Catholic vice-president effectively tells Leo to stay in his lane after pope criticized the White House over the Iran war
JD Vance has weighed into Donald Trump’s feud with Pope Leo, effectively telling the pontiff to stay in his lane after the head of the Catholic church criticized the White House over the Iran war.
“It would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what’s going on in the Catholic church and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,” the vice-president – a Catholic convert himself – said in an interview on Fox News on Monday night.
His comments represented the latest twist in the spat between Trump and the first US-born pope that began Saturday when Pope Leo XIV suggested during evening prayers at St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City that a “delusion of omnipotence” surrounded the Iran war.
“Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war! True strength is shown in serving life,” Leo said in thinly veiled commentary on the direction of the Iran war, and the leaders of the US and Israel who control it.
