Hot Type: 'Your Hands Are Full of Blood' — Pope Leo's Smackdown to the Trump Regime
Byline political columnist Heidi Siegmund Cuda talks to veteran reporter and religious liberty campaigner Tom Carter about the wildest standoff in the West, Pope Leo vs Donald Trump
“This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood’.”
Pope Leo on Palm Sunday, Vatican City
Pope Leo XIV is throwing haymakers at Donald Trump.
On Palm Sunday, one of the two most powerful Americans on the planet told a crowd of thousands the Iran war is “atrocious”.
For the 1.4 billion Catholics in the world, the signal was clear: Jesus should not be used to justify war. This is not the first time the Pope has excoriated the Trump regime. In recent weeks, in multiple official statements and at the pulpit, Pope Leo has condemned the US regime on immigration and its crimes against humanity.
According to Tom Carter, the veteran reporter who blew the whistle on ultra-conservative religious lawyer and Washington DC lobbyist, Leonard Leo , this intensifying standoff between Pope Leo and Donald Trump could fracture his web of MAGA Catholics, a term Carter uses to identify the extremist Catholics within Trump’s regime.
“MAGA Catholics comprise six out of 16 members of Trump’s cabinet, so 37.5% of his cabinet is MAGA Catholic,” Carter told Byline Supplement. “If the Border Czar and Press Secretary were cabinet positions, it would be 44.4%.”
Most notably, Trump officials are using religious rhetoric to sell the US-Israeli war to the masses, including evangelical Christian nationalist US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who leads prayer services at the Pentagon, and who used brutal language on Wednesday when he asked for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy”.
And in an awkward public exchange, Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt strode over to the White House briefing podium on Monday, asking reporters if they could hear “our Amen” in there?’ She said “we just had a little loud prayer as a team”.
But when she was asked about the Pope’s Palm Sunday comments her tone shifted to a defensive posture, blurting something about the US being founded on “Judeo-Christian values”.
In the Beginning Was the Word
Last May, Pope Leo became the first US leader of the global Catholic Church, and those who hoped then he might be a counterweight for good to the awfulness of Trump may get their wish.
At the very least, said Tom Carter, it’s a start.
“Pope Leo and his representatives are speaking out, strongly, against the Trump regime’s inhumane immigration policies and against Trump’s criminal war in Iran. They need to do more,” he said. “Name names. Catholic MAGAs are the backbone of the Trump administration. Without Leonard Leo, the Leonard Leo-backed Supreme Court judges, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Tom Homan, RFK Jr, Karoline Leavitt, etc, the Trump regime collapses like Jenga. I’d like to see the Pope name these MAGA Catholics, put them on notice. But, speaking out generally is a start. In the beginning was the word.”
Carter, who spent the last 15 years, trying to raise awareness about the outsize influence of the far-right political cult within the Catholic Church, Opus Dei, and the damage being done by the extremist Catholics placed on the Supreme Court by his former boss, Leonard Leo, thinks this Chicago-born Pope may have the courage to take on Opus Dei.
“He weakened Opus Dei in Peru before becoming Pope,”he said. “I think he is extremely well informed, on a personal level, regarding Opus Dei. As Pope, I think he is walking a fine line between reforming Opus Dei and pushing them into leaving the church and schism.
“The church is 2000 years old. It doesn’t change course overnight. Remember, he is one year into his leadership, dealing with a powerful organization, whose leader is an official Catholic saint. He doesn’t want or need another schismatic sect. The Pope is young. He has time. I wish he’d go harder, faster. I think he’ll get there eventually.”
An Easter Miracle
My friend Gareth Gore was in disbelief when he received a message that Pope Leo had requested a meeting.
The London-based business reporter’s deep dive into Opus Dei, resulted in his book, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church, and he’s been a vocal critic of the church’s whitewashing of Opus Dei’s harms.
But on March 16, he had a 40-minute meeting with Pope Leo in Rome.
And Gore didn’t pull any punches. He said he told Pope Leo in detail about how the group abuses the legitimacy given to it by the Catholic Church. He spoke of the human trafficking case in Argentina, and how similar cases are showing up in Ireland, France, Mexico and Spain, and how Opus Dei is working to cover up its alleged abuses. Gore said he ended the meeting by encouraging the Pope to meet with victims himself.
Tom Carter calls the meeting between Gareth Gore and Pope Leo “an Easter miracle”.
“The Pope was very clear. He explicitly told Gareth to publicize the meeting,” said Carter. “So yes, it is to put Opus Dei on notice.”
He said he found Opus Dei’s response to the meeting remarkable.
“It’s fascinating that Opus Dei’s response was that the Pope was hoodwinked,” he said. “You’d think a powerful organization like Opus Dei could afford better PR managers. I’m not sure ‘the Pope is stupid’ plays well in Rome.”
An important takeaway, he said, is that Pope Leo “is listening and paying very close attention to this group, its criminal trafficking of women and Opus Dei survivors. Not much was said, that we know of, about Opus Dei politics and MAGA Catholics in DC, but a third of Gareth’s book details Opus Dei’s political web in DC, centered on Leonard Leo, so it’s a safe bet that Pope Leo is well informed.”
I asked Carter if this standoff between MAGA Catholic extremists and the Pope is likely to escalate.
“Absolutely. 66% of the US Supreme Court is MAGA Catholic, and nearly half of the Trump cabinet is MAGA Catholic,” he said. “To me, those are astounding numbers. JD Vance, Tom Homan, Karoline Leavitt have all attacked the Pope saying he is wrong on faith and tradition. Steve Bannon even plotted with Jeffery Epstein to undermine and remove Pope Francis. It’s hilarious, even ridiculous, like an episode of South Park. Who Protests the Pope? Protestants do. It’s where they got their name. Not Catholics in good standing.”
Carter said if the Pope continues to use the power of the pulpit to thwart Trump’s extremism, he could actually weaken Trump’s following significantly.
“In 1945, Potsdam, Stalin famously dismissed the Pope, asking how many divisions does the Pope have. He didn’t have to listen to any Pope, because the Pope has no army. Trump is walking that same arrogant road, into the same trap.
“Pope Leo and Trump, who Bishop Barron and other MAGA Catholics have compared to Jesus Christ, are the two most powerful Americans in the world. Trump and MAGA Catholics are enormously powerful right now, but the MAGAs are ridiculed and rejected by the rest of the world. See EU members and Trump’s request for help in Iran. I think Pope Leo will be standing long after Trump and MAGA Catholics have left the scene.”
The Pope, who is known to be very careful with his words, is signaling across oceans and continents that the savior 1.4 billion people call their God is not to be used as the icon for a cruel and racist regime.
“(Jesus) did not arm himself, or defend himself, or fight any war,” Leo said on Palm Sunday. “He revealed the gentle face of God, who always rejects violence. Rather than saving himself, he allowed himself to be nailed to the cross.”
Tom Carter is a retired journalist, who spent 25 years as a print reporter at the Washington Times, the last 16 on the foreign desk covering Latin America, Global Health (HIV, malaria, TB, etc) and human rights. He was hired for the media/PR flack position at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in 2008. He also spent three years as communications director at the US Commission for Religious Liberty (2009-2012).
Emmy award-winning investigative reporter, Heidi Siegmund Cuda is an American correspondent for Byline Times and her Hot Type column runs bimonthly on Byline Times Substack. She is a #1 Amazon bestselling author, the co-host of RADICALIZED Truth Survives podcast, and her Bette Dangerous Substack is read in 99 countries.
Oh! For a moment I thought he was talking about the Catholic Church.
Silly me.