On a day when they had hoped to focus messaging on last year’s tax cut law, congressional Republicans spent Tax Day focusing on theology.
A dayslong spat between the Trump administration and the Vatican left lawmakers urging the White House to stay in its lane on matters of liturgy and refocus its messaging.
The first question Speaker Mike Johnson took during a Wednesday morning press conference on Tax Day was about Trump’s social media posts criticizing the pope. In the Senate, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., also faced questions about the feud.
“It’s never a good idea to get into a tit-for-tat with a respected religious leader,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., a Southern Baptist who led a delegation to the Vatican in February and personally met with Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pope.
“I just think it’s to be avoided,” he said.
The Trump administration has taken umbrage at Leo’s critique of the president’s aggression in Iran as “truly unacceptable” when Trump threatened to wipe out the “whole civilization” last week. Trump took to social media on Sunday to call Leo “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.” He said that if he “wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”
The next day, Trump posted an AI-generated image depicting him wearing a Christ-like garment. He later deleted it, contending that it was meant to portray him as “a doctor.”
Trump reposted another AI-generated photo on Wednesday of Jesus Christ embracing him. “The Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!” he wrote.
Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday defended Trump’s posts at a Turning Point USA event, saying that it’s “very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
“How can you say that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword?” asked Vance, a Catholic convert. “If you’re going to opine on matters of theology … you’ve got to make sure it’s anchored in the truth.”
In the 119th Congress, 127 House members are Catholic — 29 percent of the entire chamber. They are split between 69 Democrats and 58 Republicans, and are the largest Christian denomination represented. There are 24 Catholic senators: 13 Democrats and 11 Republicans.
Asked about Vance’s comments Wednesday, Thune told reporters: “Isn’t that the [pope’s] job?”
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., a self-proclaimed “life-long Catholic,” added that politics and the pope shouldn’t mix.
“I wouldn’t expect any pope of any stripe from any country to do a liturgy talking about the sanctity of a war,” he said. “It’s contrary to their teachings, which is why I think politicians are at their best when they don’t mingle politics and religion, and they’re at their worst when they do.”
Rationalizations
House GOP leadership maintained the pope started it.
Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday the pope should expect some political response if “you wade into political waters.” He argued Christian theology supports the war in Iran.
“It is a very well-settled matter of Christian theology. There’s something called the ‘just war doctrine.’ There’s a time to every purpose under heaven,” Johnson said.
House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan, a Catholic, said she’s not surprised Trump fired back once the pope commented on the war.
“Listen, it would be nice if everyone stayed in their lane,” she said. “I think we all know Trump well enough that if the pope is going to have a comment on political issues … I think that it’s pretty predictable that the president would comment.”
Other Catholic Republicans took different approaches to rationalizing the White House’s comments Wednesday.
“The pope comes from a very different place. He’s about peace and love and all those things. So they have different roles, and both are important,” Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said. “As you know, I’m Catholic. But by the same token, in this case, we have to use force. Iran has given us no choice. There are bad actors in this world, and unfortunately, good guys have to step up and take military action against bad guys.”
Republican Sen. Mike Rounds, a Catholic from South Dakota, said, “Look, I think there’s a difference between the role that the pope plays and the role that the president or the vice president has. One is a political position. The other is a position of being, literally a pope, which is a moral guide.”
“Both of them have a role to play in this world,” he said.
A distraction
The focus on Leo was not what congressional Republicans were expecting when they returned this week from their recess. Wednesday is Tax Day, with Republicans on Capitol Hill holding events and press conferences to tout tax returns following the passage of their tax cut legislation, nicknamed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, last year.
But much of that oxygen has been sucked up by Trump and Vance.
“I’d stay focused on the economic issues, the pocketbook issues that I think most Americans care about,” Thune, who is evangelical, said of the administration. “Let the church be the church.”
Other Senate Republicans agreed the White House should refocus its messaging. “I think the president needs to stay focused on the effort with Iran, with the negotiations, with the embargo,” Hoeven said.
“Sometimes, when we have one of these kinds of situations, it becomes a very unfortunate case where, rather than staying in their own lanes, they’re getting out of their own lanes,” Rounds continued. “That’s not good.”
“I hope that this matter can be dropped now,” Wicker said. “My suggestion to the president and vice president would be to say that they’re not going to comment.”
Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and a Catholic, represents Leo’s hometown of Chicago.
“I think the pope has been clear and within his bounds as a leader of a major church in America,” he said.
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., a Catholic, put plainly: “I’m with ‘Team Pope,’” he said.
