Joining Newsmax’s Michael Dorstewitz in lecturing the pope about religion — and taking President Trump’s side on Iran — is Don Feder, who wrote in his April 20 WorldNetDaily column:
Pope Leo XIV and President Trump aren’t bosom buddies.
The president says the pope is “weak on crime and terrible on foreign policy.”
The pope, who has condemned the war with Iran’s terrorist regime in the strongest possible terms, says that if Mr. Trump follows through with his threat to attack Iran’s infrastructure, it will be a “sign of the hatred, the division, the destruction human beings are capable of.”
The most sensible course for Mr. Trump would be to simply ignore the pope. Most Catholics do. Still, the president always rises to a challenge, even when it’s unnecessary.
When it comes to elections, American Catholics aren’t taking their cue from Rome. In 2024, 55% of Catholics voted for Mr. Trump despite the pointed criticism of the president by Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis. This apparently includes the pope’s eldest brother, a Chicago-area voter.
Feder went on to claim that the pope knows nothing:
As the first American pope, perhaps Leo wants to show that he has no loyalty to his native land. He also knows that condemning America’s actions in Iran will endear him to the elites who ordinarily despise Catholicism.
The pope says, “God does not bless any conflict.” Still, the Bible is full of examples of God doing just that. The Catholic Church has a just war theory that goes back to St. Augustine.
Does Pope Leo understand what we’re up against? The Iranian regime murdered approximately 45,000 of its own people in January. It is the principal state sponsor of terrorism. It will never give up its quest for nuclear weapons, which it has every intention of using as part of its apocalyptic religion.
The pope says peace is achieved “only” through “dialogue.” Is he familiar with the history of World War II? Neville Chamberlain did not achieve peace in our time with the 1938 Munich Agreement. Instead, he paved the way for a world war in which 80 million died.
America achieved peace in 1945 by crushing Germany and Japan militarily and convincing their leaders that continuing the conflict would be national suicide.
[…]The pope is on a “Denial of Reality” tour. Last week, he was in Algeria, where he spoke of “the rich diversity of Muslims and Christians in our shared aspiration for dignity, love, justice and peace. In a world where division and wars sow pain and death, living in unity and peace is a compelling sign.”
[…]The pope should worry less about questions of war and peace and more about the fate of his church. The American Catholic Church is in sustained, long-term decline. The percentage of self-identified Catholics has fallen from 24% in 2007 to 19% today. Only 62% of those raised Catholic remain in the church, and often the affiliation is nominal.
If the Vatican was more spiritual and less political, perhaps that would not be the case.
Perhaps Feder is so invested in Trump that he thinks anyone who opposes him does so for less-than-principled reasons. Why does he think the pope shouldn’t care about “questions of war and peace”?