It’s one thing for an adolescent to post these kinds of AI images! It’s quite another thing when the President of these United States does it and he himself is doing it, not his political lackeys!
Houston! We have a problem!

It’s one thing for an adolescent to post these kinds of AI images! It’s quite another thing when the President of these United States does it and he himself is doing it, not his political lackeys!
Houston! We have a problem!

It’s interesting that those who once clamored for the return of the tiara for the pope to put political powers in their place are no longer doing so! I hope God has a sense of humor….
|
Tiara [Updated: 03.04.2001]
|
The Triregnum (the Papal Tiara formed by three crowns symbolizing the triple power of the Pope: father of kings, governor of the world and Vicar of Christ) from the XVIII Century, with which the bronze statue of Saint Peter is crowned every June 29th, the feast day of the Saint. |


Vice President JD Vance waves to the audience during a stop on the Turning Point USA Tour held at the Akins Ford Arena in Athens, Georgia, on Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (Photo/Katherine Davis; @kat_clicks)
On JD Vance, Theological Hubris, and the Gospel He Has Yet to Learn
There is a particular arrogance that takes root in the newly converted — the zeal of the autodidact who, having just discovered the tradition, mistakes enthusiasm for mastery. JD Vance, who received baptism into the Catholic Church in 2019 at the age of thirty-five, has now committed the singular error of instructing the Bishop of Rome to “be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
We should sit with the full weight of that sentence.
The Vice President of the United States — seven years a Catholic, formerly an evangelical, before that a self-described atheist — stood before a Turning Point USA audience in Georgia and publicly admonished Pope Leo XIV about theological precision. “If you’re going to opine on matters of theology,” Vance informed the successor of Peter, “you’ve got to be careful, you’ve got to make sure it’s anchored in the truth.”
The audacity is breathtaking. The irony is almost comic.
While Vance was dispensing theological warnings from a stage in Georgia, Pope Leo XIV was standing at the archaeological site of Hippo in Algeria — the episcopal see where St. Augustine served as bishop until his death in 430 A.D. Vance, who claims Augustine as his patron saint and frequently invokes him in speeches, was lecturing on Augustinian just war theology to a political rally audience. The pope he was lecturing — who served as Prior General of the Order of St. Augustine for more than a decade and holds a doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas — was planting an olive tree at the very ground where Augustine lived, prayed, wrote, and died. If God governs history with a sense of irony, this moment surely pleased Him.
The occasion for Vance’s correction was Pope Leo’s statement that “God is never on the side of those who wield the sword.” Vance responded by invoking the thousand-year tradition of Just War theory as if the pope were unaware of it. But Leo did not say war is never permissible. He said God is not simply enlisted as a combatant on any nation’s side. That is not a negation of Just War doctrine. That is its foundation. The Catechism at §2309 is unambiguous about the conditions that must all be simultaneously met for a war to be just. Archbishop Broglio stated plainly on Easter Sunday that the war against Iran does not meet those criteria. Cardinals Cupich, McElroy, and Tobin, along with Archbishop Coakley, have spoken with notable unanimity. Cardinal Tobin put it plainly: Pope Leo “will continue to speak clearly against war and other offenses against human dignity and to call for authentic dialogue, because the Church’s witness is grounded in the peace of Christ, not in partisan interests.” That is episcopal fidelity. What Vance offered was its precise opposite.
The deeper problem is not merely that Vance is wrong about just war. It is the ecclesiological framework he is importing from American Christian nationalism into a tradition that explicitly rejects it. Vance told Fox News that “in some cases 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 public policy.” Let that formulation stand naked for a moment. The pope — who holds a universal pastoral office precisely because the Gospel speaks to every dimension of human life — is being instructed to confine himself to the sacristy, while the president is assigned the role of “dictating” the political world. This is not a Catholic understanding of faith and public life. Catholic Social Teaching from Rerum Novarum onward has always insisted that the Gospel is not a private spiritual comfort but a public moral claim. When Vance tells the pope to stay in his lane, he is not defending Catholic doctrine. He is betraying it.
JD Vance’s forthcoming book on his Catholic faith is titled Communion. Its cover features a United Methodist church. I do not say this merely to mock. Symbolism matters in Catholic theology, and the symbolism here is telling. A book about Catholic unity, bearing Protestant ecclesial architecture on its cover, written by a man who publicly contradicts the pope on Just War doctrine — this is not communion. This is confusion dressed in piety. Archbishop Coakley said it plainly: “The Pope is not Trump’s rival, nor is the Pope a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls.” Communion, in Catholic theology, is not a feeling of spiritual warmth. It is a participation in the Body of Christ that carries radical obligations — to the poor, the stranger, the enemy, to peace. It is a table the powerful do not preside over. They are guests at it, like everyone else.
A seven-year Catholic who tells the pope to watch his theology, while defending an administration that posted an AI image of the president as Jesus Christ and refused to apologize, is not in communion with the tradition he claims to be writing about. He is in communion with power. And that, as Augustine himself understood deeply, is a very different thing.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(756x312:758x314)/jd-vance-041326-873b82b20b8246aebd5429e84cdb47a5.jpg)
Jacquelyn Martin / POOL / AFP via Getty; Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP via Getty
No matter what political affiliation a person claims, if you are a post-Vatican II Catholic, heterodox left or heterodox right, chances are that a post Vatican II Catholic might raise their politics, right or left, higher than the Church and her moral teachings.
We see that with Catholics who are democrats and how they resent the Church, meaning the pope and bishops, interfering with abortion rights in this country.
And now we are seeing heterodox right Catholics telling Pope Leo to stop interfering with the war mongering policies of the current administration and to stick to morality! This is not just coloring book Catholicism, but educational ignorance which is so prevalent in both the religious and secular world today and for the past 50 years!
In addition to that, coloring book Catholics turn to the political talking points of their political affliation to make their points, not against their political party and favorite political idols, but against the pope and the Church—Catholics are doing this at the lead of non-Catholics!
Vice President JD Vance, a post-Vatican II Catholic convert and political operative makes his coloring book Catholicism very explicit by the manner in which he uses political talking points to denigrate the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church.
Fortunately, those who long for the pre-Vatican II Church know that this kind of excrement would not have been tolerated in the 1950’s The nuns would crack your knuckles and priest refuse you Holy Communion! Oh! For the good old days!
And to emphasize their coloring book Catholicism, they wanted President Biden denied Holy Communion for his abortion politics, but they themselves want Holy Communion all the while denigrating in a public way the pope for teaching Catholic morals as it concerns war and the promotion of peace!!!!!
The concluding point of Müller’s statement is the most direct: “It must be said clearly that no one has the right to criticise the Pope when he faithfully follows the mandate he received from Christ: to bear witness to the Gospel of peace.” The evangelical message, he concluded, “stands above the interests of politics, and God is our judge”. And no powerful man - not even the most powerful in the world - may “instrumentalise the name of God for his own interests”. Leo XIV, Müller recalled as he closed on a note of hope, opened his pontificate with the biblical greeting that has echoed for two thousand years: “Peace be with you!” That is where we must begin again. Not from Truth Social.
fr.L.C.
Silere non possum
Letter of the Holy Father Leo XIV to the Cardinals, 14.04.2026
The following is the Letter sent by the Holy Father Leo XIV to the cardinals:
Letter of the Holy Father
Your Eminence,
During this holy season of Easter, I wish to convey to you my heartfelt and fraternal greetings, in the hope that the peace of the risen Lord may sustain and renew our suffering world.
I likewise renew my gratitude for your participation in the Consistory last January. I greatly appreciate the work carried out in the groups, which facilitated free, concrete and spiritually fruitful exchanges, as well as the notable quality of the interventions made during the plenary. The compiled contributions constitute a resource of lasting value, which I hope will be reflected on further, and will mature through ecclesial discernment.
In my concluding remarks in January, I already referred to some elements regarding synodality that emerged from the groups. Now, I wish to focus in particular on what emerged from the groups regarding Evangelii Gaudium, especially concerning mission and the transmission of the faith.
Your contributions make it clear that this Exhortation continues to be a significant point of reference. In addition to introducing new content, it refocuses everything on the kerygma as the heart of our Christian and ecclesial identity. It was recognized as a “breath of fresh air,” capable of initiating processes of pastoral and missionary conversion — rather than producing immediate structural reforms — and thus profoundly guiding the Church’s journey.
Indeed, you emphasized how this perspective challenges the Church at every level. On a personal level, it calls every baptized person to renew their encounter with Christ, moving from a faith merely received to a faith truly lived and experienced. This journey affects the very quality of spiritual life, expressed in the primacy of prayer, in the witness that precedes words, and in the coherence between faith and life. At the community level, it calls for a shift from a pastoral approach of maintenance to one of mission. This requires communities to be living agents of the proclamation — welcoming communities that use accessible language, attentive to the quality of relationships, and capable of offering places for listening, accompaniment and healing. At the diocesan level, the responsibility of Pastors to resolutely support missionary boldness emerges clearly, ensuring that such boldness is not weighed down or stifled by organizational excesses, but is guided by a discernment that helps us to recognize what is essential.
From all this flows a profoundly unified understanding of mission, which is Christ-centered and kerygmatic. It is born of an encounter with Christ that is capable of transforming lives and spreading through attraction rather than conquest. It is an integral mission, holding in balance explicit proclamation, witness, commitment and dialogue, and yielding neither to the temptation of proselytism nor to a merely institutional mentality of preservation or expansion. Even when the Church finds herself in a minority, she is called to live with confident courage, as a small flock bringing hope to all, mindful that the aim of mission is not its own survival, but the communication of the love with which God loves the world.
Among the specific suggestions that emerged, the following deserve to be welcomed and reflected on further: the need to relaunch Evangelii Gaudium through an honest assessment of what has actually been embraced over the years and what, by contrast, remains unfamiliar or unimplemented, with particular attention to the necessary reforms of the processes of Christian initiation; the importance of valuing apostolic and pastoral visits as authentic opportunities for kerygmatic proclamation and for a growth in the quality of relationships; and the similar need to reassess the effectiveness of ecclesial communication, including at the level of the Holy See, from a more explicitly missionary perspective.
With a grateful heart, I renew my thanks for your service and contribution to the life of the Church. In regard to the forthcoming Consistory, which will take place from 26 to 27 June, more detailed information will be provided in due course to assist with the necessary preparations.
In the risen Lord, source of our hope, I send you my warmest Easter greetings.
With fraternal esteem in Christ,
From the Vatican, 12 April 2026
Here is a summary of Saint John Paul II’s peacemaking, certainly one aspect of His Holiness papacy that points to saintliness and a powerful Catholic identity:
COMMENTARY: With war again rampant, what lessons should we draw from the pro-life Pope’s unflinching opposition to the Iraq War 20 years ago?
John Paul II undertook a diplomatic campaign to persuade political leaders who supported the war to reconsider. He sent Cardinal Pio Laghi to meet with President George W. Bush to convey his opposition to the war. After the meeting, Cardinal Laghi stated of the war, “You might start it, and you don’t know how to end it.”
This proved painfully true. These diplomatic efforts affirmed the Church’s long-standing support of the United Nations. Laghi stated that we must “wait for the United Nations, whether they would give a green light in one way or the other.” Without waiting, the war would be unjust.
The most powerful moment in John Paul II’s opposition to the Iraq War was his personal meeting with President Bush. The Pontiff — debilitated by Parkinson’s — publicly and on live TV told Bush that it was time to end the war as “quickly as possible with the active participation of the international community and, in particular, the United Nations organization, in order to ensure a speedy return of Iraq’s sovereignty, in conditions of security for all its people.” The president did not heed the Pope’s advice, and the war dragged on, leaving its wounds on Iraq and Syria to this very day.
I grew up in Augusta, Georgia, where Catholics are a minority and I have experienced first hand what the non-Catholic world in the south in the late 1950’s and 60’s and even today think about the pope, the Church. We were marginalized. Southern non-Catholics were not fans of the pope or his Church and often called her the Whore of Babylon.
They certainly didn’t think Catholics were going to heaven either. It was up to them through their political and religious prism to convert us to them and their way of doing things.
I am scandalized, though, when I hear Catholics more a fan of Donald Trump than of of the Pope.
What rubbish and may God have mercy on them! To think that Catholics who should know better have become know nothings!
If you don’t know about the Know Nothings and their current poltical party in the USA, here is an AI synopsis of the Know Nothing Party’s platform:
PRESS TITLE FOR CRUX ARTICLE AND VIDEO OF THE HIGH ALTITUDE INTERVIEW:
MONEY BYTE:
“I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the church is here to do,” the pope told reporters on his brief flight to Algiers April 13.
“We are not politicians, we don’t deal with foreign (leaders?)with the same perspective he might understand it, but I do believe in the message of the Gospel, as a peacemaker,” he said.
Leo said he did not want to enter into debate and clarified that the statements he makes condemning war and the violation of international law “are certainly not meant as attacks on anyone,” but he said he will also “not shy away from pronouncing the message of the Gospel.”
Power that cannot bear to be judged invariably ends up judging itself. Donald Trump may not realize it, but in the unhinged and vulgar attack he leveled against Pope Leo XIV in recent hours, he has—inadvertently—penned his own truest portrait: that of a man who conflates strength with authority, popular support with legitimacy, and the silence of others with surrender. His words—published on his social media channels like the proclamations of a street-corner demagogue—would not merit a response were they not a disturbing symptom of something far broader and more dangerous: the tendency of a certain brand of populist politics to treat every moral institution as an obstacle to be dismantled, every critical voice as an enemy to be delegitimized, and every spiritual authority as a tool to be bent to its own electoral ends.
President Trump’s modus operandi is to belittle, mock, divide and conquer, create as much chaos as possible. The following is President’s Trump’s “tweet” about Pope Leo. Should we expect that a president be a statesman and perhaps make his case as a statesman and not as the Anti-Christ?
Here’s the President’s tweet:
Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. He talks about "fear" of the Trump Administration, but doesn't mention the FEAR that the Catholic Church, and all other Christian Organizations, had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else, for holding Church Services, even when going outside, and being ten and even twenty feet apart. I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn't! I don't want a Pope who thinks it's OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don't want a Pope who thinks it's terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States and, even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers, and killers, into our Country. And I don't want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I'm doing exactly what | was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do, setting Record Low Numbers in Crime, and creating the Greatest Stock Market in History. Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn't on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn't in the White House, Leo wouldn't be in the Vatican. Unfortunately, Leo's Weak on Crime, Weak on Nuclear Weapons, does not sit well with me, nor does the fact that he meets with Obama Sympathizers like David Axelrod, a LOSER from the Left, who is one of those who wantedchurchgoers and clerics to be arrested. Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It's hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it's hurting the Catholic Church!
President DONALD J. TRUMP
I did not know that St. Pope John Paul II, much of his papacy ignored or canceled by Pope Francis, along with Pope Benedict’s papacy, approved of the founding of this Order in South America.
Without a lot of fanfare, once again Pope Leo XIV, aka, Pope Leo the second greatest Leo, has reversed Pope Francis—God is good!
Press the title below for a 2019 article concerning the injustice of the Francis’ Vatican toward the Heralds of the Gospel. I have a few money bytes below the title:
The so-called “Heralds of the Gospel case” has become, over the years, an emblematic example of the shadows left by the previous pontificate in matters of ecclesial governance. The prolonged Vatican intervention on this international association—a reality present in 78 countries and erected by John Paul II as the first of the new millennium—continues without a convincing explanation and without a single proven accusation in civil or canonical proceedings.
During Pope Francis’s tenure, the internal life of the Church—especially in Latin America—was caught in growing polarization between progressive and conservative sectors. That dynamic tainted decisions that should have been strictly legal and pastoral. In that climate of suspicion, the Heralds were subjected to a forced administration initiated in 2019 following an apostolic visitation opened in 2017. What is troubling is that, as the two sources emphasize, it has never been officially explained why the investigation was initiated, nor what the objective reasons were that led to imposing this exceptional regime on them.