As Pope Leo XIV marks one year as the leader of the world’s largest religious group, the first pontiff from the United States increasingly finds himself under attack from the political leader of the country he’s from. President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the pope this year for his views on immigration and the Iran war, claiming he supports criminals and is endangering Catholics by allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons.
While Trump has a base of support among some conservative Catholics, the views of the faithful inside a Catholic church in Oak Park on a recent weekend interviewed by the Free Press were quite different from Trump’s attacks. Since Pope Leo XIV was elected by cardinals to lead the Catholic Church on May 8, 2025, his words have been closely followed by many Catholics in Michigan who say his message resonates with them, especially at a time of growing concern about extremism and authoritarianism.
“I don’t think that President Trump’s comments necessarily have an impact on how Catholics see things politically,” Rick Joseph, of Royal Oak, said inside Our Lady of Fatima Church in Oak Park. “I support Pope Leo’s comments. He is the leader of the Catholic Church and so he espouses the gospel and the good news of Jesus Christ, which is, of course, to welcome the immigrant, to welcome the stranger, to extend hospitality to those in need. … It’s a human value that we all share.”
Ande McCarthy, of Fort Gratiot, Michigan, concurred, saying that Pope Leo XIV is doing exactly what the Church preaches.
“He’s preaching the gospel,” McCarthy said April 25 at Our Lady of Fatima Church. “That’s what he’s doing. That’s his job … to preach the gospel. And the gospel is: Jesus was a merciful, nonviolent leader … totally against war, totally against all this immigration abuse and our pope is saying it out loud to … all the powerful leaders of the world.”
On Friday, May 8, the pope is to to celebrate his first anniversary as pontiff with a visit to the Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Holy Rosary of Pompeii, a sacred site often visited by pilgrims, where he will preside over a Mass and recite a prayer. On Thursday, he met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Vatican, where they spoke about nations affected by war. The meeting with Rubio came after weeks of attacks by Trump against the pope, who responded by reiterating the church’s views on immigration and war. Pope Leo XIV has often criticized Trump’s crackdown on immigrants and protesters who support them and has called out the war against Iran as unjust, especially the attacks on civilian areas.
In the latest round, Trump said Monday, May 4, on a conservative media outlet, Salem News Channel: “The pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon and I don’t think that’s very good. I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics, and a lot of people, but I guess if it’s up to the pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
But the pope has never said that he wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon, the Associated Press reported.
The Catholic Church “for years has spoken out against all nuclear weapons, so there is no doubt there,” the pope said Tuesday, May 5, to reporters. “The mission of the church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace. If someone wants to criticize me for announcing the Gospel, let him do it with the truth.”
Carmen Kelly, a Catholic in Harper Woods, agrees with how outspoken the pope has been against war and abusing immigrants.
“If you follow Christ, if you follow the gospel, if you follow the Sermon on the Mount, you’re not for war,” Kelly said. “Anything that you want, you don’t get it through war. And you’re not for oppressing people that are just making a living here.”
Archbishop of Detroit Edward Weisenburger, who became head of the Catholic Church in metro Detroit a couple of months before Leo was elected, agrees with the pope’s views on war and immigration.
Some conservative Christians have criticized the pope’s outspoken criticism of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, claiming it’s out of line with the views of the Church and previous popes. But Weisenburger has noted how Pope Leo XIV’s views on war are in line with what previous popes have said against war, from Pope John Paul II warning the United States not to invade Iraq, to Pope Paul VI calling for an end to the Vietnam War. In an article published March 30 in America, a Catholic magazine, and republished in the Detroit Catholic, Weisenburger wrote about the recent history of pontiffs decrying war.
“If we review the teachings and comments on war from the popes of the last century, most especially from the end of World War II up to the present, we find a strong and constant refrain of ‘no’ to war,” Weisenburger said. “There is a striking consistency in this realm of papal teaching, emphasizing again and again that war is not God’s will and is always a sign of human failure.”
In the weeks before the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, “Pope John Paul II quietly used his personal representative, Cardinal Pio Laghi, a friend of the Bush family, to try to persuade the president not to go to war, stressing that such a war would be illegal and unjust,” Weisenburger wrote.
A poll released May 6 showed that Americans support the views of the pope significantly more than Trump’s. The Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll showed that 66% of people surveyed support “Pope Leo asking Americans to contact Congress to work for peace and reject war.” In contrast, only 38% said they support Trump posting “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
Joseph said that there are conservative Catholics who do support Trump, “one-issue voters, who always vote for the Republicans because they are the party of anti-abortion.”
“My hope is that Pope Leo’s words will land in the hearts of all people, but certainly of Catholics, to consider that pro-life means cradle to grave, that we have needed an expansive view of what pro-life really means,” Joseph added. “Pope Leo’s job is to espouse the values of Christianity and echo what Jesus would say and do.”
Pope’s message of peace during Iran war
The message of the pope since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28 stands in contrast to officials in the Trump administration, such as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. On March 26, Hegseth delivered a speech at a Christian prayer event at the Pentagon during which he linked Christianity to using “overwhelming violence” against enemies who “deserve no mercy.” Quoting from the Bible, Hegseth repeatedly called for extreme violence. The speech came just a few weeks after the U.S. struck an elementary school in Iran, killing more than 120 children.
“Snap the rod of the oppressor, frustrate the wicked plans, and break the teeth of the ungodly,” Hegseth said. Citing a verse from Psalm 18:37-42, Hegseth said of his enemies: “They cried for help, but there was none to save.”
Hegseth has the support of some conservative evangelicals who have influenced his thinking, which the pope and some Catholics have criticized.
Kelly, a Catholic in Harper Woods, said that “Christian nationalists are using … religion to get people to go along with Trump and to confuse people.” She said a sister who is an evangelical Protestant told her that Trump should be supported because “‘the prophecy is that the Lion of Judah is the one that knows how to fight, and he will triumph, and he’s using Trump as a means, so we had to be in favor of Trump.'”
“I was stunned,” Kelly said when she heard her sister say that. “I just said, ‘no, no, no.’ … That’s really wrong. That’s the wrong person. The Lord wouldn’t pick a person like that.”
In addition to his policy views, Pope Leo XIV is also winning over Catholics with his manner and style of speech, which is in contrast to the sometimes bombastic tone of political leaders such as Trump.
Michael Kelly, of Harper Woods, who is Kelly’s husband, said he likes how the pope has responded to Trump’s attacks on him — with peace and love, instead of anger.
“He’s really a model of how to respond … out of faith, when you’re being challenged, or when you encounter people who are not on that same wavelength,” Kelly said. “It’s not a matter of fighting back against Trump, it’s a matter of responding to Trump with what the Pope and the gospel teaches … which is compassion, love. He’s not responding to the taunts, he is sort of looking beyond them to where those taunts might be coming from, the pain within President Trump … like the Sermon on the Mount (says), overcome evil with good. Don’t overcome evil with evil. So if you’re met with anger and hatred and fear and concern, try to respond with peace, hope, acceptance, tolerance, gentleness, but firmly.”
Contact Niraj Warikoo: nwarikoo@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pope Leo XIV draws praise from Michigan Catholics amid Trump dispute
Reporting by Niraj Warikoo, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
