President Donald Trump's dismissal of Pope Leo XIV as "weak" and "wrong" marked an unprecedented personal attack on a pontiff by a US leader that capped months of tension.
The election of the first ever US pontiff in May 2025, one who pressed the cause of international law and the rights of migrants, seemed destined to set up a clash, but for a long time they managed their differences.
Since January, however, US military action in Venezuela, threats against Cuba and Greenland and then the Iran war have drawn increasing statements of concern from the Vatican.
On Sunday, Trump launched a blistering attack on the head of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, calling him "weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy". He doubled down Monday, repeating: "He's wrong."
"Tensions regularly arise between the Catholic Church and states on a number of issues," said Francois Mabille, head of France's Geopolitical Observatory of Religion.
"What's unprecedented here is that the figure of the pope is being attacked as such... that he's being judged weak, and that this is being done by the American president with such vehemence," Mabille told AFP.
- Tipped the scales -
An expert in canon law, Leo has repeatedly emphasised the importance of upholding international law, including criticising Israel's actions in Gaza last year.
But he often spoke in generalisations, leaving more pointed criticism to local clergy, from Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa in Jerusalem to US cardinals.
One exception was when he hit out at the "inhuman" treatment of migrants in his home country. The White House responded with a measured comment defending its policies on immigration.
Leo's rhetoric and calls for peace have increased as war spread across the Middle East, and when Trump threatened the whole Iranian "civilisation" in early April, Leo told reporters this was "unacceptable".
Trump's threat "tipped the scales", Mabille told AFP.
At the same time, Leo urged "the citizens of all the countries involved to contact the authorities, political leaders, congressmen, to ask them, tell them to work for peace and to reject war always".
For Massimo Faggioli, professor of historical and contemporary ecclesiology at Trinity College Dublin, this too was a turning point.
He told AFP that it violated a long-standing diplomatic norm -- "that the pope stayed out of US politics".
- 'Difficult to attack' -
Popes have disagreed with the United States before, with John Paul II strongly opposed to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, for example.
Just weeks before he died in April 2025, Pope Francis described Trump's migrant deportations as a "major crisis", drawing a rebuke from the president's border czar that he should "stick to the Catholic Church".
Many of Francis's critics dismissed him as anti-American -- something that cannot be said for Leo.Â
Traditionally, US presidents have been wary of upsetting US Catholics by speaking out too much against a pope.
Trump's criticism "is unprecedented because no American president wanted to alienate American voters," Faggioli told AFP.
- Face history -
The Vatican last week played down speculation of tensions with Washington, dismissing as untrue a report that the United States gave the Holy See's envoy a dressing down in January after comments Leo made seen as critical of the US administration.
The pope responded to Trump's outburst Monday in a typically measured way, saying he had a "moral duty" to speak out against war.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, an ally of Trump, condemned the president's criticism as "unacceptable", saying it was "right and normal for him (Leo) to call for peace".
Faggioli concurred, saying: "If you want to be pope you have to face history -- you can't just close yourself up in a monastery."
Mabille noted that, given how often Trump changes his mind, the row may just as well blow over.
"Who knows, maybe the pope will give a speech that Trump will like, or he'll see an opportunity to advance his own agenda and tell this pope what an extraordinary man he is," he said.
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© Agence France-Presse
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