Holy Hostility: President Trump’s Volatile Correspondence With the Vatican

Design by Zury Cordova

By Fiona Fahey

During the 2024 Easter season, Donald Trump utilized the abundant media coverage of his second presidential campaign to endorse country singer Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” Bible. The $59.99 King James Bible is adorned with an image of the American flag and includes the words to intrinsic American documents such as the United States Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Pledge of Allegiance, and a handwritten chorus to Greenwood’s song "God Bless the USA." In a promotional video for the text, the then-former president claimed that there had been a “loss of religion” throughout the United States and urged Americans to “bring Christianity back into [their] lives.” Some Americans, however, were not impressed by this unapologetic link of church and state and viewed the patriotic Bible as clear “sacrilege.” This Easter time endorsement wasn’t the president’s first encounter with an upset religious public but, rather, a footnote in a long, confusing and temperamental history. As a new pope begins to question the intentions behind American domestic and foreign policy, Catholics nationwide must navigate a sacramental spat between personal faith and global politics.

The depth of President Trump’s relationship with religion has remained relatively unclear throughout his two presidential terms. While speaking at a Christian-ran Family Leadership Summit in 2015, he identified himself as a Presbyterian Protestant and said that people would be shocked to know that he loved God and regularly went to church. A native New Yorker, President Trump frequented Brooklyn’s First Presbyterian Church as a child and even donated $10,000 to one of the church’s fundraisers after finding success in the real estate industry. Later, in the 1970s, he and his parents began attending Marble Collegiate Church in the NoMad neighborhood of Manhattan, one of the oldest Protestant churches in North America. 

“Going to church was an important part of our family life,” he said in his donation letter to First Presbyterian. “The memories for me are still vivid — of a vibrant congregation and a lot of activities.”

Only a year later, though, Trump changed his tune. While traveling nationwide on his first presidential campaign, he formed an evangelical advisory board where he and 25 conservative Christian figures — such as Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. and Southern Evangelical Seminary President Richard Land — used faith to promote and discuss conservative views and desired policy changes. In 2020, Trump further complicated the public’s perception of his religious alignments by telling Religion News Service that despite being “confirmed at a Presbyterian church as a child,” he now identified as a “non-denominational Christian.”

A collision of Trump’s presumed personal faith with his administrative agenda has caused some religious leaders to take a closer look at the controversial president. During the 2016 election cycle, the then-head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, expressed concern over Trump’s proposed border wall and said that anyone calling for its construction must not be a true Christian. 

“For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful,” an outraged Trump told a South Carolina crowd during a campaign event soon thereafter. “No leader, especially a religious leader, has the right to question another man’s religion or faith.”

Despite a seemingly cordial meeting in 2017, Pope Francis remained critical of Trump's presidency. In February 2025, just months before his passing, the late pope wrote an open letter to Catholic bishops in the United States condemning the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants and calling their exhibition of mass deportations a “major crisis.” 

President Trump’s historically fickle relationship with the Vatican made the installment of the globe’s very first American pope all the more intriguing. Following Pope Leo XIV’s election, Trump took to Truth Social to call the newly cemented link between the United States and the Catholic Church a “great honor.” 

Like his predecessor, Leo has continuously criticized the Trump administration’s immigration policy, telling reporters this past November that he denounced the "violent and at times extremely disrespectful" treatment of migrants. 

The establishment of Operation Epic Fury — the United States and Israel’s joint military campaign against Iran — ignited a true war of words between two of the globe’s most influential figures. While the primary goal of the operation was to dismantle key Iranian defense mechanisms — such as command and control facilities and missile production sites —  approximately 2,100 civilians are said to have lost their lives as a result of U.S.-Israeli airstrikes. 

Pope Leo labeled these numerous attacks on Iran as “totally unacceptable” and called for world leaders to reject war of any kind entirely. President Trump quickly responded to the pope’s comments by posting a lengthy statement to Truth Social explaining that he didn’t “want a Pope who thinks it's OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon” or "criticizes the President of the United States.”

The newly-appointed Archbishop of New York and successor of prominent Trump ally Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Ronald Hicks, was one of many Catholic American figures to defend the pope’s comments. 

"He's not taking the bait,” the archbishop told Sirius XM’s ‘The Catholic Channel.’ “[Pope Leo] is in a stance of calmness and of being grounded, rooted in faith.”

Although clarifying his status as a non-politician, Pope Leo has stood firm in his disagreements with the president and insists that he has “no fear” of the Trump administration. President Trump's quick dismissal of the pope’s criticisms was viewed by some Catholic Americans as “inappropriate” but he says there is no room for regret.

“I think he’s very weak on crime and other things, so I’m not going to apologize,” the president told White House reporters last week. “He went public, I’m just responding to Pope Leo.”

On April 12, 2026, President Trump uploaded an AI-generated photo of himself depicted as a Christ-like figure to his Truth Social account. The image, which featured a robe-laden Trump with illuminated hands blessing a sick man, was dubbed “offensive” by well-known politicians and some Catholic Americans. 

In defense of the suspected “blasphemous” post, Trump told reporters at the White House that he thought the image simply portrayed him as a doctor who “made people better.” The post was seen by some as a way for the White House to emphasize Trump’s religious identity amidst his uneasy relationship with the Vatican. 

President Trump’s controversial product promotions and subsequent rivalry with a chief religious figure has driven Americans to revisit a centuries-long debate surrounding the coexistence of church and state. While some see a collision between the American government and religious identity as a negative, others view it as a necessity due to a belief that the president has been “anointed by God.” 

On July 13, 2024, a bullet from an AR-15 style rifle struck President Trump in his right ear, leaving behind a 2 centimeter wide gash. Surviving the assassination attempt is said to have ignited a contemplation of mortality in the president and brought him closer to his Christian beliefs. Those around Trump — such as American evangelist Reverend Franklin Graham — believe that the reason for his survival relates to the fact that he was sent here by God to fulfill a “divine mission.”

“The bullet that went through his ear missed his brain by a millimeter, and his head turned just at the last second when the gun was fired,” Graham told BBC. “I believe that God turned his head and saved his life.”

Whether President Trump is a prophet or not is up for interpretation, but as the White House continues to navigate a treacherous train of communication with one of the globe’s most powerful entities, one thing is for certain: The shared space between political authority and religious doctrine remains tense, unpredictable and ever-contentious.

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Fiona is a CCNY junior and native New Yorker who is majoring in Communications and Media Studies. Her dream is to work in a busy newsroom in the heart of Manhattan. She spends her spare time filling her ears with Irish music, showing her family members terrible films, and hanging around the five boroughs with her friends.