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ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday doubled down as U.S. President Donald Trump’s criticism showed no sign of letting up, insisting that the message “the world needs to hear today” is one of peace and dialogue.

Leo spoke to journalists en route to Cameroon as he continued his Africa visit.

He made no mention of Trump’s latest social media post or the suggestion by U.S. Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, that he should “be careful” when speaking about theology.

Leo took no questions. Rather, he focused on his first stop in Algeria and the teachings of St. Augustine of Hippo, the inspiration of his religious order and his own spirituality.

But Leo spoke in terms that suggested the Trump administration’s criticism of the pope’s calls for peace in the Iran war hadn’t gone unnoticed. He spoke exclusively in English.

Trump has issued repeated broadsides this week against history’s first U.S.-born pope, accusing him of being weak on crime and a captive to the left, and asserting that Leo owed his papacy to Trump. Trump also posted, then took down, an artificial intelligence-generated, Christ-like image of himself that drew widespread condemnation, even from many supporters.

Trump’s attacks on Leo began after the pope amplified criticism of war and asserted that God doesn’t bless those who drop bombs. Leo also called Trump’s threat to annihilate Iranian civilization “truly unacceptable.”

Overnight, Trump posted “Not good!!!” in response to a post citing social media posts by Leo before he was pope that were critical of Trump. And he wrote: “Will someone please tell Pope Leo that Iran has killed at least 42,000 innocent, completely unarmed, protesters in the last two months, and that for Iran to have a Nuclear Bomb is absolutely unacceptable.”

Leo points to St. Augustine and ‘search for truth’

Leo drew attention to his visit Tuesday to Annaba, the ancient city of Hippo where St. Augustine, the theological and philosophical giant of the early church, lived as a bishop for more than 30 years.

“His writings, his teaching, his spirituality, his invitation to search for God and to search for truth is something that is very much needed today, a message that is very real for all of us today as believers in Jesus Christ, but for all people,” Leo said.

By going to Hippo, Leo said that he wanted to offer the church and the world a vision that St. Augustine offers in terms of seeking “unity among all peoples and respect for all people in spite of the differences.”

He recalled that the vast majority of Algerians are Muslim, but that they respect and honor St. Augustine as “one of the great sons of their land.” Such an attitude, he said, helps to build bridges between Christians and Muslims and promote dialogue.

And he recalled his visit to the Great Mosque of Algiers, where he stood in silent prayer.

“I think the visit to the mosque was significant to say that although we have different beliefs, we have different ways of worshiping, we have different ways of living, we can live together in peace,” he said.

“And so I think that to promote that kind of image is something which the world needs to hear today.”

While being on the receiving end of Trump’s criticisms online, Leo pointed to the respectful way that the Algerian government had received him on the first-ever papal visit — with a full military airborne escort through Algeria’s airspace.

“It’s a sign of the goodness, of the generosity, of the respect that the Algerian people and the Algerian government have wished to show to the Holy See and to myself,” Leo said.

A debate about ‘just war’

The Vatican’s editorial director, Andrea Tornielli, was more pointed than Leo in his rebuttal of Vance, who had argued that the Catholic Church had a long tradition of endorsing so-called “just wars,” when war can be morally justified.

Tornielli noted that the “just war” theory was developed centuries ago, when wars were fought with swords, not machine-guided drones.

“This teaching has gradually been enriched and deepened, to the point of recognizing how increasingly difficult it is to claim that a ‘just war’ exists,” Tornielli wrote on Vatican Media. Modern warfare poses a “reality that raises moral questions of dramatic intensity.”

“There has been a growing awareness that war is not a path to be followed,” he wrote.

U.S. Cardinal Robert McElroy, the archbishop of Washington, has said the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran failed to meet the minimum criteria for the war to be considered morally just. Such criteria would have included that it was a response to an imminent threat, that the U.S. and Israel had clearly articulated their intentions or that the benefits would outweigh the harm.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — At least 250 people, including Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals, were either feared dead or missing after a boat capsized in the Andaman Sea recently on the way to Malaysia, according to the U.N. refugee and migration agencies.

While details remained sketchy, Bangladesh Coast Guard spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Sabbir Alam Suzan told The Associated Press on Wednesday that nine people, including three Rohingya and six Bangladeshis, were rescued on April 9. Suzan said that the Bangladesh flag carrier M.T. Meghna Pride rescued the nine people when the crew found them floating at sea after the capsizing.

The status of any search on Wednesday or when the boat sank weren’t immediately clear.

UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, and the International Organization for Migration, or IOM, said in a joint statement on Tuesday that the trawler departed from Teknaf in the southern Bangladeshi district of Cox’s Bazar carrying a large number of passengers to Malaysia.

The IOM said Wednesday in a new statement that the boat reportedly sank on April 9.

Overcrowding, strong winds and rough seas caused the vessel to lose control and sink, the agencies said.

A Rohingya woman who survived the capsizing and was rescued narrated her ordeal on Wednesday. The survivor said that she set out for Malaysia on April 4, and about 20 women were on board when the boat sank.

“I drifted in the sea for two days and one night,” said Rahela Begum, who was brought to a refugee camp. “There were many people on the trawler, but after it sank, I have no idea what happened to them or where they went,”

“After drifting in the sea for two days and one night, the piece of wood I was holding onto also flipped over and I lost it. At that point, I lost consciousness. When I regained consciousness, I saw that Allah had sent a ship. The ship rescued me,” she said.

Shari Nijman, a UNHCR communication officer in Cox’s Bazar, said Wednesday that the agency had no other updates.

Another coast guard media official told the AP by phone Wednesday that the rescued people, eight men and one woman, were all safe, after being handed over to the coast guard, which brought them to the police in Teknaf.

The official said that the rescue wasn’t part of any official search operation, because the area is outside Bangladeshi territory, and that the crew of the M.T. Meghna Pride saved the people while it was on its way to Indonesia from Bangladesh’s Chittagong.

The official spoke by phone on condition of anonymity in line with official policy.

UNHCR and IOM said that the disappearance reflected the protracted displacement of Rohingya people and the absence of durable solutions.

They said that ongoing violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state has made the Rohingya’s safe return to Myanmar uncertain, while limited humanitarian assistance, as well as restricted access to education and employment in refugee camps, continue to push vulnerable Rohingya refugees to choose risky sea journeys, often based on false promises of higher wages and better opportunities abroad.

“This incident is a stark reminder of the grave risks people continue to face when undertaking dangerous sea journeys in search of safety and better opportunities,” IOM spokesperson Mohammedali Abunajela said in a statement on Wednesday. “No one should have to choose between remaining in situations of profound hardship or embarking on a journey that may cost them their lives.”

UNHCR and IOM urged the international community to strengthen funding and solidarity to ensure lifesaving assistance for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, which has sheltered more than 1 million Rohingya from Myanmar.

In 2025, more than 6,500 Rohingya refugees embarked on dangerous maritime journeys from Bangladesh and Myanmar, almost 900 of whom lost their lives, the IOM said. On the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal specifically, deaths and disappearances increased by more than 40% compared with 2024 figures, the U.N. organization said.

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Suzauddin Rubel reported from Cox’s Bazar.

(The Conversation) — Alarm over the war of words between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV has escalated with remarkable speed, from The New York Times to the Daily Beast and local television.

The pope has repeatedly called for peace in the Middle East since the start of the Iran war, insisting that “God does not bless any conflict” and warning against the “delusion of omnipotence.”

On April 12, in a lengthy social media post, Trump derided Leo as “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” telling him to “focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.” His Truth Social account posted, then deleted, a Christ-like image of Trump appearing to heal a man.

At stake in this public feud is an old question: Can a religious leader challenge political power, especially a ruler of one of the most powerful countries in the world?

As a medieval historian and lead editor of “The Cambridge History of the Papacy,” I cannot help but see a familiar pattern.

For many people, Trump’s rant against the pope was shocking. But conflicts between popes and rulers are not an aberration; they’re a durable feature of Western history. Whenever political leaders cloak power in sacred language, or religious leaders publicly denounce political violence, they reenact debates that stretch back more than a millennium. These struggles are not symbolic: They concern who holds ultimate authority over people, souls – and in the end, history itself.

Two powers, intertwined

From its earliest centuries, Christianity was bound up with politics. Roman Emperor Constantine legalized the religion in 313. He later presided over the Council of Nicaea, an important theological assembly, blurring the line between political rule and spiritual authority.

Constantine presides over a burning of books that were deemed heretical at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E.
Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

In the fifth century, Pope Gelasius I articulated a rival vision: that the world was governed by two powers, priestly and royal. Ultimately, he argued, spiritual authority outweighed political power, because it promised eternal salvation. Gelasius’ theory did not resolve the tension between the two, but it established a lasting framework for Christian political thought.

The relationship between these two powers shifted decisively in the year 800, when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, a Frankish king, emperor on Christmas Day. This act was not merely ceremonial. It implied that imperial authority in the West came from the church and that political legitimacy required papal sanction.

The coronation followed years of political instability in Rome and the papacy’s increasing reliance on the Franks for military protection. After Leo was elected pope in 795, opponents attacked him, and he found shelter at the court of Charlemagne. The king returned to Rome with Leo and asserted his legitimacy. In turn, Leo crowned Charlemagne. Doing so asserted his own role as a maker of emperors, while Charlemagne gained a sacred aura.

This moment reshaped medieval political theology. It encouraged rulers to see themselves as guardians of both political order and religious orthodoxy, while popes moved from spiritual counselors to active participants in secular governance. The result was a paradox: Kings invoked God to sanctify conquest, as Charlemagne did in his brutal wars against the Saxons. Meanwhile, churchmen claimed the authority to restrain violence, encouraged just wars and threatened violent behaviors with spiritual sanctions.

Battle over bishops

By the 11th century, however, the papacy increasingly sought to free itself from secular dominance. In particular, popes wanted to select the church’s bishops rather than allowing nobility or a king to do so.

That struggle exploded into the Investiture Controversy, one of the most consequential conflicts of the Middle Ages, and lay crucial groundwork for the Magna Carta, the first document to hold royalty subject to the law. Both events addressed the same fundamental question: Who has the right to grant authority, and what limits exist on political power?

A woodcut depicts a medieval king investing a bishop with the symbols of his position, including his staff, called a crozier.
Philip Van Ness Myers/ReneeWrites via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

At stake was not merely church administration but sovereignty itself. Bishops were major landholders and political figures; controlling their selection meant controlling wealth, loyalty and governance.

In the push to appoint bishops, popes were insisting that spiritual authority came from the church alone, challenging the idea that kings ruled by unchecked power. It was a decisive attempt to separate spiritual legitimacy from royal control and to place moral constraints on rulers who claimed divine authority.

The Investiture Controversy dragged on for several decades. Finally, in 1122, Pope Calixtus II and Emperor Henry V signed the Concordat of Worms. The agreement granted the pope the right to name bishops and to install their spiritual authority. The emperor, meanwhile, would “invest” them with their “temporalities”: that is, the worldly powers attached to their office, such as land, revenue, jurisdiction and coercion.

Reining in the king

A century later, the Magna Carta pursued a parallel objective.

Its immediate background lay in the conflict over the new archbishop of Canterbury, whom Pope Innocent III had appointed in 1207. King John opposed his choice, prompting Innocent to excommunicate the king and place England under interdict, meaning the English could not participate in church sacraments.

An illustration in the Historia Anglorum, found in the British Library, shows King John of England holding a church.
Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

To appease tensions, John surrendered England to the pope in 1213, turning the kingdom into a papal fief. In return, he received Innocent’s approval for a war against France.

But the arrangement deeply angered English barons, who now found themselves subject not only to their king but also to papal authority. After England’s decisive defeat, John was forced to confront rebellious barons at home.

The result was the Magna Carta, the “Great Charter.” Forced on the king by armed resistance, the document asserted that the king himself was subject to law. It limited royal authority over taxation, justice and punishment, and it famously declared that no free person could be imprisoned or deprived of rights without lawful judgment.

John appealed to the pope, however, who annulled the charter shortly after its issue. Despite this setback, the Magna Carta survived: John’s son Henry III reissued it several times, with its definitive version implemented in 1225.

Taking the long view

Seen in this long perspective, the Trump–Leo confrontation appears less surprising. When a president invokes sacred language or imagery to justify violence, and a pope replies by denying divine sanction, they are reenacting a struggle as old as medieval Christendom: who may speak in God’s name, and who may set limits on power.

The medieval world did not resolve this tension, but it learned to live with it by fracturing authority: first between church and crown, later between rulers and law. What is unsettling today is how easily modern leaders still reach for religious language to evade restraint, and how fragile the institutions meant to check them can appear.

(Joëlle Rollo-Koster, Professor of Medieval History, University of Rhode Island. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

(The Conversation) — President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV, the U.S.-born head of the Catholic Church, had an unusual and acrimonious public exchange over the weekend.

In a scathing attack on Truth Social, the social media platform he launched in 2022, Trump accused the pope of being “WEAK on Crime and terrible for Foreign Policy.” The lengthy post on April 12, 2026, told Leo to “focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.”

Later that night, Trump told reporters that he was “not a big fan of Pope Leo” and did not think the pope was “doing a very good job.” Leo has repeatedly called for peace amid wars in the Middle East and described Trump’s April 7 threat to destroy Iranian civilization as “truly unacceptable.”

Several hours later, aboard a papal flight to Algiers – where he will begin a 10-day trip to Africa – Leo told reporters that he did not want to get into a debate with Trump, and that his words were not “meant as attacks on anyone.” But striking a firm note, he said he had “no fear” of the Trump administration.

“I do not look at my role as being political, a politician,” the pope said, adding, “I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among states, to look for just solutions to problems. Too many people are suffering in the world today. Too many innocent people are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say, ‘There’s a better way to do this.’”

The public nature of Trump’s criticism may feel unprecedented. But there have long been tensions between the United States and the Vatican’s effort to seek peace, as scholars writing for The Conversation have shown in past articles.

1. History of anti-Catholicism

In February 2016, Pope Francis criticized Trump’s campaign pledge of building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Back then, too, Trump attacked Francis for being a “very political person.”

Temple University historian David Mislin wrote how the comments suggesting that the pope was interfering in U.S. politics reminded some commentators of an “older religious bigotry.”

During the 19th century, when large numbers of Catholics immigrated to the U.S., they were looked at with suspicion. Some Americans claimed that “Catholics maintained allegiance to the church first and to American values and institutions second,” Mislin explained.

“Anti-Catholic cartoons suggested that Catholics would use political power to dismantle the nation’s institutions,” he added.

It was once “unthinkable” for American presidents to be seen with the pope. Dwight Eisenhower became the first U.S. president to visit the Vatican in 1959.

President Dwight Eisenhower with Pope John XXIII on Dec. 6, 1959, at the Vatican.
AP Photo

Read more:
Why it was once unthinkable for the president to be seen with the pope

2. Mutual influence

It was only in 1984 – under President Ronald Reagan – that the U.S. and the Vatican established diplomatic relations, as church historian Massimo Faggioli noted in an 2015 article.

Faggioli, a professor at Trinity College Dublin, wrote in the lead-up to Francis’ trip to the United States. That visit reflected “a story about change in religion and politics,” he noted – about relations between the papacy and the Catholic Church, on one side, and the United States, on the other.

Francis addressed Congress on this trip, which, according to Faggioli, “would have shocked most Americans only 30 years ago.”

He also noted how much world Catholicism had been influenced by American ideas in recent years, becoming “much more American than it used to be – and much more American than Italian, for that matter.” Catholic teachings “on religious freedom and democracy and the new sensibility on the role of women in the Church came to Rome largely thanks to the experience of Catholics in the United States,” Faggioli wrote.

His broader point was that the Vatican and the U.S. have had an influence on each other – something that can be “seen only over a long period of time.”

Read more:
Why should we care about Pope Francis’ visit to the US?

3. How Francis changed church’s foreign policy

Part of the change – at least at the Vatican end – is reflected in the church’s relationship with political power, as Loughborough University researcher Massimo D’Angelo pointed out.

Francis’ predecessor, Joseph Ratzinger – who became Pope Benedict XVI – may have often seen political alliances as a necessity for the church’s survival in times of secular decline. “Francis rejected this approach,” D’Angelo wrote.

Pope Francis talks to Myanmar’s President Htin Kyaw during their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, on Nov. 28, 2017.
Max Rossi/Pool Photo via AP

“The sacred must not be instrumentalised by the profane,” Francis stated in Kazakhstan in 2022. In other words, religion should not be a tool in the hands of the powerful. Francis also made constant appeals for peace amid the Ukraine and Gaza wars, though he avoided direct condemnation – which, at times, led to some criticism.

Even so, as D’Angelo said, it was “another major transformation” in how the church related with political power.

Read more:
How Pope Francis changed the Catholic Church’s foreign policy

4. Shared principles

Trump’s Truth Social post accused Leo of “catering to the radical left.” Mark Yenson, a religious studies scholar at Western University in Canada, explained why such terms may not be applicable in the context of the papacy, where “conservative” and “liberal” labels don’t work the same way as in polarized American politics.

Many Americans viewed Benedict as more conservative than Francis, his successor. Yet some of the two popes’ history suggests that they appealed to shared principles, which were theological rather than political, Yenson wrote in 2025. These were “not reducible to liberal versus conservative categories.”

As he wrote, “The role of the pope, highlighted in Francis’ teaching on ecology, is to inspire a different kind of social and moral imagination, one not reducible to particular ideological positions.”

Leo, like Francis, has been critical of the Trump administration. Yenson reminds readers that the pope’s choice of name hearkens to Pope Leo XIII, who initiated modern Catholic social teaching and emphasized peace and justice. Additionally, he wrote, Leo’s “career as a missionary, bishop and Vatican cardinal outside of the U.S. means that his context is not confined to the polarizations of the U.S. Catholic Church and its bishops.”

Far from an isolated spat, Trump and Leo’s exchange might well show a recurring dynamic – in which papal intervention on global issues is rarely seen as neutral.

Read more:
Is Pope Leo XIV liberal or conservative? Why these labels don’t work for popes

This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

(Kalpana Jain, Senior Religion + Ethics Editor, Director of the Global Religion Journalism Initiative, The Conversation. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

“Our bodies communicate to us clearly and specifically, if we are willing to listen.” ~Shakti Gawain

As a child, I was never taught to regulate my emotions. I learned instead to override them—pushing through stress, swallowing tears, and even hiding a cast at dinner, afraid that showing what had happened to me would create anger instead of care.

By the time I was a teenager, I turned to drugs and alcohol to manage my emotions. It was easier to feel nothing at all than to be bombarded by emotions I had no clue what to do with.

This turned into …