Papal Politics, Past and Present

Understandably, discussions of papal politics tend to focus on the premodern era. In 325, Byzantine Emperor Constantine I called for the Council of Nicaea, resulting in the first ecumenical council in the church’s history and the eponymous Nicaean Creed. On Dec. 25, 800, Pope Leo III crowned the king of the Franks, Charlemagne, as emperor. And in 1053, the Norman commander Robert Guiscard, who would eventually be excommunicated three separate times, took Pope Leo IX prisoner after defeating his forces in battle. More famously, the Investiture Controversy, which lasted from approximately 1075 to 1122, saw a sustained clash between the papacy and the Holy Roman emperor over who had the ultimate authority to appoint bishops.

Then there was the Avignon papacy. In the late 13th and early 14th century, King Philip IV of France feuded with Pope Boniface VIII over Philip’s ability to tax the French clergy without the pope’s permission. (This went against canon law.) Philip and Boniface feuded until Boniface died. A French pope (Clement V) was subsequently elected, and fearing ongoing violence in Italy, made the unprecedented move of shifting the papacy from Rome to Avignon, France.

Now known as the Avignon papacy, this relocation lasted nearly 70 years (and seven popes) and represented a breakdown between secular rulers and the supreme pontiff. The U.S. Defense Department official who reportedly threatened the Vatican with “another Avignon papacy” in early April clearly knew it as one of the most provocative moments in the long history of church-state relations.

Of course, the pontiff’s political role could prove controversial in other ways. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany, on Oct. 31, 1517, many of his critiques were specifically about the abuses of papal power and corruption in the Catholic Church. Luther did not just criticize the pope. He also commissioned sacrilegious woodcuts by his artistic friend, Lucas Cranach the Elder, depicting the pope as a scaly donkey or riding a sow.

Following the invention of the printing press, woodcuts became a form of mass media that could be easily distributed. So while Trump’s recent social media posts have been widely condemned among religious leaders, there is a historical precedent for using images in anti-Catholic discourse.

But whereas Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther in 1521, Leo XIV took a different approach, stating that it is “not in my interest at all” to debate Trump. Instead, the pope said, he would be “looking for ways to promote justice in our world, promote peace in our world.”

In fact, Leo’s response fits well with the path blazed by his more recent predecessors. Where Pope Pius XII, whose pontificate stretched from 1939 to 1958, faced criticism for the Vatican’s official position toward Europe’s fascist powers, subsequent popes sought to chart a new path for peace. Since the atomic bombings of Japan in August 1945, the Vatican has issued a number of statements about nuclear disarmament. In 1963, following the Cuban missile crisis, Pope John XXIII issued a papal encyclical titled Pacem in Terris (“Peace on Earth”), writing that “in this age which boasts of its atomic power, it no longer makes sense to maintain that war is a fit instrument with which to repair the violation of justice.”

In 1965, Pope Paul VI made history by becoming the first reigning pope to address the General Assembly of the United Nations during the height of the Vietnam War. In his address, Paul declared, “No more war; war never again! It is peace, peace, that has to guide the destiny of the nations of all mankind!” (Leo subsequently quoted this line in response to the ongoing war in Ukraine.)

After this, papal addresses to the U.N. became routine. During his only trip to the United States, made in September 2015, Pope Francis spoke to the United Nations, calling the institution “necessary” and imploring it to “be the pledge of a secure and happy future for future generations.”

But papal peace advocacy has often gone beyond such abstract appeals. Pope John Paul II spoke out before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, noting, “War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity.” He urged leaders in both Washington and Baghdad to consider alternative measures before the war, but these pleas went ignored (and unlike the recent dustup, no one called him a “weak pope”).

When Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Francis called it a “painful and shameful.” Following his formal inauguration ceremony, Leo hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Vatican on May 18, 2025, and he has since met with him on two other occasions in attempts to broker peace.

Over the past year, Leo has steadily become more pointed in his rhetoric. In comments made to reporters during Holy Week, Pope Leo noted the mass proliferation of violence, lamenting, “It should be the holiest time of the year. It is a time of peace, a time of reflection. But as we all know, again, in the world, in many places we are seeing so much suffering, so many deaths, even innocent children.”

Although the pontiff did not reference any specific leaders, he said on Palm Sunday that God doesn’t listen to the prayers of those who make war or cite God to justify their violence, and he prayed especially for Christians in the Middle East during a Mass celebrated in St. Peter’s Square. Many interpreted this as a rebuff to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon prayer for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Throughout Holy Week, Leo kept repeating his calls for peace. This included the first time that Leo spoke about Trump directly, noting to a press gaggle, “I’m told that President Trump recently stated that he would like to end the war. Hopefully, he’s looking for an off-ramp.” The American pope’s messages for peace culminated with his Easter Sunday Urbi et Orbi (“To the City and to the World”) address: “Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace!”

With the U.S.-Israel war in Iran escalating—along with wars in Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine—Leo announced on Easter Sunday that he would preside over a global prayer vigil on April 11. Francis had called for a similar one in 2013 following a chemical weapons attack in Syria that killed 1,400 people. Francis also implored then-U.S. President Barack Obama to not get involved in the civil war in Syria, saying, “Violence and war are never the way to peace!”

When Francis did this in 2013, the Obama administration maintained civil discourse with the Vatican. But in recent weeks, Leo’s continual prayers for an end to global warfare have been met with backlash from the Trump administration.

Two days after Easter, Trump wrote on social media that unless a deal with Iran was reached, “a whole civilization will die tonight.” Leo called the apocalyptic discourse “unacceptable” and addressed Trump by name, even going so far as to tell citizens to call their congressional representatives for action. It was unprecedented for a pope to tell U.S. citizens to engage in civil discourse.

A photo released by the Vatican shows Pope Leo XIV freeing a dove during a peace meeting in Bamenda, Cameroon, on April 16.Simone Risoluti/Vatican Media via Getty Images