Ten days ago, Democratic strategist and consiglieri David Axelrod met with the Pope for a nice chat.
The meeting was notable for a number of reasons, not least that Axelrod is Jewish, not Catholic. His audience with the Pope is, we are told, at least tangentially related to a potential visit from Barack Obama to meet with the Pope. Obama is not Catholic, and one wonders why there needs to be negotiations with the Pope directly about a potential meeting between a former president and the leader of the Catholic Church.
Perhaps the meeting was to discuss the Cubs. After all, the Pope is from Chicago, but it seems unlikely.
All of this would be of only minor interest but for the fact that almost immediately subsequent to that meeting, the Pope went on the warpath against Donald Trump. His comments weren’t vague and weren’t even consistent with Catholic doctrine. Asserting that God doesn’t listen to soldiers on the battlefield was a remarkably odd statement, inconsistent with centuries of Catholic doctrine.
“God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs,” Pope Leo wrote in an April 10 post on X.
I’m pretty sure God listens to prayers from the battlefield, which is why there are often priests there alongside the soldiers. The priest who brought me into the Church served in the Navy during World War II.
Moreover, the Pope appeared to rewrite the Bible itself, although some argue that he was merely inartful in his homily, blending a Biblical quote with personal commentary. In either case, it was more than a bit odd to the ears of many.
NEW: Outrage has broken out after Pope Leo appeared to quote Jesus using a passage that does not exist in the Bible.
“Jesus told us, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, but woe to those who manipulate religion in the very name of God for their own military, economic, or political… pic.twitter.com/P9w7vIfGaz
— Jack (@jackunheard) April 16, 2026
NEW: Outrage has broken out after Pope Leo appeared to quote Jesus using a passage that does not exist in the Bible.
“Jesus told us, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, but woe to those who manipulate religion in the very name of God for their own military, economic, or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.’”
The first line echoes scripture.
The rest does not appear in any biblical passage.
The Pope is being accused of using a fabricated quote from Jesus to push a political message.
Above all, the oddest thing has been his arguing that Lebanon and Algeria are examples of how Christians and Muslims can live together. In both places, Christians have been persecuted by Muslims, both killed and driven out of the lands by Muslims who are quite clear that Christians aren’t welcome.
In 1955, Algeria had 1 million Catholics and 140,000 Jews. Today there are 8,000 Catholics in Algeria and fewer than 200 Jews.
Christians and Jews had lived in Algeria since Roman times. Now they’re gone.https://t.co/BvwwQ15dYk
— Daniel Greenfield – “Hang Together or Separately” (@Sultanknish) April 16, 2026
It’s all about building a case that Trump is pursuing an illegal war, based on false religion, and “dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”
That sounds eerily similar to describing Iran over the past 47 years, but it was aimed at Trump, who has cited no religious reasons for his war against Iran. His reasons are those of any “Caesar,” not a prophet: national security. A cynic might reply to the Pope: render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but I am no cynic. Instead, I just assume that this Pope is the same guy from Chicago who was active in the nuclear freeze movement in the 1980s.
💥1983: meet a young Robert Prevost, the future Pope Leo XIV, protesting alongside other Catholic priests against the Cruise missiles installed by Reagan at the U.S. base in Comiso, Sicily.
Prevost joined a march organized by the Italian Communist Party.
(via @espressonline) pic.twitter.com/QHPpallBgJ
— Paolo Mossetti (@paolomossetti) April 16, 2026
No doubt that meeting with Axelrod and the subsequent broadsides against Trump by Pope Leo XIV are a mere coincidence. Far be it from me to suggest that the Pope in 2026 has the same political ideology and activist impulses as the young priest in the 1980s, and decided with his fellow Chicagoans to undermine the president for political purposes before the midterms. As a Catholic, I find that idea far too cynical to consider.
But I am not idealistic enough to believe that the subsequent, highly deceptive narrative that has been pushed out over the past week, including the appearance of three leftist Bishops on 60 Minutes and false accusations of a Trump administration retaliation against Catholic Charities, is not a PsyOp.
It is
After the kerfuffle with the Pope, a story popped up strongly implying that Trump canceled a contract with Catholic Charities to manage the care of unaccompanied minor illegal aliens, amounting to many millions of dollars of revenue lost.
Almost everything about the story was false, most especially the implication that the timing suggested that it was pure retaliation.
The timing on this story is interesting because Trump *actually* canceled this contract with CC two weeks ago, before the kerfluffle with the pope took place.
Kinda makes it seem like the kerfluffle is a *response* to Trump taking steps to stop the flow of “refugees” https://t.co/vJOy8q00ws
— Theophilus Chilton (Scots-Irish Supremacist) 🇺🇲 (@Theo_Chilton) April 16, 2026
There are many reasons why this story cannot possibly be as portrayed by the propagandists, not the least of which is that the cancellation took place weeks before there was any back and forth between Trump and the Pope. There simply could be no connection, unless you believe that Trump is clairvoyant.
Trump may be magic, but not that magic.
2/ During questioning, a top executive from Catholic Charities Miami admitted the system handling unaccompanied children was flawed, and a case worker said that when there are red flags with a child’s sponsor, they were instructed to alert the Office of Refugee Resettlement, NOT… pic.twitter.com/7dSz5LRKNk
— Maddie Rowley (@Maddie_Rowley_) April 16, 2026
Then there is the fact that, with the border closure, the pressing need for those services evaporated, and Catholic Charities had not managed the contract well in any case. It’s clear that many of the normal safeguards were circumvented because the border was open and the federal government was flooded with unaccompanied children and had no place to put them, and that Catholic Charities turned out to be not competent to handle the contract well, as they have admitted in court documents.
4/ A Catholic Charities Miami shelter employee admitted during questioning that they felt pressure from ORR to release unaccompanied children to sponsors as quickly as possible. pic.twitter.com/bKLnZCTRN4
— Maddie Rowley (@Maddie_Rowley_) April 16, 2026
Catholic Charities was not even licensed to provide these services in Florida, and the feds waived the requirement because of Biden’s open border. As we all know by now, the Department of Health lost hundreds of thousands of children because they couldn’t keep up with demands, allowed human traffickers to become “guardians” of children, and sent them off to become essentially slaves in the heartland.
The Trump administration has been cleaning up this mess, and canceling the Catholic Charities contract was part of that process.
This hurt the local Catholic Charities hard; it is nominally Catholic, but almost 100% of its funding comes from the federal government. Losing this contract was a big blow—perhaps a fatal blow—to it. Under such circumstances, having the public believe that it was political retaliation and not smart management looks suspiciously convenient.
Just as concocting a fight between the Catholic Church and the Trump administration serves the political purposes of the Democrats in the months before the midterms, especially given the fact that on every policy issue other than immigration and the war, Catholic doctrine is at odds with Democratic positions, and the Biden administration was so hostile to Catholics that it labeled conservative Catholics potential domestic terrorists.
By Catholic doctrine, Democrats support the actual genocide of tens of millions of babies a year, push an agenda hostile to family life, push demonic gender ideology, and are hostile to Christianity. Still, many older Catholics are habitual Democrats, and many priests from the 60s, 70s, and 80s were devoted leftists and advocates of liberation theology.
You know the type: the ones who protested alongside communists against Ronald Reagan.
In any case, regardless of the Pope’s motives, the controversies that have implied that Trump is anti-Catholic and retaliating against the Church are made up. They are no more true than the accusations that he is racist, or anti-gay, or even antisemitic, all of which are regularly asserted with false evidence.
The Catholic Charities contract cancellation controversy is made up out of whole cloth.
BREAKING: Bill Maher just eviscerated leftist hypocrisy.
“I love hypocritical America. See liberals suddenly love the Pope. Doesn’t believe in gay marriage, no women priests, but now since he’s feuding with Trump, MSNBC loves this guy.” pic.twitter.com/JveLwmTttN
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) April 18, 2026
Whether the Pope was prompted by Obama through David Axelrod to attack Trump is almost irrelevant. We don’t need to know the motive of one man here; we can see the motive of those who have hated Catholics now suddenly taking up their cause, based on falsehoods.
It’s all propaganda.
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