On May 1st, the Vatican announced the appointment of Evelio Menjívar Ayala, until then an auxiliary bishop in Washington DC, as bishop of the Wheeling-Charleston diocese, in West Virginia, a rural, white, and very conservative area of the United States. At another time, the decision to appoint a Salvadoran to such a position would have been a milestone in itself due to its background and message, and also a small provocation. But the Pope's decision, at a delicate moment in the relations between Rome and his country of origin, goes much further. Because Menjívar Ayala arrived here as an illegal immigrant in the trunk of a car, fleeing the civil war in El Salvador. And if something characterizes his discourse, it is a staunch defense of everything that Donald Trump denounces.
The bishop's story is that of countless immigrants, exiles, and refugees. He survived as best he could on a dangerous journey, worked in construction and as a janitor, learned English at night, and was ordained a priest before obtaining citizenship, 20 years ago. León XIV not only seeks with him a renewal in the ecclesiastical hierarchy by betting on diversity and the type of pastoral guidance he learned and practiced in Latin America, but also wanted to send a very clear message to the Trump Administration, which returned to power with the promise of deporting tens of millions of people, closing borders, and mobilizing all possible federal agents to pursue, detain, and even deport those who have all their documentation in order.
The relationship between this president and the Vatican has never been good. Trump, a millionaire by birth and volcanic, is used to getting his way and has an overwhelming style that does not accept shades of gray or lessons from anyone. He believes and repeats that he is always the smartest person in the room. He is sure that the entire planet needs to know his opinion permanently, as he also believes that almost no one knows more about almost any subject than himself. Including, it seems, theology.
His philosophy of power also leads him to think that any relationship is zero-sum, and that it is stupid not to take advantage of superiority. Without yet reaching the famous phrase attributed to Stalin about how many military divisions the Pope of Rome had, but almost. After a visit in 2016 to the border between Mexico and the United States, in an election campaign focused on the promise to build a huge defensive wall, Pope Francis told him that "a person who only thinks about building walls and not bridges is not Christian." Trump responded harshly, stating that it was "sad and shameful" that the Pope questioned his faith and accused the Mexican government of using the pontiff politically, since he, he pointed out, "did not understand" the problem of illegal immigration and crime at the border.
The situation was tense for a long time. Francis repeatedly criticized US immigration policies, especially the brutal separations of migrant families at the border - the great contribution of Stephen Miller, now one of the most radical and powerful advisors in the White House - which he described as one of the "greatest cruelties" imaginable. "Whoever builds walls ends up a prisoner of them," he warned. In 2017, Trump visited the Vatican, and they had an apparently cordial meeting. But that did not change Rome's position, which mobilized the bishops to denounce the methods, objectives, and consequences of those policies.
The situation now, with another pontiff and on top of that American, has only gotten worse. When Robert Prevost stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter's on May 8, 2025, as León XIV, there was much curiosity in Washington. He was not the favorite of conservatives, but the first American Pope in history seemed like a great opportunity for an administration euphoric with the mantra that the United States is the most "in vogue country in the world" or the most envied. JD Vance, a convert to Catholicism, and Marco Rubio, also Catholic, were at the Vatican the next day. The photo seemed perfect, but it ended up going wrong.
The clash between Trump and León XIV is one of the great showdowns of this era. They are two compatriots who represent completely antagonistic visions of the country, the West, the concept of community, ethics and morality, and certainly faith. In its latest National Security Strategy, the United States presents the European Union practically as a rival, almost an enemy, but not from a military point of view, not even political, but from the perspective of civilizational survival.
The vision of the Trump Administration on the West is based on race, Christianity, and nationalism. The European version, on democracy, human rights, and law, especially international law. That rivalry is also replicated on another scale with the Vatican. Trump understands power as will, sovereignty, and strength. León XIV speaks of dignity, responsibility, and universality. The politician believes in physical and cultural walls, in hatred of rivals and enemies, whom he wants to destroy; the Pope insists on bridges, on the moral obligation to the weak and the foreigner, and on the idea that a nation cannot be measured solely by its ability to protect itself, but also by its willingness to welcome.
The president never apologizes or admits mistakes, and the religious leader believes that all that is good in our world begins with contrition and forgiveness. Over the past decade, a part of the local ecclesiastical hierarchy, and of Trumpism, trusted that an American, conservative pontiff, anti-woke, more aligned in the cultural battle and less insistent on immigration and social justice, would be a magnificent opportunity. It has turned out exactly the opposite.
To understand it, it is useful to recall the figure of Steve Bannon, the great guru of the global alternative right and chief strategist of Trump in his first term. Bannon had been dreaming for years of a kind of conservative "reconquest" of the Vatican after the pontificate of Francis. He trusted in a Pope who would correct that "globalist" drift, but León XIV shattered those expectations even before being elected. Bannon, who has a special relationship with Rome and is a declared fan of Giordano Bruno, to whom he dedicated a documentary, has a peculiar theory about resistance or martyrdom in the revolution against the established order. And he had warned before the conclave that Robert Prevost was a very dangerous sleeper for the conservative agenda.
After his election, it exploded, and he described him as "the worst choice for MAGA Catholics" and as a "Bergoglio acolyte," and reproached the "globalist woke" Vatican curia for deliberately choosing a progressive Chicago Pope to politically neutralize Trumpism.
Bannon's obsession for years was to build an international populist and nationalist axis with Christian roots. He bet on figures like the American cardinal Raymond Burke, a symbol of the ultraconservative wing opposed to Francis. He also looked favorably on names like Robert Sarah or Péter Erd, all identified with a more doctrinal, traditionalist Church, and belligerent against cultural leftism.
In Trump's vision, similar, the Vatican could become an ally of European sovereignist movements and America First, but León XIV has maintained much of the line of his predecessor and has turned the language on migrants into a central moral issue, openly and constantly clashing with the Administration's policies. When Vance invited him to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States at the White House, León XIV declined and chose to spend July 4th in Lampedusa, the Mediterranean island that is a symbol of the migration crisis. The message was hard to misinterpret, and Trump responded as he usually does, taking it personally.
In the early seasons of The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin's series, the American president faces a complicated case, with a teenager who has fled the country after killing his teacher and has hidden in Italy. Washington wants him extradited, but Italian authorities resist because they fear he will face the death penalty. In that difficult situation, what the president fears most is precisely a possible public reprimand from the Bishop of Rome, one of the great moral authorities on the planet.
Trumpism works in a completely opposite way, always happy to engage in leader-to-leader fights. In recent months, Trump has repeatedly attacked the Pope for "interfering," telling him he is "weak on crime" and "terrible on foreign policy", especially after the Vatican criticized U.S. military operations. It's the same campaign language he uses with Democrats or the press, but it becomes comical when directed at the head of the Church. For Trump, as for Vance, the Pope seems to be not so much a religious and moral authority but a political rival.
The big quarrel
Amid the debate on the war in the Middle East and bombings, the president even said that Pope Leo XIV wanted Iran to have nuclear bombs. The vice president urged the leader of his Church to "focus on matters of morality" and let "the President of the United States handle U.S. public policy" as if there could be anything more appropriate to address morality than war and the death of thousands of people.
Just days after the first anniversary of Trump's return to the presidency, a very unusual meeting took place in Washington that fueled public discussion about the bilateral relationship. Following expressions of concern from the Pope and Vatican officials about the Administration's actions in Venezuela or in Minneapolis, where two Americans died in protests against immigration operations, top Pentagon officials met with Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Holy See's ambassador to the United States, and reproached him in a very tense meeting for Rome's position.
The clashes with the Pope can be understood well enough based on those mentioned logics, the president's personality, or the philosophical-theological struggle that delights historians and fans of imperial conflicts from a millennium ago. But to get to the bottom of it, it is necessary to go much further and analyze from a broader perspective as described by authors such as Tim Alberta (The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory), Kristin Kobes Du Mez (Jesus and John Wayne), Katherine Stewart (The Power Worshippers and Money, Lies, and God), or Philip S. Gorski (The Flag and the Cross), about the transformation of the evangelical movement in the United States into Christian nationalism.
A religious-political movement, with enormous resources, that has set aside historical ideas and its commitment to "moral majority" in favor of an agenda much more focused on cultural issues and right-wing leadership against the threat of the left. Kobes Du Mez, for example, explains how much of evangelicalism gradually replaced the traditional evangelical image of Jesus as compassionate, humble, and pacifist with an ideal of "aggressive, patriarchal, and nationalist" masculinity, symbolized iconically by figures like John Wayne first and then Trump.
Therefore, she argues, the billionaire's success is not a coincidence or a passing phase, but the culmination of decades of political and religious culture that have reconstructed an identity once based on scriptures in favor of a hostile view towards feminism and LGBTQ rights, aggressive, militaristic, and positioning the United States as a threatened Christian nation, not only from outside but especially from within.
Some recent viralized examples fit into this framework: public prayers in the Oval Office; Defense Secretary Hegseth's radical positions, comparing the rescue of a pilot in Iran to the Passion and Resurrection; metaphors with the image of the chosen people; or ideas from the Speaker of the House and Trump ally, Mike Johnson, against the separation of Church and State.
The White House's chief religious advisor, Paula White Cain, a devout supporter of the president whom she recently likened to Jesus Christ, drew a parallel between the legal processes and political attacks suffered by Trump and the Passion of Christ. "No one has paid the price like you," she told the president, who weeks earlier had posted a sacrilegious image on his social media presenting himself as Jesus.
Opposing interpretations of 'ordo amoris'
But there is much more. Vance, a convert with superficial knowledge of religion but the conviction of a newcomer, has used faith not only in the context of war but to interpret the concept of ordo amoris, the "order of love" of St. Augustine, in terms of national politics, according to which moral obligations - after love for God - would begin with the family, then the national community, and only then the rest of the world. Just a month after Trump took office, Pope Francis sent a letter to the bishops of the United States on immigration and mass deportations, directly addressing the correct interpretation of ordo amoris and rejecting that view.
"Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that gradually extend to other people and groups. In other words: the human person is not just an individual, relatively extensive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with everyone, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in their identity and vocation. The true order of love that we must promote is the one we discover by constantly meditating on the parable of the Good Samaritan, that is, meditating on the love that builds a brotherhood open to all, without exception," said the Pope, bearing in mind that 56% of Catholic voters and 60% of white Catholics voted for Trump in 2024, many not despite, but because of his stance and rhetoric on immigration.
But if what happened in Trump's first year had been a source of friction, the Third Gulf War is what finally blew everything up, with the final debate on the legitimate use of force and the classic idea of "just war", which conservative American commentators have boldly wielded against an Augustinian like Pope Leo XIV and against prominent figures like Cardinal Robert McElroy, Archbishop of Washington and author of a doctoral thesis on moral norms in foreign policy, or Archbishop Timothy Broglio, responsible for military chaplains.
The idea of bellum iustum - formulated by St. Augustine, systematized by Thomas Aquinas, and later developed in modern international law - requires a just cause, right intention, legitimate authority, that it be the last possible resort, and proportionality. Therefore, when Trump threatened to "annihilate the Iranian civilization," Leo XIV appeared before journalists and deliberately responded in English calling the war "unjust" and reminding that attacking civilian infrastructure goes against international law.
"Today there has been this threat against the entire people of Iran. This is truly not acceptable," he said. Three days later, at a vigil in St. Peter's Basilica, he condemned the "delirium of omnipotence" that fuels wars and rejected any attempt to "recruit God" to justify the death of civilians. He did not mention Trump by name, nor was it necessary. The next day, the president called him "weak and terrible." Vance tried to manage the crossfire. As one of the country's most prominent Catholics, the confrontation between the Pope and the president put him in an uncomfortable position, and defending his boss was leaving him very exposed. He asked the pontiff to "exercise caution in his words," and later, when he interpreted that Leo XIV softened his tone, he publicly thanked him.
"Reality is often much more complex," he wrote on his social media. "He will be in our prayers, and I hope that we are in his." In May, Marco Rubio flew to Rome to meet with the Pope, and in a subsequent statement, he spoke of a "shared commitment to peace and human dignity." Diplomacy lowered the temperature somewhat, but the causes of the conflict remain intact, and the Pope's determination is stronger than ever. "I do not fear the Trump Administration or speaking openly about the Gospel message, which is the Church's reason for being. I will continue to speak out firmly against war, seeking to promote peace, dialogue, and multilateralism among states to find solutions to problems. Too many people are suffering today, too many innocent people have died, and I believe someone must speak up and say there is a better way," he warned last month on a trip to Africa where he lamented that "the world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants. [...] Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their military, economic, or political benefit," he concluded.