Pope Leo vs. President Trump: Whose Side Are You On?

[00:00:01] President Trump launched an attack on Pope Leo this past weekend after the pontiff continued to criticize the Israeli US War against Iran. [00:00:09] What side should American Catholics take in this battle? Well, I'm Eric Sammons, and welcome to Crisis Point. [00:00:32] Okay, so I'm back. I was off last week for the Easter Octave, and also because I happened to lose my voice last week, so that would make it very difficult to podcast. But I'm glad everybody is. [00:00:44] I hope everybody should say, had a good Easter. [00:00:47] Also. I was last weekend, I was at the conference of Trent, Trent Horns Conference of Catholic Influencers and about online evangelization. [00:00:56] And I really enjoyed it. It was a great time. I got to see Keith Nestor, my friend. I got to meet Gideon Laser, who I've had on this program, and he's a great guy. Hadn't met him in person before. And also some other great Catholics I met there as well. So anybody who I saw there, I'm glad I was able to meet you. So, okay, so we're going to be talking about Trump. Before I get started, I want to try something new here. I'm going to have this widget here, a poll, I should say. I'll put it up here on the screen. Let me move it up here. [00:01:27] And basically, I think the way it works is. So I said, what? Whose side are you on? President Trump or Pope Leo? In the chat, if you type in one, it'll be a vote for Trump. You type two, it'll be vote for Leo. If you type three, it'll be vote for neither. So if somebody could maybe type one of those in the live chat, that'd be great to see if it actually works, because it's supposed to update automatically. We'll see. I'll keep it up there. If it works, great. If it doesn't. Oh, well. Okay. So I want to talk about what a lot of American Catholics are talking about right now. Oh, good. We had a vote. Somebody said voted for Pope Leo, and so that got one vote for him. [00:02:02] Okay, so this is great. This is, like, exciting seeing the votes pop up here. [00:02:07] So the American Catholics talking about is the battle basically between President Trump and Pope Leo. Now, this isn't the first time an American president and a Roman pontiff have squared off. And I'll talk about some of those here in a moment. But this is definitely the most personal. [00:02:26] And also it's significant because for the first time, we have an American Pope. So that's obviously going to bring something to the table as well. [00:02:34] So I want to talk about that. But I also want to talk about the fact that I'm going to criticize President Trump here in this podcast. I'm actually also going to criticize Pope Leo. But here's the thing I've noticed is that Trump supporters can be very thin skinned, just like Trump is. [00:02:55] If you say anything critical of him, they will lump you in with all the Trump derangement syndrome people. [00:03:02] Or they say all you do is attack him. [00:03:05] Now, here's the reality. [00:03:08] President Trump has been unjustly criticized and attacked for years, for a decade now. [00:03:15] And there's no question about that. [00:03:18] But that does not mean he's beyond criticism. Just because he has been unjustly criticized and attacked isn't basically saying anybody criticizes him. Now you lump them in with Trump derangement syndrome people. [00:03:34] I just feel like supporters of President Trump have become very thin skinned. And let's be honest, we know President Trump is very thin skinned about this stuff. [00:03:44] And so I would just say if you're a Trump supporter, even on everything, like, understand that the president should get criticized at times, no matter who the president might be. I mean, I voted for him twice. [00:03:58] I supported him very strongly in the 2024 election. I would more Omega hat on this podcast. [00:04:04] But I just think he's gone beyond the pale recently. I think he's done some things that are very much open to criticism. And so I'm going to criticize him. And the other thing I've noticed is that the language used to criticize Pope Leo is far worse than any of the language that we hear used to criticize Donald Trump. [00:04:26] And yet Catholic Trump supporters seem to have no problem with that. I mean, I say this because I've gotten a lot of emails recently and comments at the website because we've had articles at Crisis critical of Trump. [00:04:38] And it's like people will say, I'm not going to say everything they say about Leo, but they say some really nasty things about Leo, all in the context of you shouldn't ever. You basically can't criticize Trump. We will have the mildest criticism. Paul Kingor has written two articles for us in the past week. Paul Gingor is great, by the way. Check out his work. He's at American Spectator. [00:04:57] He writes for them, he's the editor of them, but he also writes for us sometimes. [00:05:01] And like today's article, for example, was mildly. I mean, it wasn't mildly, but it was critical of President Trump without getting outlandish about. And people just were so upset. But yet they will. The same people also say the nastiest things about Pope Leo, which I just think is a bit odd to do that I get if you support Trump and not Leo in something. [00:05:21] But like at least be consistent about what we can criticize. Okay, so let me pull up though the, the tweet that started it all. The truth, social, whatever you want to call it. [00:05:30] And this was posted on Sunday. Trump seems to do his oddest things on Sundays. [00:05:36] And he, he basically, he posted, he said Pope Leo is weak on crime and terrible on foreign for foreign policy. [00:05:43] He talks about fear of the Trump administration, but. But doesn't mention the fear that the Catholic Church and all other Christian organizations had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers and everyone else for holding church services, even when going outside and being, and being even 10 or 20ft apart. Okay, I have to admit I have no idea what Trump's talking about here. And, and I, I read this multiple times. [00:06:14] Asked my wife. She read it. We. She didn't understand what he's trying to say here. Here's the thing. [00:06:19] I have been was very critical of Catholic bishops for shutting down mass. [00:06:26] The one who the, the update on act of which cases were shutting masses Masses because of and I thought I'm sure shut down. This is for years. It's one of the worst things that a group of bishops has ever done is. Is the American bishop shutting down masses yet? [00:06:49] Let's be honest, they did that because of the pressure from the state. [00:06:56] Often I mean literally their state like Ohio or California, whatever, which then. But that came from the federal government led by who? [00:07:06] President Trump, who bought into all the COVID lies, who completely, you know, he had Fauci as his guy. The guy who basically created Covid more than likely was his guy and he was the one telling everybody to shut down. He got mad at Georgia in early May, I think it was of 2020 when Georgia didn't started to kind of open up things a little bit. He criticized them and attacked them. [00:07:30] So if anybody is going to be attacked for having fear during COVID it's President Trump first and foremost. He is where it all started. You know, the buck stops with him. It starts with him too. It's because of him. [00:07:45] The cascade effect that led to all the Catholic bishops shutting down masses. If he had stood strong and said, no we're not shutting down the country, do you think all the Catholic bishops would shut down the masses? No, they wouldn't have. [00:07:59] So it's just, I mean it's just typical Trump that he makes some crazy comment that you know, he's more guilty of than anybody. [00:08:06] Okay. So then he goes on. [00:08:08] It's kind of like it makes no sense. But, you know, that's him. He goes, I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Lewis is maga. [00:08:17] He gets it, and Leo doesn't. [00:08:20] Okay, this. I mean, this is very. I know we're used to this. I. I know this is just Trump. This is the way he is. I get all that. [00:08:28] But let's take a step back and realize how much of a megalomaniac he is and how delusional he is and how he's almost Messianic in his demands and his expectations. [00:08:43] And think about. There's a passage in Scripture that always kind of strikes me, is when our Lord says, if you keep my commandments, you're my friends. [00:08:52] Think about a regular person saying that and how crazy it would sound if I said to me, you can be my friend as long as you obey me. You'd be like, who the heck you think you are? You think you're God or something? I don't have to obey you to be your friend. I don't want to be your friend. [00:09:07] But Jesus can say that because he is God and he knows to keep his commands is the best thing for you. He's being a true friend. [00:09:14] Well, Trump is basically saying, if you're not Maga 100%, I want nothing. You're a bad person. [00:09:21] And he said that. He said that for years. [00:09:23] And so, you know, bringing up Lewis, you know, his brother, and I hope, honestly, I hope the Pope's brother just keeps his mouth shut. I. At first, I thought Lewis should come out and say, I'm not supporting Trump on everything, but I don't want his life to be ruined. He's not. Doesn't have. He's not the Pope. He's just a regular guy in Florida or whatever. I like him to keep a low profile. [00:09:42] But he basically says, Trump goes on to say, let me find it here. [00:09:48] I don't want a pope who thinks it's terrible that America attacked Venezuela. I don't want a Pope who criticizes the president, United States, because I'm doing what I was elected to do in a landslide. [00:10:00] Here's the thing. I do want a Pope that criticizes the president. I wanted a Pope who criticized President Biden. I wanted a Pope who criticized President Obama, and I want a pope who criticizes President Trump. I think all American Catholics should want that. In fact, all people of goodwill should want that. [00:10:21] After all, the president is a Supposedly democratically elected leader, which means he is going to have, you know, he should be criticized. This is not a dictatorship where we don't allow criticism. I do want a pope that criticizes president when it's necessary. But I'll be honest, I wish popes had criticized presidents more in the past. I wish they wouldn't be selective in when they criticize popes. By the way, if you're just joining the podcast live, I got a poll up here. Who side are you on? President Trump or President Leo? Type in 1 in the chat for Trump, 2 for Leo, and 3 for neither. [00:10:57] So, and we'll update that right now. Nobody's voted for Trump. I thought for sure we'd have some Trump supporters on this chat, but so far we don't. And that's okay. [00:11:08] So. But Trump's like, I don't want to pope criticize as US President. I do want that. [00:11:13] And then he goes on further in it where he talks about, basically, Leo wouldn't be pope if it wasn't for Trump, because basically the cardinals vote, wanted an American pope to deal with President Trump. [00:11:23] Again, this is Trump's world. He's delusional. I'm not saying that the having an American, actually, I don't think it has anything to do with Trump. The more I think about it. Not as far as maybe one or two people or something like that. But here's the thing. When the cardinals were electing a pope last year, they knew Trump was only president for, you know, a few more years. And Pope Leo, the pope could be pope for 10, 15, 20 years. And also all these cardinals from other countries, they don't care that much about, like, President Trump. [00:11:59] Some cardinal in, in Asia isn't like, oh, I better make sure I get somebody who, who can deal with President Trump. [00:12:06] So again, Trump's being delusional here. [00:12:08] And he's just so narcissistic that he thinks everything is about him. Literally everything. I mean, he's textbook narcissist and he always has been. And the thing is, I knew that when I voted for him. So I'm not like, saying this is some. Something new, like, oh, my gosh, Eric Sammons figured out that Pope. I'm sorry, that, that President Trump is a narcissist. We all know that. And that's not necessarily. I mean, I honestly think most politicians have narcissism. I mean, if you, you know, especially the higher they get, the more likely they are to be a narcissistic. So I just think Trump has it on a Different level. [00:12:44] And so they ask him, after Bishop Barron, who's pretty cozy with the Trump administration, did ask President Trump to apologize. And President Trump said, no, I'm not going to apologize. And basically his. [00:12:59] He even claimed that Leo kind of started it. And Leo didn't start it. I mean, Leo, he just said, having a, you know, threatening the destruction of a civilization. Let me pull up that post real quick where Trump said, a whole civilization will die tonight. He Posted this on April 7th, never to be brought back again. [00:13:21] I mean, I, we all know Trump and how he talks and how he, you know, brings things to a, a certain level. [00:13:29] But like, he literally threatened the president, the most powerful man in the world who has charge of this. I think the second largest cache of nuclear weapons threatened to basically destroy an entire civilization. [00:13:44] And Pope Leo, without mentioning Trump's name, said, you know, I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think we should support something like that. [00:13:52] To Trump, though, that's, that's Leo starting it. Not the fact that, that Trump himself threatened genocide, threatened to nuke Iran, but, and destroy everybody there. But instead it was, you know, Leo's saying, that's not a good idea, that somehow started it. [00:14:10] And so Trump's post against Leo was awful. But then he did follow it up with his neck with another post about an hour or so later, and this one got a lot of controversy. And I'll put the image up here. He posted a meme. Now, he did later take it down. Of course, he didn't apologize for it. He tried to explain it away. [00:14:26] And in this meme, he basically is represented as Jesus healing somebody. And there's American flag. There's, there's some people in it. It's a weird, weird meme. What's really weird about, I think, are the angels or wherever they are above his shoulder. Let me pull up actually another. [00:14:44] He copied this from one of his supporters from a couple months ago. And look at the top, at the images. I think it was like the angels were kind of like soldiers, but when he did it, the middle angel is like really weird looking and almost demonic, maybe. I, I just think it's weird. Like, I, I know AI pretty well how it works, but somehow Trump or his team created this image that was just like another image that I made. But they changed just that. Because if you look at the two images, I'll put the other one up here real quick. They're basically identical except for the weird angel demon thing behind Trump. [00:15:21] But Trump said that all he posted it, but he thought he was just being a doctor. He was just like a medical doctor. He's supporting the Red Cross, which of course we know he's lying. [00:15:30] Actually, you know, I take that back. [00:15:32] Trump is either lying or it's possible he's ignorant enough about religious imagery that he doesn't realize he's looking like Jesus here. It is possible, I guess. I think it's more likely he's lying, but we don't know. [00:15:44] The fact is this is a blasphemous image. [00:15:48] Just objectively now, the Trump supporters will say, by the way, in the poll, I can't believe nobody has voted to be on Trump's side. I thought, I mean, Crisis audience. [00:15:58] I thought, I mean, in the comments at the Crisis, at Crisis magazine, on the articles, we even criticized Trump. There's a lot of Trump supporters, but I guess they don't tune into my podcast. Okay, so any but vote one for Trump, two for Leo, three for neither. On whose side you're on. [00:16:13] But I know we, we, we, we have a tendency to, to kind of explain away Trump's. Oh, they're just talk. Oh, they're just negotiating tactics. Oh, they're just him being silly. He's just like trolling people. [00:16:27] And I get all that. And I, I, and I accept a certain level of that, that that's kind of the society we live in. [00:16:35] That being said, you can't excuse this Christians. You can't just say it's not a big, it doesn't matter. It does matter. If nothing else, what it does is it lowers our, our instinct against blasphemy, against things like this, that we just, we treat all as jokes. The fact is, is we're not supposed to, you know, the words we say, what we post online, it is part of our salvation. It is part of being a follower of Christ. It matters what you say. I mean, I see some, the nastiest thing from people who claim to be Catholic said online, almost like it doesn't matter, like it doesn't really count. [00:17:15] No, you will answer for that. And Trump will answer for posting that blasphemous image. And then not upon me, if he repents of it, which he didn't. If you repent of it, that's one thing. But if you just, you can't just shake it off like it's no big deal. [00:17:29] So, I mean, we have this situation where the Pope, I mean, I'm sorry, the President just goes after the Pope personally. This has never, that's never happened before. There's been tensions between presidents and popes, but actually naming the pope and basically saying, I don't like him, and attacking him in an unhinged way that's never happened before. [00:17:48] And so as Catholics, I just don't think we can just wave it off and say, well, we have issues with Pope Leo. And so. And Trump's right on this, so we don't really care. I just don't think that's. That's something we should do. [00:18:01] Now, Pope Leo did respond. He was asked about it the next day. He did respond. And I'm just gonna pull up a few of the quotes he said. First was, he said, I think people who read it, meaning the post that. That Donald Trump made. I think that people who read it will be able to draw their own conclusions. [00:18:17] I am not a politician, and I have no intention of entering into a debate with him. Rather, let us always seek peace and put an end to wars. [00:18:24] He went on to say, I'm not afraid of the Trump administration. I speak about the gospel. I'm not a politician. I do not think the message of the gospel should be misused in the way some people are doing. [00:18:35] And then finally, he also said, I will continue to speak out loudly against war, to seek to promote peace and multilateral dialogue among states in order to find just solutions to problems. The message of the church is the message of the gospel. Blessed are the peacemakers. [00:18:53] Okay, I don't know about you, but honestly, I thought this was the perfect response. I thought Pope Leo, he just had a perfect response to this because he knows you. You lose. When you get into the ring with President Trump and you get in the mud, you know, sling mug with him, he has won. President Trump has won every single battle he has ever entered. When you enter it with him, he has never lost. He's undefeated. When you get into the mud with him, he is guaranteed to win. [00:19:21] And people shouldn't. I mean, I can't believe some people still try to do it. They don't realize what they're doing because they're going to lose. Pope Leo does realize it. [00:19:30] He probably knows more about Trump than any than Pope Francis did or most cardinals do, because he's American, because his brother is a supporter of Trump. [00:19:39] And so he understands also. He understands he's the pope. Now, we could quibble with him saying, I'm not a politician. Technically, you are the head of state, your holiness, so that makes you a politician on some own level. But I know what he's trying to say here, but this is a very good and measured response by Pope Leo to what Trump said, because you don't want to get into a tit for tat with Trump again. You will lose. [00:20:01] Also, you want to keep the high moral ground which the Pope has on this and Trump obviously doesn't have on this. [00:20:08] But what is it that so upset Trump? Like, why did Trump just almost seemingly nowhere decide to just go after Pope Leo? [00:20:17] I think it's because. I mean, I think we all know it's because Pope Leo has been saying things that have been opposing a lot of President Trump's policies. Now, Pope Leo does not state President Trump's name because diplomatically, that's not what you're supposed to do. He's just said generically some things. He has opposed President Trump's immigration reforms on multiple occasions, but he's also opposed very strongly the war in Iran, the Israeli US War in Iran. [00:20:44] And that's, I think, what finally set off Trump. [00:20:47] I mean, it's an interesting thing because Trump literally threatened the end of a civilization. The Pope says that's not good. You should, you know, we should not want the end of a civilization. We shouldn't want a genocide. And that's what set Pope. That's what set Trump off. I mean, that's. That's the immediate thing, but I think the tensions are in growing. There's that. There was that story that came out last week about supposedly meaning between Pentagon officials and the apostle Nuncio Pierre. You know, he was like, nuncio at the time of the United States, about how basically it was really heated and like, the Pentagon officials were like, threatening the Vatican and saying, we're gonna go back to avign papacy where they're in, like, in charge. [00:21:28] And I just think I. I don't think that's true that that's happened, but I do think it's likely there. There has been incredible tension between the Vatican and the Trump administration. I don't think that's a secret. And I think, honestly, this Trump administration, more so than the first term, it does not like it when anybody dares to question them. It just feels like it has the authority to do whatever it wants, however it wants, and it should not be criticized by anybody. [00:21:55] And so I do think they don't like the fact that Trump is and has been criticizing. I'm sorry. That Leo has been criticizing the actions of the Trump administration. [00:22:05] The truth is, Leo has not been overtly political in this. [00:22:10] And, you know, that's just a fact. Now, I will say, I think when Pope Leo criticizes the Trump administration or like, American policy about immigration reform. I think he's generally wrong. [00:22:23] I'm much more in agreement with President Trump when it comes to immigration policy than I am with Pope Leo when it comes to the war. I'm 100% with Pope Leo as far as opposing it and 100% against President Trump for initiating it. But I also do think that some of the things that Pope Leo says about the war, I do think it's not. I don't always agree with some of his presuppositions, and I always agree with everything, the way he does everything. Like, he has not really stated very strongly against, like, some of the actions of radical Islam and about some of the Iranian leaders. He also thinks that, like, somehow just dialogue solves every problem. And I don't think that's the case. I think sometimes, yes, you do have to use some force or take action, things like that. [00:23:11] So whereas I agree with, with, with Leo on his conclusion that this war is unjust. I mean, I want to be clear. Popolio has not said that this war is unjust. He's mostly been just saying war is, you know, not the solution and we should be striving for peace, things like the pope would normally say. Other Catholic cardinals and bishops have said it's unjust. I think it's unjust. Obviously, I've said that multiple times, but I don't think it's just. I do think that Catholic leaders tend to give a Kumbaya answer to peace. That's just like, oh, we just. If we just sit down and talk, everything will be hunky dory. That's not how the world often works. So. [00:23:48] So I just want to say that you can be on, like, agree with Pope Leo about the war doesn't mean you have to agree with every single thing he says, like, about immigration reform, things like that. [00:23:58] Now, I also, So I also, I'm trying to think. Should I bring up. Yes, I also want to bring up something. Joshua Charles, my friend Joshua Charles Billings podcast, he wrote recently. [00:24:13] He wrote about President Trump. He said he brought the public sacrifice of the Mass to an end during COVID We've talked about that. He portrayed the building of a mammon city in Gaza with a golden statue of himself at the center. He's been portrayed on commemorative coins as a new Cyrus next to a temple in Jerusalem. He's portrayed himself as the pope. Now he portrays himself as Christ miraculously healing some mystery man, which looks creepy, like Epstein, among a thousand other exhibits of a disturbingly biblical and even eschatology, technological character. He doesn't have to be the Antichrist for all this to be extremely blatantly in your face, antichristic. [00:24:48] I grieve for the President's soul. And out of love for the President's eternal soul, which is in grave jeopardy, let us pray and do reparation for his sins, particularly his blasphemous blasphemies against Almighty God with the hope that he repents and converts. [00:25:03] This is hard language. If you know Joshua Charles, you know he's not a flamethrower yet. This is pretty hard language here that he says here. He's basically saying that Trump is being antichristic and that just as a term, meaning you're acting like an Antichrist. Just to be clear, the church has always kind of believed in tradition that we will, there will be one, the Antichrist, at the end of time. However, from the beginning, from the time of Christ until then, there will be many Antichrists, meaning people act against Christ and have some type of influence. Influence. And Joshua Charles is saying that he believes that Trump is doing exactly that. He's acting in an antichristic fashion. And I think he's right. [00:25:43] I can't dispute that. [00:25:45] I would say, honestly, I am concerned about President Trump's soul and I think Joshua is right to focus on that first and foremost. [00:25:54] But I actually, I'm more concerned right now with his mind. I honestly think it's possible that he's got some mental problems, that President Trump actually has mental problems. [00:26:03] Now, I thought during President Biden's administration that Biden should have been. The 25th Amendment should have been invoked and he was clearly not able to do the office of the President. I mean, obviously if he wasn't president, the Vice President Harris would have been awful. But the point is, is like Biden clearly was not mentally capable of being president. I mean, everybody knew that. Just some people admitted it. [00:26:28] I honestly do wonder if Trump, as he's getting older, some of his worst instincts and habits are starting to become more and more extreme because of a decline. His mental abilities. [00:26:41] I don't mean like his mental abilities, like he, you know, how smart he is about certain things. I mean, just his, you know, dementia causes many things. I remember my father, who was one of the most mild mental mannered people on earth and just a calm presence. [00:26:56] He. He got Alzheimer's and eventually, you know, he passed away from it. And there was a time, fortunately, blessedly, a very short time, where he would get very upset and he would, and he would scold me and he'd scold my, my mom, which he never did in his life. He never raised his voice. I mean, he was such a calm person. [00:27:18] But it was the, it was the Alzheimer's, it was the dementia. It was, it was causing this anger and frustration, which, again, like I said, blessedly, it was a short period of time we had Alzheimer's. And so I know a lot of people who have family members Alzheimer's, that lasts for a very long time. It's a hard struggle. [00:27:34] But the point is that dementia can cause like, emotional and kind of just unreality in people's minds. And so some of the, some, they start to act not even like themselves, but often what happens is some of their worst aspects come to the fore. And so I do wonder, I do think, also, though it's possible, I don't think he's the Antichrist, just to be clear. I do think, though his actions are antichristic, many of them are, and blasphemous. And I think that we do need to pray for his soul now. Okay, so again the poll up right now. Whose side are you on? President Trump or Pope Leo? Type 1 in the chat for Trump, 2 for Leo, 3 for neither. Right now, 8%. Only 8% are voting for Trump, 75 for Leo and 17 for neither. So I want to now address whose side should we be on first? I want to make it very clear on political matters, we can disagree with the Pope. I, I've said that before. I hope everybody knows this, but it seems like people don't always know this. On political matters, you can disagree with the Pope. [00:28:38] Pope Leo is generally right about the war, and he's generally wrong about immigration. [00:28:44] That's my view. And I'm, I'm, I can have that view. As a Catholic. I'm not saying that's, I'm, like, infallible about that. I could be wrong about things. I am wrong about things, but so is Pope Leo. And so we can definitely think that. [00:28:57] Secondly, I don't want, I've noticed a few people certainly say that the Pope should stay out politics. I mean, Vice President Vance kind of said this, by the way, I just want to say, as an aside, I actually feel sorry for President Vice President Vance at this point because he's in a, just, I mean, he's just in. Got to do spin control at this point, and it's just like, it's embarrassing even to, to watch him. Somebody asking the chat, where's the poll? Just type in the. A number one, two or three in the chat. And it'll, it'll update the poll. [00:29:28] So I actually feel sorry for Vice President Banks. I'm not defending him or condemning him, just saying I feel sorry for him. But, you know, the idea is, should he stay out of politics Now? I don't think that's true, and I don't think that's what. That's not part of the Catholic tradition. [00:29:40] Most Catholics, a lot of Catholics should say, know the story of St. Ambrose. [00:29:46] And he was the, he was a great saint, early church, and he was a bishop of Milan when Emperor Theodosius reigned. Emperor Theodosis, just so, you know, was a devout Christian who basically is the one who made Christianity the religion of the empire. [00:30:03] And however, Theodosius also, he ordered the massacre of, like, thousands of people in Thessalonica. [00:30:12] And St. Ambrose, a bishop, Milan, who's not, he's not the bishop of Thessalonica. He's not the pope even. He condemned Theodosius publicly and he. And he led and it caused Theodosis to repent. He basically said, you're just, I mean, he said it in the, in the early church language of basically, you don't deserve even to be. You don't deserve to be emperor. You don't deserve the name Christian. [00:30:35] So he got involved in politics, and we all commend Ambrose for that. Why? Because Theodosius did something incredibly immoral, and so he called him out for it. [00:30:46] Likewise, more recently, St. John Paul II. Pope John Paul II, he opposed strongly George W. Bush's war against Iraq. In nearly. In 2003, he was very. I remember this, I'm old enough to remember this. I, I'm regretfully say did not speak out against that war. [00:31:07] I was basically ambivalent about it. I, I didn't really believe the weapons of mass discretion, but I didn't want. I, I was still enough in the conservative Republican camp that didn't want to speak out against it. And I kind of thought, oh, why is Pope John Paul II speaking against it? [00:31:22] But he did, and Bush ignored him. He didn't attack him, by the way. He just ignored him. [00:31:28] Like, there's a story that Pope John Paul II wrote a letter to Bush about the war, and the app. Nuncio delivered it to Bush, and Bush didn't even open it. And he basically just said, I think it's God's will to start this war. [00:31:41] And we know now, in hindsight, who was right. [00:31:45] Pope John Paul ii. And thank God he spoke up, because that's such a good witness to the Catholic faith that we had a pope who was willing to go against the most powerful man in the world and all the propaganda for this war against Iraq, and he opposed it. [00:32:00] And I think we should commend John Paul II for that. So, yes, popes should enter into politics at times when it touches on Christian morality. And if the genocide of a people isn't morality, what is? If going to war isn't morality, what is? [00:32:17] Absolutely, we want a pope. We should always want a pope who strives for peace. If you look at the Pope During World War I, Pope during World War II, Pope, you know, during the Iraq war, pope now, they always do the same thing. They call for peace. That's what we want popes to do. [00:32:32] No matter how much we might be gung ho about war, and we shouldn't ever be gung ho about war, and we definitely shouldn't be gung ho about this war. We should want popes who call for peace. That's kind of the role. You know, blessed are the peacemakers. [00:32:45] We don't want a pope who is controlled by a politician, no matter how much we might like that politician. We want a Pope that will. That will speak out against the President of the United States when he feels that he should. Now, we want it to be on a consistent basis. [00:33:03] We wanted Pope Francis to speak out against Biden and his support for transgenderism, support for abortion, things like that. [00:33:13] And we didn't get that. But we don't have the same pope. First of all, we don't know what Leo would have done. [00:33:18] And so, yes, we want a pope. So even when the Pope speaks out against, like, Trump's immigration reform, I think that's a good thing in the sense that we want a Pope who's independent of American politics, and he's willing to speak out against the president and his policies, even when we disagree with him. [00:33:34] That's a good thing. [00:33:36] I also have seen criticisms of, like, basically say, well, the Pope can't speak about this because look at how terrible things are in the Catholic Church. He needs to get his own house in order. [00:33:46] That's a ridiculous standard that we don't hold people we agree with to. [00:33:52] I mean, are you really saying that we want the Catholic Church to be in perfect shape before the Pope can speak out against a war against war? I mean, it's a huge deal, and pope should speak about it. And yes, it is true that the moral voice of the Catholic Church has been diminished by the leaders of the Catholic Church over the past few decades. [00:34:12] I mean, a case in point, the most Hilarious scene of this last weekend with all that happened was when 60 Minutes boomer town. 60 Minutes had Cardinal Cupich, Cardinal McElroy and Cardinal Tobin on to talk about like basically the Catholic Church and how, how relevance becoming in the world and more people are becoming Catholic and like condemning Trump and all that stuff. I mean, talk about the most out of touch scene in reality. You have three out of touch cardinals talking to an out of touch, you know, television show on out of touch network. I mean it was just, it was almost too funny. [00:34:54] But just because these men who are awful, you know, prelates of the church are saying that the, the war is unjust doesn't mean. It's just. I literally saw somebody post that basically because they say it's unjust. It's probably just that's not how morality works. [00:35:09] A broken clock is right twice a day and they are broken clocks. They might even be wrong about how they approach that. Maybe they're just against this war simply because Trump did it. If Biden had launched it, they maybe they would have supported it. I think that's possible. [00:35:22] But that's not how we do. That's not how we do our moral thinking. We don't say, okay, who are the people who are supporting, who are people against it? And I'm just going to go with the people I like better. No, we analyze it on the facts. And the facts is the war is unjust. [00:35:36] And we don't say the Pope shouldn't say anything just simply because we don't like some of the other things he says. That's not how it works. As Catholics, we should want the Pope to speak out for peace. [00:35:47] Ultimately, just because Leo's wrong about some things like immigration reform, doesn't mean he's wrong on everything. And just because Trump is right on certain things doesn't mean he's right about everything. We need to analyze each. I mean, the Trump administration is pro ivf, which is the killing of thousands of unborn children. It really does nothing against abortion. [00:36:11] It is pro homosexual. I mean, it definitely supports the homosexual agenda. [00:36:17] It's terrible on a number of things. Is it better than the Democrats would be? [00:36:21] Way better. [00:36:22] But we can say when it's bad about things and it's terrible about this war, it's terrible about foreign policy, it's terrible about ivf, things like that. We simply can't be fully on Trump's side. It's just not possible. Yes, we don't have to be fully on Pope Leo's side, but we shouldn't be fully on Trump's side. And we can't dismiss his comments as just words or that don't mean anything. [00:36:44] So. Okay, I'm going to wrap it up here. I think ultimately, here's what I want to say. We should not take human sides. We should strive to be on God's side. And so sometimes that means we're going to criticize Trump, Sometimes it means probably going to criticize the Pope, hopefully. We hope that the Pope is always on God's side, but we know at times Popes are not. I mean, Pope Francis had a number of times, he clearly wasn't on God's side. [00:37:11] But we should always condemn uncharitable acts, uncharitable words. And when it comes to this specific debate between Leo and Trump, I don't know how a Catholic can be on Trump's side. If you want to say I'm not going to be totally on Leo's side because of certain things he said and things he hasn't done, okay, fine. [00:37:32] But clearly in this specific instance, Trump is in the wrong. He's horribly in the wrong. He's blasphemously in the wrong. His soul is in danger and I question his mental capacities. [00:37:45] So I just think we have to take all that into mind as Catholics. Okay, so I'm going to go. Let me pull up some of the live chat here. Again. Last thing I want to say is you want to vote in the, in the chat, whose side are you on? Trump or Leo? Or neither. One for Trump, two for Leo, three for neither. Okay, let me pull up things. [00:38:03] Peter Sam is. Who's that? Oh, that's right. That's my son. Leo has more drip. Okay, the Gen Z has spoken. Leo gets the vote because he has more drip. [00:38:13] Juan Christo says Trump's not right, but he's not wrong. I've been frustrated with the double standard of, of the church that attacks conservatives, but silent with Biden type Catholics and panders to Muslims. [00:38:24] I, I totally get that. I'm not, I'm, I very sympathetic that argument. And I too am frustrated with that double standard. There's no question there's a double standard. [00:38:35] I just don't think that should keep us from criticizing Trump when he's clearly in the wrong here. [00:38:41] He's clearly in the wrong in this instance. And yes, in the future, when Pope Leo or the cardinals of church are in the wrong, we should criticize them as well. And we should commend Trump when he's in the right in the future. [00:38:52] But we, I've seen Too many people say because of this double standard, I can't support Leo now, and I just don't think that's the way to go. [00:39:01] Okay, let me pull up this one. Irish papist says, I hold Vance to a higher standard. His statement the other night about the church sticking to moral issues was horrible and nonsensical. I agree with that completely, too. I agree. Irish papists, Vance, I do hold to a higher standard. Trump is Trump. I mean, he's not a religious man in any way, shape or form. He's not been religiously formed. I don't think he's a very intelligent man when it comes to, like, religious matters. But Vance is. Vance is very intelligent. Vance knows the teachings of the church. He knows Catholicism. I think he's a sincere Catholic. [00:39:33] And so that's why it's horrible that he says basically what he's saying. I get that the vice President has to defend the president on some level, but there's got to be a line, and I think Vance is crossing it. [00:39:44] Recovering liberal says, I think the vax is affecting his thinking. You know, I will not dispute that. [00:39:52] Michael Chavez says neither is beyond criticism. Agreed. The problem is those who hate the church are taking advantage of theirs to use the Pope. They hate against Trump. Trump needs to apologize. Yeah. And I think you're right that neither is beyond criticism. And this is why this is an awful thing when stuff like this happens is because it allows people to take advantage of their hatred of the church. I mean, remember, a large part of the Trump base is strongly evangelical. Christians who have heretical theologies, and they do not like Catholics, really. They don't like Catholic theologists. They'll work with us, but they're really, down deep anti Catholic. And so we have to remember that. I mean, it's Paula White lady who is like his chaplain. Trump's chaplain. She's awful. She's. I mean, she's probably demon possessed. [00:40:43] Patriot. Pooh Bear. Hey, Patriot, how's it going? As support of both Trump and Leo, it's been a difficult couple of days. [00:40:49] God bless you. God bless you. I. I get it. I get it. [00:40:53] Peter said salmons, you're too Catholic for MAGA people. Yes, I know. [00:40:59] Yeah. [00:41:00] Peter and I have had many conversations about this, so I won't go into them all here. [00:41:05] Irish papists. With the possible exception of immigration, the Pope is more conservative on every issue than Trump. The woke Pope. Allegations from Maga are so crazy. I do think people have been like MAGA people. Conservative have been too quick to judge Pope Leo as just an incarnation of Pope Francis, although Pope Francis was conservative on so many things, but Pope Francis was just so inconsistent. The truth is, if you look at Pope Leo's actual views of things and compare them to the typical American, he is super conservative on most things and he's far more conservative than the Trump, than Trump on a lot of things, on homosexuality, on abortion, things like that. So it's a good point. [00:41:46] Mercury says, go Trump. [00:41:48] I have to disagree, but you said it in all caps, so you're being serious. [00:41:53] Finally, Patrick Pooh Bear. I support the Holy Father, but he did step on a few rakes that make him look like a Democrat. And Trump ran with old info that said Trump should not have said that Leo is in favor of crimes. Yeah, and I, I again, Trump always knows how to exploit people's, like, you know, people's weaknesses, things they said. So Trump knows how to use what you've said or anything, views about a person to really exploit people against him. Like he, he, he does it against, like Tucker against Marjorie Taylor Green, people like that. When he turns on somebody, he knows how to exploit it to get people on his side. And so Leo, like all of us, is not beyond criticism, not beyond mistakes. And so Trump's going to exploit that, no question. [00:42:39] Okay, I'll wrap up here. The final tally in the poll. I thought this was fun, having a poll. I hope people like that is whose side are you on? President Trump or Pope Leo? Trump only got 5% of the vote. Pope Leo got 76% of the vote and neither got 19% of the vote. I think I would probably, if I voted, probably vote for Pope Leo on this. [00:43:01] I might have done neither, but I think I would have gone with Pope Leo as well. So I appreciate everybody who did vote. Okay, that's it for now. Until next time, everybody. God love you. And remember, the poor.