Trump feuding with the pope? I thought he WAS the pope

By now you know what happened.

President Donald Trump, up to his neck in the Iran quagmire and thus perhaps more angry than usual, lashed out at Pope Leo XIV for doing what popes do: urging peace, while pointing out that the efforts of the Trump administration to paint their war as the Ninth Crusade were not Christianity in its highest form.

“Pope Leo is WEAK ON CRIME, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” Trump began, in a long tirade posted on his Truth Social network.

No doubt you’ve read all or part of it.

So the “what” being established, I want to explore an aspect that is being lost in the noise and thunder:

Why?

Why would a struggling and isolated leader, having failed to lure his erstwhile allies into saving his butt in Iran, start tongue-lashing the pope? A beloved figure internationally, but particularly in the United States, and especially in his hometown, Chicago. A pope who, remember, wasn’t doing anything beyond normal pope stuff — promoting harmony, encouraging brotherhood. That’s like blasting Mr. Rogers for being neighborly.

You would think that anyone with half a grip, his back against the wall, closing the Strait of Hormuz himself because Iran won’t open them, would not pick this battle. It’s like a man in a blazing room setting fire to one sofa that isn’t burning.

Again: why?

If the answer isn’t crystal-clear — and really, it should be, by now — here’s a clue.

Last May, when Leo was named pope, Trump distributed an AI picture of himself, Donald Trump, in the garments of the Vicar of Christ. Because — and forgive me, this is obvious, but so much so that it gets overlooked — it’s all about him. He is the subject of all sentences, the cynosure of all eyes, and anyone else — anyone else — who isn’t actively groveling before him is an insult and a threat. There is no Congress. No courts. No law. No pope. He is the pope. Donald Trump, pontifex maximus.

To me, Donald Trump is a morality tale about the futility of ego. He suffers from a grandiosity so bottomless that being immensely rich, the president of the United States, adored by millions, the golden spoon stirring the world pot for the past decade, are not enough. Nothing is ever enough. He is King Midas, breaking his teeth on gilt apples, starving in a room full of food.

That’s the only way any of this makes sense. It explains his every action.

Put yourself in his place. Now you’ve maligned the pope, what do you do next? Of course, send out another image of yourself as Jesus, curing the sick (though I swear, when I first saw it, I assumed the man being cured was Jeffrey Epstein — there is a resemblance — and that it must have been created by some satirist. That Trump sent it himself suggests a lack of self-awareness both magnificent and terrifying.

Called on it, Trump yanked down the image. The lie he floated… that he was a doctor, yeah, curing the sick; that’s it! Because that’s Donald Trump: he’s all about healing. Then lickspittle Vice President JD Vance, fresh from sealing Viktor Orban’s doom with his poisoned kiss, put the lie to that, claiming it was a joke that we are all too dense to understand.

Yeah, buddy, whatever.

For a number of years I’ve been out of the hope game. If the question is, will a feud with the pope reduce the Catholic support that buoyed Trump up, I’d trot out my standard line: once you get in the habit of ignoring reality, the exact nature of the reality being ignored hardly matters. If the Jan. 6 insurrection didn’t trouble you, why should this?

And Trump does have an astounding record of slurring popular figures and coming off golden, from his days mocking John McCain and American POWs (“I prefer people who weren’t captured.”) to his tirade against Taylor Swift (“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.”)

Hard to believe, but the pope is even more popular than Taylor Swift.

So I’d never suggest that pushback is futile. Not after Minneapolis, when a bunch of bleeding heart liberals took the street and put down their lives for American democracy in a way that swaggering NRA types, marching into 7-Eleven with their assault rifles, would never dream of doing.

The good news is that finally, finally people are starting to notice. A news story on the front page of the New York Times Tuesday began, “President Trump’s erratic behavior and extreme comments in recent days and weeks… have left many with the impression of a deranged autocrat mad with power.”

Ya think? Not news to me. But still good to hear people finally say it.