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The pope answered — again.
On Monday night, Donald Trump went on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show and renewed his assault on Pope Leo XIV, telling the host that the first American pope is “endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people” because, in Trump’s telling, Leo “thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
It was a fresh lie stacked on a familiar one. Pope Leo has never said any such thing — about Iran or anyone else — and the Holy See has rejected nuclear weapons in every nation’s hands for more than half a century.
The president has been recycling some version of this slander for almost a month, ever since Leo called the U.S. bombing of Iran “unacceptable” and the U.S. military archbishop declared it unjust. By Tuesday morning, the Vatican had heard enough.
From Rome, Cardinal Pietro Parolin spoke first. The Vatican Secretary of State told reporters that “the Pope continues on his path — in the sense of preaching the Gospel, of preaching peace — or, as Saint Paul would say, ‘opportune et importune.’”
In season and out of season. Asked whether the pope would respond directly, Parolin said the response had already been given: “The pope has already responded; I would not add anything.”
Then the pope responded anyway.
Standing outside his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, days before the first anniversary of his election, Pope Leo XIV addressed reporters in Italian:
“I have already spoken from the first moment of being elected. I said: ‘Peace be with you.’ The mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace. If anyone wants to criticize me for proclaiming the Gospel, let them do so. With truth — the Church has spoken against all nuclear weapons for years. There is no doubt about it. I simply hope to be listened to for the values of the Word of God.”
Leo never named Trump, but he came as close as a pope ever does to calling a sitting American president a liar. The phrase “with truth” was the hinge. Trump had accused him of welcoming a nuclear-armed Iran.
Leo answered by reminding the world — softly, deliberately — that the Catholic Church has condemned all nuclear weapons for decades, and that there is “no doubt about it.”
A pope smoothing things over does not reach for “with truth” as a hinge phrase. Leo did, and the meaning was unmistakable: the most powerful man in the world had been lying about the Holy Father’s words and the Church’s teaching.
The Holy Father’s restraint exposed the smear for what it was. Leo has demanded the weapons fall silent and called for an end to the spiral of violence for months. Catholics are not endangered by a pope who preaches peace. The danger comes from a president who bombs civilians and then attacks the Holy Father for noticing.
Catholics are not endangered by a pope who preaches peace. The danger comes from a president who bombs civilians and then attacks the Holy Father for noticing.
This was not the first time Trump’s circle has tried to put Pope Leo XIV in his place.
The pattern stretches back across the papacy: Border czar Tom Homan mockingly inviting the pope on an ICE raid, Speaker Mike Johnson denouncing his call to welcome migrants, Sean Hannity lecturing the Holy Father on the Bible, and reports that the administration is actively spying on the Vatican.
The slur from Trump was the president’s latest contribution to the campaign.
Then, on Tuesday afternoon, a second lie arrived — this one from a Catholic.
In an on-camera press briefing ahead of his Vatican meeting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked whether he agreed with the president’s claim that Pope Leo XIV “is endangering a lot of Catholics” by opposing the Iran war. Rubio — who attends Mass, calls himself a faithful Catholic, and serves a president who has now insulted his pope on camera — denied that Trump had ever said it.
“Well, I don’t think that’s an accurate description of what he said. I think what the president basically said is that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon because they would use it against places that have a lot of Catholics and Christians and others.”
That is not what Trump said. The president’s words from that morning are on tape, and anyone can pull up the full transcript.
Trump did not deliver a tidy abstraction about Iranian proliferation. He accused Leo XIV of endangering Catholics by opposing American violence. Rubio knew the quote. He chose to lie about it on camera, hours before walking into the Apostolic Palace.
This is the moral picture on the eve of the Secretary of State’s audience with Pope Leo XIV. A president attacked the pope and lied about what the pope said. His Catholic Secretary of State stacked a second lie on top of it, scrubbing on television words the country had heard with its own ears.
In between stood the Holy Father at Castel Gandolfo, refusing to descend into the spectacle and pointing instead to the only thing that mattered: the Gospel, the values of the Word of God, and the truth about the weapons we build to destroy God’s creation.
Pope Leo XIV’s witness on Tuesday was a refusal — to dignify the smear, to bargain over the Gospel, or to let an American administration bully the Bishop of Rome into softening a Church teaching that predates this White House by centuries.
The pope endangers no one. His call is to a country that has confused fear-mongering with statecraft and aerial bombing with peace.
Marco Rubio, by choosing the cover-up over the truth, has now made himself part of the problem he might otherwise have helped solve.
At Letters from Leo, we stand with Pope Leo XIV and the millions of American Catholics — and countless others of goodwill — who refuse to let politicians and their cabinet officers turn the Gospel into a partisan threat.
Our movement is built on the conviction that a Holy Father who answers insults with “peace be with you” deserves more than a White House willing to call his Gospel an endangerment and lie when its own words are quoted back to it.
In an era poisoned by cynicism and cruelty, we remain rooted in a faith that refuses to flinch before injustice or bow to the idols of fear and authoritarianism.
This is the fastest-growing Catholic community in the country because people are hungry for something deeper than rage and propaganda.
They are looking for courage, for truth, for love made visible in action — and right now, with the Secretary of State of the United States lying on camera for a president who attacked the Bishop of Rome, that hunger has never been more urgent.
If you believe this movement matters — Catholics and people of goodwill standing for the Gospel against a politics of lies — I am asking you to join us.
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Thank you for reading. I’ll see you on the road.
