‘Textbook blasphemy’: Notre Dame students surprised and dismayed by Trump’s feud with Pope Leo
By Eric Bradner, CNN
Notre Dame, Indiana (CNN) — At one of the United States’ best-known Catholic institutions, students were siding with Pope Leo XIV over President Donald Trump in the wake of Trump’s clash with the pontiff over the Iran war and raising concerns about his recent social media post seemingly depicting himself as Jesus.
“I found it incredibly disrespectful — especially the AI image of him portraying himself as Jesus,” said Sarah Jones, an undergraduate student from North Carolina who considers herself a moderate independent.
Jones said it was “weird” that Trump deleted the post and claimed he thought the image portrayed him as a doctor. Even stranger, she said, was Trump targeting Pope Leo “just for being for peace.” Just weeks ago, Jones noted, the president had praised Notre Dame as he mourned the Catholic university’s legendary football coach, Lou Holtz, who was an outspoken Trump supporter.
“It’s a complete 180,” she said. “What is going on in your head that would make you say these things, or like, do any of this?”
Trump has clashed in recent days with Pope Leo who has become increasingly vocal in criticizing the administration’s approach to the war with Iran — bringing bipartisan condemnation in the United States and even prompting Iran to come to the pontiff’s defense. Similarly, in more than a dozen interviews on Notre Dame’s campus this week, Catholics in both parties expressed surprise and dismay at seeing the president treat the pope like a political rival.
The feud began on Sunday when Trump called Leo “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy,” and took credit for Leo’s selection as the first American pontiff.
“Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician,” he wrote on social media.
The pope responded that he had “no fear of the Trump administration” and said he would continue to advocate for peace.
A key voting bloc
Catholics make up perhaps the largest swing voting bloc in the country, comprising between one-fourth and one-fifth of the electorate in recent presidential elections.
Trump won 59% of Catholics, compared to 39% for former Vice President Kamala Harris, in the 2024 presidential election, CNN’s exit poll found. It was a huge shift from former President Joe Biden — himself a Catholic — narrowly winning Catholics, 52% to Trump’s 47%, in the 2020 election, according to CNN’s exit poll.
Catholics are a large share of the electorate in two presidential swing states, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And they are also a pivotal group in some battleground congressional districts — particularly Latino-heavy districts throughout the Southwest that will play an important role in determining whether Republicans can hold onto their slim majority in November’s midterm elections.
Broadly, many Catholics have taken issue with Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo. Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement he was “disheartened that the President chose to write such disparaging words about the Holy Father.”
“Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls,” Coakley said.
Notre Dame’s president, Rev. Robert A. Dowd, issued a statement Monday in support of Pope Leo, although he did not mention Trump. He said the pope’s message “transcends partisan political divisions in this or any country and I’m deeply grateful for Pope Leo’s inspiring example.”
Trump has disagreed with popes in the past. Francis, Leo’s predecessor, sharply criticized Trump’s handling of immigration enforcement and Trump responded in turn during a brief spat. But the president’s repeated assailing of the pontiff this week could have a more significant impact with the Catholic community, as Trump simultaneously faces criticism over posting an AI-generated image depicting him as a Christ-like figure.
While Trump backed down and deleted the post after bipartisan backlash, he’s standing by his dispute with Pope Leo and refused on Monday to apologize to the pontiff.
“We believe strongly in law and order, and he seemed to have a problem with that, so there’s nothing to apologize for,” he told reporters.
Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019 and met with Pope Leo at the Vatican last May, also poked at the pontiff at a Turning Point USA event in Georgia on Tuesday night, saying Leo should “be careful” when discussing matters of theology and war.
“How can you say that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword?” Vance said. “Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis? Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated Holocaust camps and liberated those innocent people from those who had survived the Holocaust? I certainly think the answer is yes.”
Trump, despite backlash over the imagery he had posted earlier in the week, on Wednesday posted another image on Truth Social — this one depicting Jesus with his arms around Trump’s shoulders. Included with it was another social media user’s comment that “God might be playing his Trump card!”
In his post, Trump said: “The Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!”
‘Textbook blasphemy’
At Notre Dame, even conservatives took issue with Trump’s actions this week.
The Notre Dame College Republicans — who in the past had criticized some of Pope Leo’s comments about the war with Iran — lambasted Trump’s attack on the pontiff, saying that the president’s post “was both incoherent and imprudent.”
The group in a social media post went on to say the pope and clergy have “repeatedly inserted themselves into American politics” to oppose Trump’s deportation efforts, and said that “they are not above criticism for doing so.”
However, the College Republicans said: “The Trump Administration has badly miscalculated with the war in Iran, which was not in American interests. The Pope is right to push for peace and we support him in this endeavor.”
Lochlan Shinnick, an undergraduate student from California who said he is conservative, said the image Trump posted of himself him as a Christ-like figure could be considered “textbook blasphemy.”
On campus, he said, “there’s a lot of charged opinions about it, which a lot of people here have, and I think I kind of echo some of those, which is definitely that he shouldn’t have done it.”
He said he’s heard others defend Trump, arguing his social media is “comedic.” However, he said one friend who is a Trump supporter told him he finds it hard to defend Trump after those posts.
“I don’t think it’s like entirely black or white, because I don’t believe that Catholicism can be grafted to a certain political ideology,” Shinnick said.
Trump’s ‘true colors’?
Brendan Franklin, a 27-year-old insurance salesman who graduated from nearby Holy Cross College and visits the Notre Dame campus to pray at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, said he hadn’t seem the meme Trump posted.
But when CNN showed it to him, Franklin said: “I think that’s kind of pushing it too far.”
“I think he’s just maybe trying to be too powerful,” he said. “I feel like it’s kind of wrong to do that, honestly.”
Nick Bifone, a senior from New York who said he considers himself an independent, said he didn’t believe Trump’s claim he thought he was being portrayed as a doctor.
He said he believes Catholics tend to align with Republicans, but “in this instance, you kind of see a separation of that.”
“I kind of align with the pope, I think,” Bifone said. “Especially because I feel like also, the pope always argues for peace.”
Trump won nearly half of independent voters in 2024, but recent approval polls have shown his support collapsing with the group: only 26% approved of his job performance, while 73% disapproved, a CNN poll conducted by SSRS in late March found.
Sarah Williams, an undergraduate student from Connecticut who said she is an independent but has not supported Trump in the past, said the president’s attacks on Pope Leo reminded her of a 2018 commencement address in which actress Mindy Kaling told Dartmouth College students that “you have to have insane confidence in yourself.”
Trump, she said, “is sort of a testament to how far you can get by just believing in yourself.”
“And I think some of his more recent actions, particularly with the pope, have helped show his true colors to people,” she said.
The-CNN-Wire
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