• The difference is the pope claims infallibility only rarely.
• President Donald Trump and members of his administration have picked a fight with the pope. This is unwise and unnecessary. The president was stung by the Holy Father’s criticisms of the war in Iran and is angry at his stance on immigration. There have been conflicting accounts of a testy meeting between Trump officials and the papal nuncio, which reportedly included menacing references to an Avignon-style schism. Whatever really happened has been overshadowed by Trump’s public rhetoric. In a post on Truth Social, he called Pope Leo XIV “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” and said that he doesn’t “want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela,” as if the pope were a candidate seeking Trump’s endorsement. Catholic voters, driven away from their onetime home in the Democratic Party by its militant cultural leftism, have been a key part of Trump’s coalition. The sensible approach would be to respond to those voters’ concerns rather than attack the leader of their church. But Trump can brook no rivals, so he responds to everything as a personal slight. Worse, he briefly posted an image depicting himself as the Lord. If he were more familiar with the Bible, he might have read about what can happen to leaders who do that sort of thing.
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