Twenty-two years ago, the U.S. was at war, just as it is today, and a president visited the pope at the Vatican.

President George W. Bush’s meeting with Pope John Paul II was reported to be an awkward one. With the war in Iraq raging, the 84-year-old pope, weakened by Parkinson’s disease and less than a year from his death, condemned the war in Iraq with Bush sitting right next to him. And the pope appeared to chastise the U.S. for the abuse of prisoners at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

“In the past few weeks,” the pope said, “other deplorable events have come to light, which have troubled the civic and religious conscience of all.”

Afterwards, Bush had nothing but positive things to say about the visit. “Being in his presence is an awesome experience,” Bush said.

The job of pope, among other things, is to tend to the spiritual and moral needs of Catholics the world over. That often means being a voice for peace between nations, even when it’s inconvenient for leaders of the free world.

At times, the pope’s job will clash with that of president of the United States. The latter swears an oath to uphold the laws of this country and to preserve and safeguard the Constitution. Implicit in that oath is to defend the country from foes, whether external or internal. The former answers to a higher power.

Pope John Paul II’s comments weren’t the first time a pope had criticized the U.S. for deploying its military might. Like Bush, our past presidents generally have chosen not to engage directly with past Holy Fathers, rightly viewing their own jobs as different in character from leading the world’s largest organized religious denomination.

One can only imagine how a President Donald J. Trump would have reacted after being subject to such a public lecture. Actually, we don’t have to work too hard to imagine such a thing, because Trump on Sunday decided to pick a fight with Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV over Leo’s utterly unsurprising criticism of the war on Iran prosecuted jointly by the U.S. and Israel.

Leo had particularly choice words after Trump threatened last week to destroy Iran in terms shocking even to many of his own supporters. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump warned on April 7 as his self-imposed deadline for opening the Strait of Hormuz approached.

Leo responded that Trump’s threat was “truly unacceptable.”

“There are certainly questions of international law, but much more than that, it is a moral question,” he said.

Having thankfully not followed through on those civilization-killing threats, Trump in a Truth Social post said on Sunday that “Pope Leo is WEAK on crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.” As if the pope were running for Senate or something.

“I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do, setting Record Low Numbers in Crime, and creating the Greatest Stock Market in History.”

Trump’s attack on Leo coincided with the president posting an image appearing to depict him in the form of Jesus seemingly healing a very ill man with the power of his touch.

Horrified reactions followed from prominent conservative evangelical voices, and that post was deleted. Trump on Monday said he thought the image “was me as a doctor,” which clearly virtually no one else thought, given the overwhelming reaction it provoked.

Darren Bailey, the Republican nominee for Illinois governor, reacted on Facebook with this: “President Trump mocking a Chicago-born pope and posting himself as Jesus Christ is wrong. I don’t care whose name is attached to it — I’ll always call it like I see it.”

Following Trump’s harsh criticism of him, Leo told reporters, “I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what the Church works for.”

Leo correctly noted, too, that he’s not a politician and that “we do not look at foreign policy from the same perspective as (the president) may have.”

“The message of the Gospel is clear: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’” he said.

The fact that Leo is the first American pope may well have something to do with the level of Trump’s anger, not to mention that accomplishing the goals of going to war with Iran has proven harder than Trump believed at the outset.

But with his message of peace, Leo only is communicating what numerous popes before him have done.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus said when asked whether citizens should pay taxes to Rome, “Render … unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” In that familiar verse, people often focus on what is owed to Caesar and gloss over what is owed to God.

That’s to say, there’s earthly authority and there’s heavenly authority. President Trump should reflect on that, and then he might understand better, as his predecessors did, that the pope owes no fealty to him but instead must serve the word of God as Christians understand it.

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