Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States appears on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, May 8, 2025. REUTERS/Yara Nardi
Hard as it is, I’d like you to viewthesefourimages, before we have a serious talk about the much-needed and immediate response to this assault on the senses and the Holy See.
I am sorry for putting you through that, I really am, because if you are a person that possesses even a shred of decency, it is a dizzying attack on your mental well-being, and impossible to process.
It is breathtaking in its raw idiocy and sheer hate.
That anybody could produce such incendiary bile speaks to the sad fact that anybody can possess unbridled hate and ignorance in this world. That the “anybody” in this instance is the President of the United States of America should be a showstopper, and the final straw of the saddest 10-year stretch in this country’s 250-year history.
Donald Trump needs to be removed from office. You know it, I know it, and tens of millions of people who aren’t reading this piece know it.
Well, somehow 99 percent of the mainstream media in America don’t know it, are too damn scared to say it, or have absolutely zero understanding of their jobs as journalists and their duty to warn the people they serve of the extreme danger we are facing right now.
Trump is capable of anything, and also sits atop the largest nuclear stockpile in the world. He is growing more desperate and unhinged every day, and everything should be done to stop him to protect us.
You know who else knows this? Pope Leo XIV.
I’ll get to him in a minute, when I am done setting the morbid scene, and the short past that has somehow dangerously been normalized in present-day America.
Just 12, short years ago, not a person reading this thought they would ever live to see this kind of madness emanating from our White House on a daily basis. This is the kind of unhinged behavior we’d expect to see from the authoritarian leader of North Korea.
Looking back, maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised.
The unhinged, scary reaction on the Right to Barack Obama’s election in 2008 was yet another sad indication that the Civil War in America was never fully decided, and just rolled around uncomfortably below the surface in an uneasy truce.
The incendiary Tea Party movement was kindled from the ashes of a failed war, a decimated economy and John McCain’s presidential loss, and birthed heartless sickos to take over the Republican Party like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Ted Cruz.
Essentially they set the dirt-low standard for what would follow as warm up acts for what would eventually crawl upon stages all over America at something called, MAGA rallies.
Anything went in these rowdy events because everybody was a target. Rebel flags were as common as moths to light in these hate fests. The two-time election of a Black man and healthcare for all was a bridge too far for these phony patriots, and they were drooling to get even.
The Civil War truce was officially over.
The leader of this bowel movement was a stone-cold bigot, who had proved his low-class mettle by steadily slogging through the mud and incessantly trolling the hated Obama with his ugly, racist birther attacks.
It was incredibly ugly, and as it turns out, the beginning of the end of the last vestiges of civility and decency in the Republican Party.
Military veterans like myself naively told anybody who would listen that we were better than this, and would never succumb to that kind of overt hate from a draft-dodging bigot.
That was the last time I ever overestimated this below-average country again.
Instead of calling these venomous attacks what they were, our media labeled them “political differences.” Incessant lies were called “mistruths.” Foreign attacks on our elections were not dissuaded by Republicans, they were publicly invited. “Russia, if you’re listening …”
Donald Trump had been normalized by a media which willingly lost its credibility, because of its inability and/or refusal to report on this monster and his threat to this nation accurately.
Even worse: Many people of religion publicly supported Trump, which is why I have always been deeply suspicious of all religions. I tried various forms of Christianity over my long lifetime, and discovered it did absolutely nothing for me.
Suddenly people who loudly supported the virtuous Jesus Christ, were also good with the loudmouth Donald Trump, and that just seemed wildly conflicting, and why religion is a very dangerous weapon when it isn’t holstered properly.
Maybe that’s changing.
In the past few weeks, religion has become an answer in addition to an enemy of America and her democracy.
I am grateful that Pope Leo has thoughtfully, politely and forcefully injected himself into this conversation about this life-or-death issue concerning America’s democracy.
While in my mind it is fair to question many aspects of the Catholic religion, I do believe this man is a person of moral standing and maybe more important, is an American. That would make him the most qualified Catholic in the world to speak about what is happening inside his country, and even if all of the 55 percent of Catholics who somehow supported Trump in 2024 aren’t listening, I damn sure am.
He didn’t need to be doing this but he is, and everybody fighting for good and decency should welcome him and his voice to the important fight.
After the repulsive Trump posted his incessant screed, Leo came back strong:
“I have no fear of the Trump administration, or speaking out loudly of the message of the gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the church is here to do.”
He wasn’t through:
“We are not politicians, we don’t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective he might understand it, but I do believe in the message of the gospel, as a peacemaker.”
A week earlier, Leo criticized Trump’s public threats to “wipe out” Iranian civilization, and said: “Attacks on civilian infrastructure are abasing international law” because that’s exactly what they are.
He then went full-on activist and urged people to contact leaders and members of Congress to call for peace. He didn’t provide a phone number, but I will: (202) 224-3121
Then he said this:
“God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”
In response to this, I am seeing many Republicans urging (warning) the Pope to stay out of politics, and because I am not the Pope, I will politely tell them to stick it where the sun don’t shine. I will also tell them to shut their big yaps, and keep their damn, two-faced religion out of our schools, city halls and the workplaces where it does not belong.
Just this afternoon Leo showed no indications of backing down and released this letter of concern about democracy:
“Lacking this foundation, (democracy) risks becoming either a majoritarian tyranny or a mask for the dominance of economic and technological elites.”
Read that again, because it is smart, and on target: “a majoritarian tyranny or a mask for the dominance of economic and technological elites ….”
That is EXACTLY what is happening inside America.
He went on in the letter to urge democratic societies (America) to avoid any temptation to hoard power:
“Temperance … proves essential for the legitimate use of authority, for true temperance restrains inordinate self-exaltation and acts as a guardrail against the abuse of power.”
Again, perfectly put: “inordinate self-exaltation and acts as a guardrail against the abuse of power.”
Sound like anybody you know?
So the battle has been joined against the maniacal Trump by his countryman Pope Leo XIV, and as a righteous man and warrior for what I believe is good and right, I welcome him with open arms.
I might not be a Christian, but I know an ally when I see one.
Trump and all his accompanying evil must go.
Can I get an amen?
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.