Trump, Pope Leo and the Meaning of Catholic Defiance

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

Opinion

Supported by

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Guest Essay

Trump, Pope Leo and the Meaning of Catholic Defiance

April 28, 2026,

5:02 a.m. ET

Credit...

Jamie Lee Taete

Listen

· 6:08 min

Share full article

By

Christine Emba

Ms. Emba is a contributing Opinion writer and a senior fellow at the Georgetown University Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life.

See more of our coverage in your search results.

Encuentra más de nuestra cobertura en los resultados de búsqueda.

Add The New York Times on Google

Agrega The New York Times en Google

Is America having a Catholic revival? The idea that the United States is seeing a surge in converts to the faith, especially Gen Z-ers, might be more projection than fact. But the reaction to the

clashes

between Pope Leo XIV and President Trump have made it seem far more plausible — even understandable.

Since February, the president has prosecuted an under-theorized and unpopular war on Iran with increasing unpredictability and

genocidal threats

, silencing objections through assertions of political power and military force. But over the past several days, criticism from the Bishop of Rome — Leo’s public rebuke of those threats as “a moral issue for the good of the whole entire population,” and later his prayer for “dignity, understanding and forgiveness” to stand against the “delusion of omnipotence” — appeared to

pierce the president’s hubris

, and inspired a cross-section of Americans to

voice

their

own

dismay

with Mr. Trump.

The Roman Catholic Church and its leader possess what is needed now: a robust moral vocabulary — for calling out

good versus evil

and demanding

justice

and peace — that appeals to something higher and more compelling than

grim realpolitik

, and an independent, consistent point of view that transcends partisan politics. The church is a 2,000-year-old institution with a global remit and, if you’re one of its 1.4 billion adherents, a mandate from God to shepherd human souls. It stands apart from everyday institutions and economic systems and thus cannot be captured by voter concerns or fears of a vengeful president. Its perspective is meant to be overarching and eternal, an intriguing proposition in an era that feels painfully unmoored.

In smoother times religion can seem unnecessary. And for many, much of the 20th century seemed compelling enough without it: Individuals were free to make lives of their own, the material dividends of capitalism provided enough novelty and prosperity to distract from deep longings, and liberal ideals could stand in as a sort of state religion, a barely needed justification to undergird an idealistic and mostly functional government.

There was enough hope in the idea of an arc of history bending toward justice to satisfy at least some taste for higher concerns. For a growing share of secular and religiously disaffiliated Americans, living within what the philosopher Charles Taylor describes as the “immanent frame” — a social understanding that the natural world is all there is, with no recourse to the spiritual or supernatural — posed few issues.

But as the last several years have made especially clear, the grand project of liberalism is no longer universally affirmed. The economic spoils of capitalism are not novel (nor, for that matter, reliably assured or evenly distributed); prioritization of the self seems to have resulted in loneliness and anxiety. Governing institutions have grown sclerotic and scandal-prone, relinquishing their authority and becoming less able to articulate, let alone respond to, deep questions of purpose and meaning. A mixture of confusion and nihilism hangs in the air; immanence no longer seems to suffice.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and

log into

your Times account, or

subscribe

for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?

Log in

.

Want all of The Times?

Subscribe

.

Related Content

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT