As Pope Leo XIV renews his clarion calls for peace and good will in the name of Jesus Christ, the President of the United States is destabilizing relations with another long-standing ally and touting his good relations with another dictator.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump spoke about his “very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea,” adding he was “not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea.”
In his Truth Social post, Trump added that he recently asked the President of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, if they would like to join in the U.S.-Israel war against Iran, “and they said, No thanks!”
Those remarks came to mind when the Vatican released Pope Leo XIV’s message for the 10th World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, marked on Sept. 1.
The message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation was most probably written weeks – or even months – before Trump issued his Truth Social message on the Koreas this past Sunday.
Nevertheless, the pope’s message may be fairly applied to Trump’s behavior and rhetoric.
The pope writes that the Lord’s promise of peace is standing “in stark contrast” to the realities now happening in the world.
In his message, the pontiff says the conflicts that “torment humanity” are in many ways the outward expression of interior discord and division.
“When the heart is distorted, relationships suffer, and the structures we build begin to reflect that disorder,” the pope writes.
Trump’s verbal goad of South Korea – a major U.S. ally – and praise of a man universally recognized as one of the world’s most violent dictators, certainly aren’t helping to achieve any measure of order in affairs.
North Korea fired several short-range ballistic missiles on Thursday, just hours after Trump announced he would meet – again – with Kim Jong Un later this year.
That news closely followed an earlier announcement the U.S. and South Korea would be curtailing – by six days – military exercises that began on Monday. The joint South Korea-U.S. Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises are now to end Friday.
Quite frankly, the behavior should cause particular concern, not only for Christians.
Trump’s relations with North Korea should concern everyone, not only for the destabilizing effects on the strategic and geopolitical situation, but also because South Korea is a bastion of religious liberty and Kim’s North Korean regime is one of the world’s most repressive.
South Korea’s Christian population is 31 percent, a third of which is Catholic. It has one of Asia’s strongest policies of freedom of religion, and Christians now outnumber those who practice South Korea’s traditional religion, Buddhism.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) says North Korea continues to be “one of the worst violators of freedom of religion or belief in the world.”
“Religious proselytizers and practitioners are treated as a ‘hostile class’ under North Korea’s songbun social classification system, which is designed solely based on perceived loyalty to the Kim family regime,” USCIRF said last December.
“The North Korean state ideology, juche, places the Kim family at the center of all aspects of life, leaving no room for religious freedom,” the USCIRF explains.
Trump has labeled Kim a better friend than Lee because the South Korean leader doesn’t actively support the war against Iran.
The U.S. president has made this a central point in his relations with other states, including the Holy See.
Several times, Trump has attacked Pope Leo himself for not supporting the Iran war, saying he thinks “it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump is not overly bothered by the “very powerful” nuclear arsenal North Korea has amassed under Kim.
“The fact that I get along with him, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons,” Trump said from the White House on Wednesday, referring to North Korea’s dictator.
Trump said North Korea should not have been allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
“Should’ve never allowed it to happen,” Trump said. “If I were president, I wouldn’t have allowed it,” he said, “but he’s got them.”
“I get along with him very well,” Trump said of North Korea’s Kim.
In his message released on Thursday, Pope Leo didn’t name any particular conflict but lamented the ways in which efforts “continue to be directed toward violence and war.”
“The true tools for building peace are not weapons of destruction,” Leo writes, “instead they are truth, dialogue, patience, goodness, justice, mercy, understanding, care and love.”
“These flow from hearts shaped by the Gospel and sustained by God’s grace,” he writes. “Only these qualities possess the power to transform individuals, renew communities and heal the wounds of our world,” Leo also writes.
“The path before us is clear,” Leo writes, “though it is not easy.”
“We are called to allow our hearts to be renewed,” he writes, “so that we might seek peace and care for creation.”
“Scripture tells us to guard our hearts,” the pontiff writes, “for everything we do flows from them.”
Whether they were aimed directly at the White House or not, those remarks certainly hit close to home.
Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome