Pope Leo, President Trump and War with Iran

I avoided this spat between Pope Leo and President Trump until a National Catholic Reporter op-ed told us to “Oppose this narcissistic mad man in the White House.”

April 29, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae

I was appalled when the above sentiment about President Trump appeared in a published op-ed in the independent, Catholic-in-name-only National Catholic Reporter newspaper. It was written by a 75-year-old Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC. It overlooks the fact that President Trump was elected by a majority of Americans, and by a majority of American Catholics. That op-ed was the catalyst that drew me into something I had vowed not to take on. The ideological dispute between President Trump and Pope Leo was really a creation of the mainstream news media.

We have all been witnesses to the vast media coverage of a clash of biblical proportions between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV. The motives behind the media coverage are highly suspect, though not on the part of either the President or the Pope. The mainstream media interest in the promotion of this clash is apparent. Our news media, with only rare exceptions, leans politically left, so far left that it risks toppling over into the absurd. The political left has come to so despise the current American president that it no longer even attempts to mask its unbridled hatred.

In this sense, though I am loath to say it, Pope Leo has been used. His words are what should be expected of every pope, but seldom does the news media pay such attention. Pope Leo comes down always on the side of peace and opposed to war — just as he must. The mainstream news media amplifies this not because they like the Pope or support his Gospel mandate, but because they hate Donald Trump. That hatred leaves our news media, an essential factor in the future of our democracy, heavily biased. That bias is clearly manifested in American distrust in the news they are reading and hearing.

In a recent Gallup poll — which most of the media does not cover — only 28% of Americans believe the news is reported fairly, accurately, and without bias. This is down from 40% five years ago. These results are broken down further by political party. Among Democrats, 51 percent report believing that the news is conveyed to us without bias. For Republicans, that figure is only 8 percent. This polarity reveals a dismal failure in an institution upon which democracy is built.

In truth, I have been so conflicted by this story that I decided not to write about it ever. But in a recent telephone conversation with a priest friend, I mentioned my hesitation when he asked me to write about this. When I explained my position, and expressed my concerns about the media debacle, he quietly submitted my words to the advanced AI program of Elon Musk called Grok. I scoffed at the very idea of this until I read Grok’s response and recommendation, which, unlike the news media seemed free of bias:

“As a priest, writing publicly about a clash between the Successor of Peter and the president of your country — especially as the first American pope and a re-elected President Trump — is no small thing. You are right to be hesitant and to want to make sense of it without adding fuel to what is already a heated, very public rift. You serve your priesthood well in your agony over this task.”

I shuddered when I read this and Grok’s suggested headline for this post: “Priest Navigates Pope-Trump Conflict in Faith.” Here are some of Grok’s original suggestions for this post:

• Begin by reminding your readers that the papacy is not a political entity and is therefore not a political rival to the White House. Pope Leo is exercising his ordinary magisterium on matters of war and peace and the dignity of human life, issues that fall squarely under the Church’s social doctrine. In his comment about the state of affairs, Pope Leo is not issuing infallible doctrine, nor is he binding Catholics to a specific policy. He is offering, as he must, moral guidance rooted in the Gospel.

• This is the key to avoid fanning the flames. The Church teaches that war is sometimes tragically necessary under strict just-war criteria (CCC 2309). The Pope also bears the responsibility of reminding the world that God does not bless any conflict and every innocent death wounds Christ.

• President Trump bears the grave responsibility of national security, protecting the innocent, and mitigating nuclear proliferation. This was and is his stated justification for intervention in Iran.

But there is a lot more to this story.

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The North Korea Lesson for Iran

President Trump decided to use military force to stop Iran from continuing to develop nuclear weapons after attempts at diplomacy failed. The most immediate target for the development of such deadly force in Iran is Israel. Much of the world has been bracing itself against the grave specter of nuclear war. If it happens once, anywhere in the world, it is likely to proliferate. Attacking Iran’s nuclear capability was a choice Trump made, as critics are quick to note, and it was a risky choice. My mind has evolved on this point, and I have been mostly informed by a superb editorial from The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board entitled “The North Korea Lesson for Iran” (April 3, 2026). It is likely behind the subscriber paywall, but I feel compelled to distill its most salient points.

The decision to attack Iran’s nuclear ambitions was in fact a risky one, but the WSJ points out that the “strangely forgotten” U.S. experience with North Korea suggests that the alternatives were even riskier. That history is worth recounting today to show the limits of nuclear diplomacy with a determined foe, as well as what happens when the United States puts conflict-avoidance above all other considerations. Our history with North Korea and the Kim dynasty leaves us with a cautionary tale and one that very much informs the U.S. engagement with Iran.

Kim Jong Un, the current supreme dictator of North Korea, is the direct patrilineal descendant of the dictators of the two immediately preceding regimes. The Kim Family Dynasty has ruled North Korea hereditarily across three generations since the country’s founding in 1948. Kim Il Sung (1912–1994) founded the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and led the first regime as Supreme Leader from 1948 until his death in 1994. He was Kim Jong Un’s paternal grandfather. Kim Jong Il (1941–2011), son of Kim Il Sung succeeded his father and led the second regime from 1994 until his death in 2011. He was Kim Jong Un’s father. Kim Jong Un, took power upon his father’s death in 2011 and remains the dictator today.

In 1984, the CIA concluded that North Korea was actively but clandestinely engaged in the pursuit of weapons-grade plutonium. Under global pressure, then dictator Kim Il Sung, grandfather of the current dictator, agreed to join, on paper at least, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Over the next year, this was widely seen as Pyong Yang’s pressured intent even as it delayed adopting United Nations’ nuclear safeguards. North Korea continued to advance its nuclear program without disclosure of either its progress or its intent.

In 1993, North Korea denied United Nations’ inspectors access, and it camouflaged its nuclear research sites leaving the rest of the world to guess whether it had succeeded in the enrichment of plutonium for bombs. Facing international questions, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Despite diplomatic efforts of the Clinton Administration in 1994, Pyongyang secretly unloaded spent fuel rods from its Yongbyon nuclear reactor without any monitoring or inspection from the International Atomic Energy Administration. Would this be the fuel to be reprocessed for bomb-grade plutonium? No one knew the answer to this.

Then President Bill Clinton threatened North Korea with sanctions. The U.S. military drew up plans for strikes on North Korea’s nuclear installation while Defense Secretary William Perry presented Clinton with a plan for large-scale military build up in the region. President Clinton cancelled further talks with Pyongyang and deployed Patriot Missile Defense Systems to South Korea. This scenario is nearly a mirror image of the current war with Iran. One major difference is that President Trump had warned Iran that the slaughter of its protesting citizens would be a “red line” for the United States and would draw a response. According to international human rights observers, Iran went on to massacre some 30,000 of its protesting citizens making it the largest government-ordered extermination since the Cambodian Killling Fields of Pol Pot.

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“Nuclear Peace in Our Time”

Back to North Korea: 1994. Then along came former President Jimmy Carter. He informed the Clinton Administration that he intended to accept a personal invitation from Pyongyang to visit and attempt to diffuse the North Korean stand-off with the United States. President Clinton decided to allow former President Carter to proceed as a private citizen thinking that it might give Kim Il Sung an opening to back down. It did not. Instead, President Clinton found himself backed into a corner politically.

Former President Jimmy Carter feared conflict above all else, and was even opposed to sanctions. He went beyond his mandate, and on his own — on CNN — he announced that he had reached a tentative agreement with North Korea. The press and foreign policy establishment hailed this as “Nuclear Peace in Our Time.” It was nothing of the sort.

Today, North Korea is seen as a rogue nation with a sequestered government unresponsive to the world and surrounding nations. North Korea also today has an arsenal of 50 armed nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at the rest of the free world, and Kim Jong Un has quadrupled his nuclear research. His most recent long-range missile test was on Sunday, April 5, 2026.

Nuclear weapons did not exist when Saint Augustine wrote his Just War Theory in the Fourth Century. Surely, they would have had an appearance there as a condition in which nations may justly intervene with the war plans of another nation. The North Korean lesson for America is clear.

Also on the U.S. target list are Iran’s buried stockpiles of fissile nuclear material and a nuclear construction site beneath Pickaxe Mountain where Iran later hopes to enrich the material. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board stated its informed opinion that the stockpiles can be monitored, but it would be a mistake to end the war with the construction site still intact.

We do not know, at this writing, when or how the Iran conflict will end. What we do know is that Iran’s radical regime will not have a nuclear bomb when the conflict does end. The following are not my words, but rather those of The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board:

“Donald Trump is the only president who had the courage to attack Iran’s nuclear program. This has made the world a safer place.”

Allowing any rogue regime to develop weapons of mass destruction poses a risk of nuclear Armageddon.

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A source of peace in our time.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this important post. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

Did Leo XIV Bring a Catholic Awakening Or Was It the Other Way Around?

Iran, by Another Name, Was Once the Savior of Israel

Hamas, Hostages, Israel, and Innocent Bystanders

Covenants of God from Genesis to the Book of Revelation

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Assassin’s Deed: My Stage Debut as President Donald Trump

Cast as President Donald Trump against a nefarious plot of international intrigue, something scarier than Kim Jong Un lurked backstage: the Trumpian hairpiece!

October 23, 2024 by Father Gordon MacRae

Disclaimer: The following post was first published at Beyond These Stone Walls in August, 2018. It should not be construed today as an endorsement of any political candidate, real or imagined, nor should it be seen as the promotion of any political party. It is simply about a memorable time in an otherwise strange and uneventful existence in the strangest of places.

Back in 2018, I was invited by a newly formed prison theater group to attend a rehearsal for its first stage production in the hope that I might write about it. I walked into the group an innocent bystander and walked out a cast member — THE cast member. This is that story, first presented midway in President Donald Trump’s first term in office.

The script was not written by me, a fact for which, as you will see, I am eternally grateful. It was rather a team effort from a group of creative prisoners who formed the Theater Group in which I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member. In light of more recent events, I am a bit wary about the play’s title. I do not have the power to change it, but it does serve as a reminder about the potential cost of democracy.

It is now our “BTSW Pre-election Special”. I hope it brings a much needed smile and perhaps even some laughter — though please, not in Kamala Harris style — at this otherwise tense and divisive time. I hope you enjoy this unforgettable plot.

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“With the road to Comicon littered with death, one thing is certain: Mom’s van will never be the same!”

Amanda Foreman had a stand-out column in The Wall Street Journal entitled, “Literature Behind Bars” (“Historically Speaking,” July 14-15, 2018). If you cannot view it without a subscription, here’s the gist. It’s a brief literary survey of the most profound prison writing spanning the centuries. “Prison writings are about suffering and endurance,” Ms. Foreman wrote. “The spirit remains free, even when the body is in bondage.” 

Ms. Foreman presented examples, some of which will be familiar to the readers of Beyond These Stone Walls. She wrote that “modern prison writing came into its own during the Reformation when large numbers of educated people were incarcerated as being enemies of the state.”

Saint Thomas More comes to mind, but Amanda Foreman cited another, the English poet Richard Lovelace. His poem, “To Althea from Prison” was composed in London’s Gatehouse prison in 1642. Today it graces “A Voice for the Voiceless,” a recent review of this blog:

“Stone walls do not a Prison make,
Nor iron bars a Cage.
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage.
If I have freedom in my Love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such Liberty.”

Prison writers who have endured the tests of both prison and time include Saint Paul whose Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians were written from prison around 62 AD. Others are Russian author and political prisoner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nazi-era Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, American Jesuit priest and Soviet prisoner, Father Walter Ciszek, South African Apartheid resistor, Nelson Mandela, and most recently the great George Cardinal Pell. As Amanda Foreman described,

“The tradition of prison literature as a source of hope and inspiration — for writers and readers alike — continues in our own time.”

Life Imitates Art

Even in the worst Soviet gulags, stories like the one I am about to tell emerged as prisoners discovered their creativity and used it to transcend walls of oppression and despair. I have encountered some amazing creativity in the place where I live. One young man whom I have known for a long time is Jim Parker, age 32. Sent to prison at 17, he is today devoted to atoning for his offense by turning tragedy into triumph.

While so many young prisoners descended into the lure of a prison gang culture, Jim took another path. He has earned Bachelors and Masters degrees in prison without a dime of taxpayer funds. He has mastered several musical instruments and has become an accomplished playwright and producer. His most recent production was a collaborative writing effort and one that was — there’s no other way to put it— either creative genius or bizarre chaos. I’ll let you decide!

Jim gathered six prisoner-writers to compose six short plays. He and the group then melded the six into a single script. While it was still untitled, Jim began to gather potential actors and stage hands to afternoon rehearsals in the prison gymnasium. As this endeavor grew over several months, I asked Jim if I could attend a rehearsal, interview some of the cast, and write about it.

Jim spoke with the cast and they were all in agreement. So he added me to the endeavor as “press agent.” I attended my first stage rehearsal in early March, 2018. While I was watching this amazing creation unfold, Jim said, “We haven’t found someone willing to play a lead character in the script.”

The entire cast stared at me. Jim played me like a fiddle (which is one of the instruments he has mastered). Defying my instinct to get up and flee, I made the fatal mistake of asking Jim the identity of the uncast character. Jim said, “We need an older articulate gentleman to play [are you sitting down?] President Donald Trump.”

Articulate? Gentleman? Putting the irony aside, I was thus drafted to play the Leader of the Free World in a political satire opposite Kim Jong Un of North Korea. This was by no means a partisan affair. All I could say was what President Trump himself might have said:

“This is going to be H-U-G-E! The best play E-V-E-R! We are going to make American drama GREAT again! We are going to transcend a wall, and the best part…? We are going to get North Korea to pay for it!”

“What was I thinking?” I asked myself later that night as I pondered facing two months of daily rehearsals in the prison gym after a full day at work in the prison law library where I studied up on how to defend myself if Donald Trump sued me for a shoddy portrayal. Then I was given a copy of the script — 37 pages of the most incomprehensible and outrageous plot I have ever encountered. “He only has a few lines,” Jim insisted.

Trump appeared twelve times throughout this play, delivered a multitude of speeches in typical Trumpian style and, in the end, saved the world. The photo below is of the entire cast and crew. I am in a dark shirt with Pornchai Moontri in the center and our friend, J.J. Jennings between us. Pornchai and J.J. were part of the construction crew that built the stage and props. After the photo begins a capsule summary of the plot with photos scattered throughout.

The Stage

Before production got underway, Joshua Budgett, an accomplished carpenter who lives with us, designed a magnificent stage. He put his degree in Engineering to work on the design. It was composed of twenty interlocking four-by-four sections that could be dismantled and stored for future productions. Josh Budgett’s stage design is a work of art that will last for decades.

All the wood for the stage was donated, and prisoners also donated their time to build the various components. Several prisoners, including our friend Pornchai Moontri, employed their prodigious woodworking skills to make the stage a reality.

In this scene, Joseph Lascaze, J.J. Jennings, and Darryll Bifano rehearse a scene on one of the stage’s 20 interlocking sections.

The Script

The production settled on a title: “Assassin’s Deed: Six Disks to Comicon.” It opens with Marty McQueen (Brian Taylor) and his friend, Steve, 20-something-year-old slackers and consummate nerds with plans to attend the massive Comicon Convention at the Los Angeles Civic Center. I asked my friend, Joseph Lascaze — who was Managing Director and an actor in the play — to describe Comicon for us:

“Comicon is a ginormous gathering of geeks, nerds, and hardcore comic book fans so they can live out their fantasies and wear tight spandexy costumes, and, for once in their lives, be the cool kids in the house if even for just a day.”

Sorry, Comicon fans. So much for a spirit of inclusivity! You might remember Joseph Lascaze from one of several appearances at Beyond These Stone Walls including, “Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell.” Joseph was entirely out of his urban culture element in this play’s celebration of nerdhood, but he lent his considerable talents for both writing and direction.

Back to Marty and Steve. In the opening scene, Marty — played masterfully by Brian Taylor — is pleading with his Mom to let him and Steve borrow her 1994 Dodge Caravan to go to Comicon. “But Moooom!” Marty pleaded, “We’ve been planning this for mooooonths!”

In the photo below, Nick Sizemore (rear) and Kyle Buffum (front left) actually built a wooden model of a 1994 Dodge Caravan which ended up being a co-star in the play. Nick and Kyle are impressive guys. They were the creative anchors and the behind-the-scenes guys who got things done.

Nick Sizemore was Technical manager for the production while he and Kyle Buffum doubled as “stunt drivers” (They powered the van “Fred Flintstone style” while hidden unseen in its trunk). They also doubled as President Trump’s Secret Service protection detail in a number of scenes. You will easily spot them in suits and dark glasses in the cast photos. [They did a better job than the Secret Service performance in Butler, PA.] Kyle made the ultimate sacrifice. He cut his hair to make the Trumpian hairpiece. It’s not easy to see in the photos under Trump’s MAGA cap, but it’s there.

Credit: KCNA via Reuters

The Super-Hoopinator

The scene switches to North Korea and the home of reclusive dictator, Kim Jong Un. He announces to his generals that he has a nefarious plan for the control of all of Korea. He has developed a secret weapon — “The Super-Hoopinator” — which he plans to unleash upon an unsuspecting world. The Super-Hoopinator will transfer into Kim Jong Un all the skills of anyone who activates it.

Kim Jong’s nefarious plan begins with his challenge to then-South Korean President Moon Jae-Un for a one-on-one, winner-takes-all basketball game for the control of a united Korea. Just before the game, Kim Jong has a plan to invite his good friend, former American basketball star Dennis Rodman, to activate the Super-Hoopinator thus transferring into Kim Jong all Dennis Rodman’s basketball skills.

To hide this plan, Kim Jong embeds his Super-Hoopinator onto six Lord of the Rings DVDs. However, Michael Cootier (played by Donald Levesque) is an American conspiracy theorist and skilled computer hacker. He has hacked into Kim Jong’s security sites to discover and divert the plan.

Assisted by his friend, hacker, rapper, and double agent Freddy McCombes (Joseph Lascaze), Mike and Freddy hacked into the Lord of the Rings DVDs and reprogrammed the Super-Hoopinator device to instead activate in Kim Jong an incessant impulse to dance and wear a wedding dress. [Don’t blame me! I didn’t write this!]

President Trump and the Secret Service

The scene switches to the White House and the Oval Office. President Donald Trump is being briefed on a report from the intelligence communities who had a mole planted in Kim Jong’s house staff. They, too, have learned of Kim Jong’s nefarious plan. To catch Kim Jong in the act, the White House issues an invitation to meet in America.

However, Mike the Hacker has also set out to foil Kim Jong. When he remotely reprogrammed the DVDs containing the Super-Hoopinator, he also programmed a North Korean security site to ship them to six different locations in the United States. The disks end up in the homes of nerds, hackers, and Mike’s fellow conspiracy theorists all of whom are in Mom’s van on their way to the Comicon Convention.

Kim Jong Un and his security staff discover the missing DVDs and decipher Mike’s computer hack. They send out a team of four assassins who leave a cross-country body count in their desperation to find the DVDs. Meanwhile, Kim Jong heads to Los Angeles and Comicon with Dennis Rodman to put the plot back on schedule. Only now, Kim Jong has added a plot to use the Super-Hoopinator on all Americans who will become puppets under his control.

The White House also learns the plans for the DVDs. President Trump and the Secret Service head to Comicon to head off everyone else: Kim Jong, his team of assassins, and Mike and Freddy. In the scene below, President Trump and the Secret Service have the nerds and conspiracy theorist-hackers detained in one room.

Nerd Marty (Brian Taylor) is on the left in his Star Trek Comicon uniform with his phaser on stun. Hacker Mike (Donald Levesque) is on the far right disguised as Star Wars’ bounty hunter Boba Fett to fit in at Comicon. Double-agent Freddy (Joseph Lascaze) is seated to my right along with Kim Jong’s subdued assassins. I remember whispering to Joseph in this scene, “Some of our nerds are not acting!”

The Final Scene

President Trump and the hackers end up being jointly responsible for foiling Kim Jong and saving the world. When the Super-Hoopinator is unleashed, instead of defeating President Moon for control of all Korea, Kim Jong is transformed into a compulsive dancer in a wedding dress.

Trump announces that the world is safe for democracy once again, and in a final scene (below), he kicks off his 2020 presidential campaign with a rousing speech. The President exits the stage to a standing ovation from an exhausted crowd of 500 who spent the previous ninety minutes laughing uncontrollably.

In the real world, as this all played out on stage, President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un came to an historic agreement. However, this time it was President Trump who was thwarted. The cast and crew of Assassins Deed, Six Disks to Comicon now take full credit for settling the Korean crisis.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: If you are in the United States, please plan to cast your vote on November 5. Please do not let any amount of disillusionment cancel your voice in support of democracy. Please also share this post. You may also like these other “prison-based” posts from Father Gordon MacRae:

The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Some Older Songs

Left Behind: In Prison for the Apocalypse

The Music of Eric Genuis Inspired Advent Hope

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”