On Easter Sunday, Leo XIV urged world leaders to lay down weapons and choose peace—to drop the “desire to dominate others.” It was the culmination of a rhetorical escalation against the Iran war that grew in intensity over Holy Week, when he condemned “the imperialist occupation of the world” and warned that God rejects the prayers “of those who wage war.”
It’s hard not to see these remarks as aimed directly at the leader of the free world and the Christians in his inner circle. President Donald Trump has not directly addressed the Pope’s comments, but behind closed doors, tensions have been building for months—culminating in January, when senior U.S. defense officials summoned a top Vatican diplomat to the Pentagon. What happened inside that room set the tone for everything that followed: Vatican officials briefed on the meeting, who spoke with The Free Press on the condition of anonymity, described it as a bitter lecture warning that the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants—and that the Church had better take its side.
One might wonder why a government that has no apparent qualms about bombing foreign countries and capturing or killing tyrants would bother trying to court—or demand—the Vatican’s favor. The answer lies in something easy to overlook: The Catholic Church is perhaps the only remaining global institution perceived to carry genuine moral authority. The Holy See, for all its imperfections and scandals, remains a body whose credibility the American superpower seeks. They know that Leo’s blessing, or at least his silence, would confer a kind of moral legitimacy that no amount of power can manufacture on its own.
