A peace and faith focused sermon delivered during Sunday mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City did little to clear the minds of some parishioners who walked out of church saying they remained distraught over the extraordinary conflict that erupted between Pope Leo and President Trump a week ago. Some Catholic supporters of the president said they took issue with Trump’s fiery comments about Pope Leo, the first American pontiff.

In the 2024 presidential election, Catholic voters broke for President Donald Trump, with nearly six in 10 voting to reelect the president, according to a CNN exit poll. “I like Donald a lot, but he needs to calm down,” said Lola Reese after attending Sunday Mass at St. Patrick’s.

Reese said growing up Catholic in New Orleans taught her the importance of the separation of church and state. The president’s back-and-forth with the pope might hurt his relationship with his supporters, she said. She called for the president to “back off and kind of calm down his little bitty, tiny streak of a little meanness here and there.” Reese’s sentiment was shared by several churchgoers, including those who said they had voted for the president but saw his recent comments as out of line.

Anita Bauman, a Catholic Trump voter from Pennsylvania, said the president’s comments were “colossally stupid.” “I don’t think it helps the president at all,” she said. Bauman said she supported the president’s actions in Iran, where, in early April, US-based rights group HRANA said more than 3,600 people had been killed since a joint US-Israeli bombing campaign began in February. “I do think that things needed to be done in Iran,” she said.

“I think that regime was dangerous, but I don’t think picking a fight with the pope or trying to school the pope on theology is a good idea at all.” Pope Leo XIV, pictured inside the Church of Our Lady of Muxima in Angola on April 19, has said it’s not in his interest to debate President Trump. Guglielmo Mangiapane/Pool/AFP/Getty Images Trump has doubled down on his comments, saying Thursday, “I have a right to disagree with the pope.” Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images Unprecedented rift The president’s unprecedented — and largely one-sided — conflict with the Chicago-born Augustinian seemingly sparked last week, when Pope Leo said he hoped the president would find an “off-ramp” to the US-Israeli war with Iran and called the president’s rhetoric about the Iranian people “truly unacceptable.” In a rare event in the history of the modern Catholic Church, Pope Leo actually referred to the sitting president by name in at least one of his remarks.

The president, who along with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has often invoked God and Biblical metaphors to justify the war, responded forcefully on social media: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.” He added he does not want a pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, who thinks it’s “terrible that America attacked Venezuela” or “who criticizes the President of the United States.” The pope has not said he thought it was OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Soon after, Trump further inflamed some Christian supporters when he posted an AI-generated image to Truth Social last Monday depicting himself as a Christ-like figure healing a sick person with American flags and eagles in the background.

By later in the afternoon, the post was deleted. Trump claimed he thought the image showed him as a doctor. Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in adulthood, had his own pointed words for Pope Leo.

Speaking at a Turning Point USA event on Tuesday, he urged the pontiff to be “careful” when talking about theology. The leader of the Catholic Church has insisted he’s not interested in any feud with the president. “It was looked at as if I was trying to debate again the president, which is not in my interest at all,” he said Saturday on board the papal plane from Cameroon to Angola, part of an 11-day trip to Africa.

“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 said earlier. Like his predecessor, Pope Francis, who was a vocal advocate for peace in Ukraine and Gaza, Pope Leo has widely condemned war and criticized the US government’s treatment of migrants, which he called “extremely disrespectful.” The pope hasn’t visited the US since his selection at the papal conclave in May 2025 and doesn’t have plans to visit this year, according to the Vatican. Neither Pope Leo nor Pope Francis are the first pontiffs to speak up about politics, including US military actions.

Pope John Paul II was a vocal critic of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, calling all war a “defeat for humanity.” Undated picture of Robert Prevost — now Pope Leo — with Pope John Paul II. Courtesy of the Midwest Augustinian Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel Chase Lerew, a 24-year-old Georgia native w