‘The nuclear button for the Vatican’: Pope Leo steps into the political fray
"This week, Trump’s threats to end “civilization” in Iran prompted a move Vatican historians call extraordinarily rare.
Pope Leo XIV has never shied away from denouncing injustice. But for months, he avoided anything explicitly political. Then, this week, President Donald Trump threatened to destroy an entire “civilization,” and the first American-born pope crossed a line he had never crossed: urging citizens to call their elected leaders.
“I would like to invite everyone to think in their hearts of so many innocent children, so many totally innocent elderly people who would also be victims of this escalation,” the pope said. “I would like to invite everyone to pray, but also to seek ways to communicate — perhaps with congressmen, with authorities, saying that we don’t want war; we want peace.”
The remarks surprised Vatican observers, and marked a defining moment of Leo’s tenure, as his papacy nears the one-year mark.
Leo, who is widely viewed as more reserved and measured than his predecessor, has long spoken about migrants, poverty and war in moral terms. What’s different is his direct appeal to citizens to engage with their political representatives, a step that Vatican historians say is extraordinarily unusual for a sitting pontiff.
“It’s not normal at all,” said Massimo Faggioli, a Trinity College Dublin professor and author of several books on Catholicism. “This is the pope who is intervening in the democratic process, in the representation process of a modern political system: That is really extremely rare.”
“It’s the equivalent of the nuclear button for the Vatican,” Faggioli added. “They don’t do that — ever.”
The pope’s remarks came after Trump posted a stark warning to social media Tuesday. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” Uproar ensued in the international community, and White House officials did little to clarify whether the president’s warning suggested that he intended to deliberately kill innocent civilians in a military operation. Trump had previously threatened to destroy power plants and bridges.
Speaking with reporters that day, Leo condemned Trump’s statement without singling out the president by name. He characterized the threat as “truly unacceptable,” and called on “all people” to “reject war, especially a war which many people have said is an unjust war.”
His words put him in direct tension with senior American officials who have framed the war in explicitly religious terms. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly invoked God in connection with the U.S. military campaign, likening the rescue of a downed American pilot to the resurrection, and asking the American people to pray “every day, on bended knee” for a military victory in Iran “in the name of Jesus Christ.” On Wednesday, Hegseth said “tens of thousands of sorties, refuelings and strikes [have been] carried out under the protection of divine providence.”
In his Palm Sunday homily on March 29, Leo rejected such invocations. God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them,” Leo said, quoting from Isaiah 1:15: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.”
On Wednesday, the White House stood by Trump’s “civilization” threat without offering further clarification about whether he was threatening the lives of civilians.
“It was a very, very strong threat” that “led the Iranian regime to cave to their knees and ask for a ceasefire,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “It was not an empty threat by any means. The Pentagon had a target list that they were ready to hit ‘go’ on at 8 p.m. last night.”
Asked for comment on the pope’s response to Trump’s remarks, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told MS NOW that the president “will always stand with innocent civilians while annihilating the terrorists responsible for threatening our country and the entire world with a nuclear weapon. Greater destruction can be avoided if the regime understands the seriousness of this moment and makes a deal with the United States.”
Leo celebrated the announcement of a two-week ceasefire late Tuesday. The Vatican is also holding a vigil to pray for peace on Saturday, April 11, at St. Peter’s Basilica.
It is only within the past two weeks — amid the U.S.-Israel war with Iran — that Leo has mentioned Trump by name, according to Vanessa Corcoran, a church historian at Georgetown University. “I’m told that President Trump recently stated that he would like to end the war. Hopefully, he’s looking for an off-ramp,” Leo said last week.
Popes typically speak about global affairs in broad terms, avoiding direct criticism of specific heads of state. But Corcoran says Leo’s escalating intervention is consistent with the demands of his office.
“Advocating for peace and for the protection of the most vulnerable is inherent in the pope’s job description,” said Corcoran. “There are some that would say that he should focus on his pastoral role, but this is pastoral.”
The strain extends beyond the rhetorical. According to a report published Monday by The Free Press citing unnamed Vatican personnel, the Chicago-born pontiff is unlikely to visit the U.S. during Trump’s tenure, and tensions between the Holy See and the White House remain high.
The office of Vice President JD Vance — the highest-ranking Catholic in the U.S. government, in a country where Catholics represent roughly 20% of adults — did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Leo’s remarks, but he has previously said that he tries “not to play the politicization of the pope game.”
On Tuesday, asked whether he believes God is on America’s side in the Iran war, Vance replied that his “attitude towards military conflict has always been to pray that we are on God’s side.”
This is not the first time Leo has criticized the Trump administration’s positions. Leo has said “deep reflection” is necessary in the U.S. for the treatment of migrants, and expressed opposition to Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
In January, the pope cited a historic 1965 visit by Pope Paul VI to the United Nations when he delivered an address calling for peace in the war zones of Ukraine and Gaza, where conflicts continue.
The sweep of his interventions suggests that a pope who came to office hoping to tend his flock quietly has found that the world will not allow it.
“The international situation has pushed him towards a second beginning of his pontificate, when the stakes are higher,” Faggioli said. “We have seen in the first few months, his attempt really to be more cautious compared to Pope Francis, to stay outside of the news cycle.”
“Now, we see a more outspoken pope because he has to,” he said."
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