Poor persecuted Donald Trump has frequently portrayed himself as a modern messiah. Some of his supporters, meanwhile, have compared him directly to Jesus. And, to be fair, while the son of God didn’t eat Big Macs on a private jet and encourage his followers to buy AI stocks, there are similarities between the two figures. Namely the miracle-working. The US president may not be able to turn water into wine, but he’s turned public office into a personal goldmine. This week, Trump also managed to transform a staunch atheist (me) into a defender of the Catholic church.
I’m not defending everything, mind you, just Pope Leo XIV’s recent condemnations of war. “God does not bless any conflict,” the pope wrote on X on Friday. “Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who … drop bombs.” During Saturday prayers, the pope also called out the “delusion of omnipotence”. While Leo didn’t name names, his statements were widely interpreted as a rebuke of the Trump administration, which has repeatedly framed its warmongering in religious terms.
