Looney Has Pope Leo’s Back

by Paul Bass

Connecticut’s leading Catholic state lawmaker Monday blasted President Trump’s attack on Pope Leo XIV as “an affront to the faith.”

State Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney of New Haven issued a statement to that effect after President Trump posted a social-media message criticizing the pope, who has been critical of the U.S. war on Iran.

“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump’s Truth Social Post read. (The pope responded that Trump doesn’t scare him.) Trump subsequently posted — then removed — a Christ-like image of him healing the sick after worldwide criticism.

“As a lifelong Catholic, I find President Trump’s attack on Pope Leo XIV to be deeply offensive and, frankly, beneath the dignity of the office he holds. The Bishop of Rome does not answer to any political figure, and the suggestion that this Pope owes his position to Donald Trump is an affront to the faith of more than a billion Catholics worldwide,” Looney stated in a release issued Monday morning.

Looney added: “That the President finds this threatening says far more about him than it does about the Holy Father. Catholics in Connecticut and across this country deserve a President who respects their faith, not one who treats the leader of their Church as a political prop to be attacked when he fails to offer sufficient deference.”