran, is reverberating from Rome to the Italian Market in South Philly.

“Someone should take his phone away on Sunday nights,” said Paul Galetto, the pastor of St. Paul’s Church in South Philly and a personal friend of the pope who studied with him in Rome in the early 1980s.

Galetto had already been speaking against Trump’s war prior to the post, but he said he awoke Monday morning with a new level of frustration after the president’s “childish” rant.

“I was so angry this morning,” Galetto continued. “It’s as though we crossed a boundary of decency. Trump is more intent on dividing than uniting people.”

Catholics were a key part of Trump’s winning coalition in 2024, but his decision to a launch a war with Iran has brought long-simmering tensions between the Vatican and White House to the forefront as the pope has emerged as a leading international voice against Trump’s policies.

American Catholics now find themselves choosing between the first U.S.-born pontiff and the president.

“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday evening, following a week of headlines about church leaders’ criticism of the war.

Trump claimed that Leo XIV was only selected as pope because of his election as president and referred to the fact that one of pope’s brothers is a Trump supporter.

“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon... And 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,” Trump said in the lengthy post.

Trump also posted an image of himself dressed as Jesus healing the sick as an American solider and others reverently gaze upon him. Trump claimed Monday that the now-deleated post was meant to show him as a doctor.

The president’s posts earned bipartisan condemnation with U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Catholic Republican from Bucks County, calling the attack on the pope “offensive to Catholics in every corner of the world.”

But before Trump’s social media posts, Catholic clergy in the U.S. have been increasingly outspoken about the humanitarian toll of the president’s policies.

Jesus does not “guide tomahawk missiles to kill Iranian children,” Galetto said last week, referring to the U.S. mistakenly bombing a girls’ school in Iran in February and killing more than 150 civilians, many of them children.

“That’s the work of Satan.”

But it’s not just clergy who feel compelled to speak out on moral grounds against the war and Trump’s immigration policy.

“I totally agree with the pope when it comes to Trump,” said Rita Kelly, 75, who was working behind the counter at the St. Jude Shop, a Catholic religious goods store in Havertown.

“You should never talk about ending people’s civilization. And you should be welcoming to immigrants and, like Jesus said, kind to the poor,” Kelly said as parents perused the shop for first communion dresses and suits.

When Trump said last week he’d end Iran’s “whole civilization,” Leo answered that the threat was “truly unacceptable.”

On Easter, the pope told a crowd at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, “Let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars.”

Catholics have long been a crucial bloc of swing voters, almost evenly split between the two major parties in voter registrations.

In 2024, 59% of Catholics voted for Trump compared to just 39% for Vice President Kamala Harris, according to CNN. Those exit poll results represent a major — and arguably decisive — swing to Trump compared to 2020 when Catholics favored Joe Biden, a member of their faith, over Trump by 52% to 47%.

Trump’s growing feud with Leo, which follows a dustup with Pope Francis a decade earlier, could prove trouble for the president’s party in November if a large swath of Catholic voters feel stung by the president’s attacks on the pope or take the pontiff’s criticism of Trump’s policies to heart.

On Sunday evening, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote that he was “disheartened that the President chose to write such disparaging words about the Holy Father.”

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia didn’t respond to a request for comment. It represents around 1.5 million Catholics in Philadelphia and its four collar counties.

In Bryn Mawr last week, a handful of worshipers — the vast majority seniors — gathered for the 12:05 p.m. Mass in the red brick enclave of the St. Thomas of Villanova Parish, Rosemont Chapel, less than a mile from Villanova University, the pope’s alma mater.

“I agree with what the pope’s been saying about the war 150%,” said Donna Shovlin, 83, a retired nuclear medicine technologist from Villanova. “To me, Trump is the devil dressed in a blue suit — self-centered and egotistical. I pray for his soul."

But not every Catholic goes along with Leo’s criticism of Trump.

Karen Pushaw, a 70-year-old Kensington resident, guesses her negative opinion of Leo is in the minority, knowing that among Catholics, the pope’s approval rating is 84%, according to the Pew Research Center.

“It may not be popular, but my view is that Leo should butt out of American politics,” said Pushaw, a social service worker with a law degree and a master’s in theology.

She criticized the pope for overlooking Iran’s record of harboring terrorism and brutally cracking down on dissent as he speaks out against the war.

A pope, Pushaw concluded, shouldn’t have that much to say about world affairs. “He’s just supposed to preach faith,” she said.

Pushaw said that Leo was chosen pope by the College of Cardinals for cynical reasons: “They wanted to appeal to Americans, who have enough money to support the church.”

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said last week that Trump has a “positive relationship with the Vatican,” but that was before Trump’s social media post.

The Iran war has sharpened the already glaring ideological distinctions between the American president and the American pope, who is set to spend July 4 visiting migrants on the island of Lampedusa, a move many are interpreting as a critique of his native country’s immigration policy.

(Leo will address Independence Mall in a livestreamed speech from the Vatican the day before when he accepts an award from the National Constitution Center.)

When it comes to how the United States has dealt with immigrants, Leo has been succinct: The Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants has been “extremely disrespectful.” Leo has also called on senior clergy to speak out about protecting immigrants, leading U.S. bishops to protest actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “The church will continue to accompany and stand with migrants,” Leo said.

Agreeing wholeheartedly with his friend, Galetto said, “I’m 100% onboard with the pope. He’s got the right messages for us to hear.”

On immigration, Shovlin said that ICE agents arresting people throughout the country is “frightening nonsense,” leaving friends too worried to leave their homes.

“This country is built on immigrants, except for people like me,” she said. “I’m part Cherokee, which means I’m an original American, hopefully not to be bothered.”

After Mass, Bill McDonough, 81 of Ardmore and a former basketball league promoter, said he believes Trump has “no feeling for the marginalized.”

Meanwhile, Pope Leo is “phenomenal,” displaying “mercy and kindness.”

There’s more to the job than that, said Sister Kathleen McCabe, a Franciscan nun who’s part of Canticle House, a community of young people in Chester.

“We are a justice and peace community, and that’s the part of the gospel Pope Leo holds up,” she said. “We’re delighted he speaks out like he does.”

As a man of God, Leo asks, “‘What would Jesus do?’” if he were to confront the war. “He would not bomb anyone, I know that much.”