Pope Leo Needs to Brush Up His Bible

As far as showdowns between popes and secular leaders go, President Donald Trump versus Pope Leo XIV hardly rates. 

Leo hasn’t forced Trump to come see him and stand for three days in the snow, the way Pope Gregory VII did to Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, in 1077.

Nor has he issued an interdict, a tactic favored by Pope Innocent III, against the United States,

On the other hand, Trump hasn’t sacked Rome and forced the pope to submit to his will, in a repeat of Emperor Charles V’s 16th century gambit against Pope Clement VII.

It’s still been a remarkably testy exchange between Leo and Trump over the Iran war.

The president of the United States — stung by the pontiff’s criticisms of his decision to launch the war and his ensuing rhetoric — has denounced Leo in his characteristic terms, all but saying that the His Holiness “doesn’t have what it takes.”