While it’s not unusual for popes and presidents to be at cross purposes, it’s exceedingly rare for the leader of the Catholic Church to directly criticize a US leader, and Leo later named Trump directly and expressed optimism that the president would seek “an off-ramp” in Iran.

An even stronger condemnation came after Trump warned of mass strikes against Iranian power plants and infrastructure, writing on social media that “an entire civilisation will die tonight.” Leo described that as a “threat against the entire people of Iran” and said it was “truly unacceptable.”

Experts: Leo doesn’t see himself as a Trump rival

Imperatori-Lee said Leo’s direct criticism stands out from the church’s more general critiques of political and social systems. For example, Pope Francis urged US bishops to defend migrants without specifically mentioning Trump or his deportation agenda. Leo also previously called for humane treatment of migrants.

“Popes have critiqued unfettered capitalism before, very robustly. The popes have critiqued the Industrial Revolution, right? Things that the US has been at the forefront of,” Imperatori-Lee said, “but it’s never been this specific and localised.”

She said Leo’s commentary resonates in the US - with Catholics and non-Catholics - because he is a native English speaker.

“There’s no question about his inflection and meaning,” she said. “It removes any ambiguities.”

Trump welcomed Leo’s election last May as a “great honour” for the country, and he hasn’t responded to the latest criticisms. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

“What Pope Leo and Donald Trump have in common is they both lived through the post-war polarisation,” including the political upheaval of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War, said Steven Millies, a professor at Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union, one of the pope’s alma maters.

He noted that Leo is a subscriber to The New York Times, plays the “Wordle” game, keeps up with US sports and talks regularly with his brothers, including an avowed Trump supporter.

“In some ways he’s just like us,” Millies said, someone “who understands where our domestic political crisis came from,” unlike the Argentinian Francis, “who did not fully understand the peculiarities of the United States” even as he offered implicit criticism.

Barbieri said Leo’s American savvy still does not change an underappreciated reality of Catholicism and the papacy. “The Catholic Church doesn’t neatly fit into either right or left boxes as they’re understood in US politics,” he said.

Leo’s global focus vs Trump’s ‘transactional’ politics

Leo spent much of his pre-papal ministry, including all his time as a bishop and cardinal, outside the US.

He was educated in Rome as a canon lawyer within the church. He was a bishop in poor, rural swaths of Peru. He led the Augustinian order and served as Francis’ prefect for recommending bishop appointees around the world.

Imperatori-Lee said that global reach gave him a first-hand perspective on how Washington’s economic and military policies - including backing dictators in Latin America - have negatively affected less powerful nations and their citizens.

His varied experiences made then-Cardinal Robert Prevost uniquely suited to be elected pope despite the College of Cardinals’ traditional scepticism toward the US and its superpower status. Millies argued that Trump and his advisers, even Vice-President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, may not appreciate those distinctions.

“This is an administration that seems to think only in terms of transactional politics - who’s for us and who’s against us,” he said.

Polarisation poses risks for Leo and Trump

Relations between Washington and the Vatican have become so strained that a report of an allegedly contentious meeting involving Pentagon and Catholic Church officials sent shockwaves through both cities.

According to the report in The Free Press, a member of Trump’s administration warned the church in January not to stand in the way of US military might.

The US Embassy to the Holy See rejected the report, writing on social media that “deliberate misrepresentation of these routine meetings sows unfounded division and misunderstanding.”

Millies, meanwhile, questioned whether anything the pope or US bishops say can sway individual Catholics. Trump is likely to lose support among Catholics as he loses support across the broader electorate, Millies said, but that’s not necessarily because members of Leo’s flock are applying church doctrine.

“Partisan preferences always trump the religious commitments,” Millies said, describing a “disconnect” between church leaders and many parishioners who look to other sources, politicians included, when shaping their views of faith and politics.

“The icon of Catholicism in American politics now is JD Vance, and it’s more about winning an argument,” he said. “It’s a very different emphasis, but it’s one that may suit the Trump administration very well.”

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