(RNS) — After President Donald Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV and his foreign policy on social media this week, U.S. Catholics, and especially bishops, have largely reacted with condemnation and dismay.
While it’s not new for U.S. presidents and the popes to disagree — especially on matters concerning war — what’s surprising about the recent spat between Leo and Trump is how much it has unified the Catholic bishops and faithful behind the pontiff, after years marked by division and internal conflict.
“The attack on Pope Leo has united the American hierarchy with particular zeal,” said Christopher White, author of the 2025 book “Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy.”
The bishops’ unity has been strengthened by the election of an American pope and the “general sense of obligation that they need to support him and have his back,” he said.
From the moment Leo walked out on the loggia after his election last May, he laid out his mission, entrusted to him by the cardinals who elected him, to “walk together with you as a church, united, ever pursuing peace and justice.” His motto “In Illo uno unum” (“In the one Christ we are one”) is a manifesto of what the new pope wants to prioritize in what he considers a fractured church and society.
During Pope Francis’ papacy, U.S. bishops only occasionally criticized him in public, but their United States Conference of Catholic Bishops organizing body rarely threw its weight behind his priorities, like the environment and dialogue, known as synodality. And their attempts to weigh in on former Pre …
