President Donald Trump led a 2024 presidential campaign focused on religion and religious values, something he and Vice President JD Vance have said plays an integral role in their politics. More than a year later, the two’s public disputes with Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, and actions in the U.S.-Israel war against Iran have caused a shift in Catholics.

Chicago native Robert Prevost entered his papacy with a background of disagreement with Trump’s policies, after publications reported that his brother — Louis Prevost — had made several inflammatory social media posts in the past. Prevost told The New York Times that his papal brother is “much more liberal” than he.

Leo’s political ideology hasn’t been explicitly stated, but he’s become a critic of Trump and his administration on immigration, and now, the Iran war.

Trump himself is non-denominational Christian, while Vance converted to Catholicism.

“Today, as we all know, there was this threat against all the people of Iran. This is truly unacceptable,” The Vatican News reported the pontiff saying in Italian in response to Trump’s Truth Social post threatening Iran.

Friction between the Vatican and the Trump administration intensified after The Free Press published a report that the Pentagon requested a January meeting with Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s former ambassador to the U.S., with a goal to insist the Catholic Church stood behind U.S. military actions.

Conservative Catholic group Catholics for Catholics, which remained in support of Trump, said in a Thursday post on X that if the news is true, an apology is needed to American Catholics for threatening the church.

The Trump administration has denied the assertions in the article, but it hasn’t satisfied some Catholics in America.

“It’s obvious the administration is trying to use the Catholic Church to promote its agenda,” Jason Miller, communications manager with left-leaning Catholic group Call to Action, told Straight Arrow News Thursday. “We saw Bishop Barron from Minnesota at the White House for Holy Week. They’re using the Catholic church as an institution to appeal to their base.”

On the other side, conservative Bishop Joseph Strickland, who Pope Francis removed as bishop in 2023, wrote a Tuesday post, criticizing Trump’s expletive Easter message for being “careless, irreverent and theologically confused.”

“This is not a day for casual speech,” Strickland wrote. “It is not a day for vulgarity. And it is not a day for confusion about who God is.”

Administration campaigned on promoting Catholic ideals
Trump and Vice President JD Vance each spent time on the campaign trail appealing to Catholics across the nation, becoming figures they could relate to who would advocate for their ideals.

Trump once told a North Carolina rally in 2024 that former Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris is “destructive to Christianity” and would be the same to the Catholic Church, according to EWTN News (formerly Catholic News Agency).

“I don’t know how many Catholics are here, but if you’re Catholic, there is no way you can be voting for these people,” EWTN reported Trump saying. “These people are a nightmare. I don’t know what they have against Catholics, but Catholics are treated worse than anybody.”

Vance echoed Trump’s remarks in a different rally in Wisconsin and said there were Catholics who felt “abandoned” by Harris and former President Joe Biden.

The strategy appeared to work. Several exit polls from the 2024 election revealed that Catholics most often voted for Trump. According to NBC News’ exit poll, 59% of Catholics said they voted for Trump. The Pew Research Center had similar findings with Trump getting 55% of the Catholic vote.

Since Trump’s return to the Oval Office, his administration has taken several policy stances that align with the Catholic Church and, largely, Christianity. That includes transgender people, abortion and promoting religious liberty. It resonated with conservative Catholics, as they celebrated the administration’s actions in some places, but pushback has grown ever since Trump outlined his immigration plans.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, led by conservative Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, said in November that they were “disturbed” to see how federal immigration agents were detaining people.

“We bishops advocate for a meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws and procedures,” they wrote. “Human dignity and national security are not in conflict. Both are possible if people of goodwill work together.”

But news of a ceasefire in Iran has some Catholic groups still praising the Trump administration.

“A special thanks to all the Catholics in the Trump Administration who are working behind the scenes to bring a peaceful resolution to the Iran War,” right-wing group Catholics for Catholics wrote on X.