Trump and the culmination of blasphemy

By Thomas V. Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Apr 14, 2026

Phil Lawler and Peter Wolfgang have written about President Trump’s attack on the Pope and its political implications. I want to focus on the issue of blasphemy, especially with regard to the image Trump posted of himself as Jesus. This is, in fact, the culmination of a series of blasphemies coming from the White House in recent weeks.

Even those of us who have supported Trump at various times—myself included—have readily acknowledged that he is (to put it mildly) not a humble man. Pride is the worst of the deadly sins. Because it ultimately stems from a desire to be like God, it leads us to appropriate for ourselves what belongs to Him, to refuse submission to Him and those who represent Him, to refuse to admit wrongdoing, and to profane sacred things. Thus pride very naturally leads to blasphemy, which is itself one of the gravest sins, worse even than abortion.

A study of Scripture reveals that few things draw down the wrath of God on a nation more than when its leaders blaspheme God and boast arrogantly against Him. Thus when the politician who, though by no means a true Christian himself, has been said to be the great political champion of Christians in the United States, publicly blasphemes Jesus and attacks His representative on earth—and the Catholics in his administration remain silent or even defend his behavior—we should recognize that we are in a dire position as a nation.

Trump says that God miraculously saved his life from the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania in 2024—that God saved him for a purpose. If this is really what he believes, it is a rather obvious conclusion under such circumstances. But when this recognition of Providence does not lead to humility and repentance, the resulting sense of divine endorsement—combined with the boldness of a second term, the ceaseless flattery of the Christians around him, and perhaps a touch of senility—predictably leads to new heights of hubris and new lows of self-restraint. And this is what seems to have happened, with the Iran War and a mounting series of blasphemies connected to it in the weeks leading up to Easter.

This can be seen not only with Trump himself, but with the religious figures surrounding him, some of whose beliefs can barely be called Christian. Like the false prophets hired by wicked kings in the Old Testament, these people do not call the President to conversion, but instead flatter him, dull his conscience, and fill him with messianic delusions. Jeremiah 23 describes these men and women:

Among Jerusalem’s prophets I saw something more shocking: Adultery, walking in deception, strengthening the power of the wicked, so that no one turns from evil…Therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts against the prophets: Look, I will give them wormwood to eat, and poisoned water to drink; for from Jerusalem’s prophets ungodliness has gone forth into the whole land. Thus says the LORD of hosts: Do not listen to the words of your prophets, who fill you with emptiness; They speak visions from their own fancy, not from the mouth of the LORD. They say to those who despise the word of the LORD, “Peace shall be yours”; and to everyone who walks in hardness of heart, “No evil shall overtake you.”

Take Trump’s Pentecostal “spiritual advisor”, Paula White. This televangelist and fraudulent visionary, whose charismatic antics seem more demonic than Spirit-filled, made news during Holy Week for comparing Trump to Jesus and saying that his survival of an attempt on his life (and other opposition) proves that God supports whatever he does:

Mr. President, no one has paid the price like you have paid the price. It almost cost you your life. You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It’s a familiar pattern that our Lord and Saviour showed us. But it didn’t end there for him, and it didn’t end there for you. Because he rose, we all know we can rise, and, sir, because of his resurrection, you rose up. Because he was victorious, you were victorious. And I believe that the Lord said to tell you this: Because of his victory, you will be victorious in all you put your hand to.

After this false prophecy in which Paula White “spoke visions from her own fancy”, other religious figures at Trump’s Holy Week lunch made similar claims of God’s endorsement of Trump in general and the Iran War in particular (while Bishop Robert Barron stood by and joined in the applause).

The week before that, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, confidently claimed the backing of the Prince of Peace for a war which any pope in the past 150 years and more would have condemned as unjust on traditional grounds (contrary to those who assume recent popes have just been “soft” on foreign policy). But even those who think the war is just will likely be troubled by Hegseth’s prayer for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy”. If one might even seek a defensible interpretation of those words, consider the following petition from the pit of hell: “that evil may be driven back, and wicked souls delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them.” Praying for the damnation of one’s enemies is Satanic, not Christian.

If we reap at Easter the fruits of our Lenten devotions, then we might expect the converse as well. Trump’s officials spent Passiontide puffing the President up with blasphemous boasting, so on Easter Sunday he laid a vile egg, threatening to destroy civilian infrastructure, using obscenity, and flippantly remarking “Praise be to Allah”. In the following days he issued more threats to destroy the nation he had only recently claimed to be liberating.

Then, on Divine Mercy Sunday, Trump wrote his deranged screed against Pope Leo. He attacked the Holy Father on many points, but clearly the chief source of his anger is Leo’s opposition to the war (a position on which, ironically, the Pope is more in agreement with Trump’s base than is Trump himself).

Many have tried to justify Trump by saying that if popes get involved in politics, they will get a political response. But in this instance, the truth is more the opposite, as a commentator aptly noted: “Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth and Doug Wilson got spiritual about the War in Iran and got a spiritual response from the pope”. When you claim the endorsement of Christ for your activities, the Vicar of Christ will have something to say about it.

Trump followed this up with the blasphemous image of himself as Jesus miraculously healing the sick. The ensuing outrage pressured the President to delete his post, but in a laughable lie, he claimed that he had thought it depicted him as a Red Cross doctor, and blamed those who were offended for misinterpreting it.

A number of Catholic apologists have noted the antichristic resonance of this behavior—the man certainly has “a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words” (Rev. 13:5). (Consider, too, that Pete Hegseth wants to rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.)

Sadly, the Catholic politicians closest to the President have either remained silent or even defended him. J.D. Vance in particular made a pathetic showing, saying the blasphemous image was just Trump’s misunderstood sense of humor, and defending the personal attack on the Pope as a matter of normal, healthy disagreement.

Vance said it would be best for “the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what’s going on in the Catholic Church and let the President of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.” But the Pope has spoken on the question of whether it is morally acceptable to deliberately target civilian infrastructure or to threaten to destroy an entire civilization. If this is not within the purview of Catholic teaching on morality, nothing is.

The supposedly “postliberal” Vance here promotes a notion of separation of Church and State that is contrary to Church teaching about the relationship between the two powers. The Church has indirect authority over temporal politics insofar as it affects faith and morals:

At all times and in all places, the Church should have true freedom to preach the faith, to teach her social doctrine...and to pass moral judgment even in matters related to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it. (Gaudium et Spes, 76)

Vance has already shown himself at odds with some Catholic teachings related to abortion pills and IVF, but the fact that he cannot bring himself to stand up even slightly for the Holy Father and for the honor of God makes me completely distrust him as a Catholic politician going forward.

Even though the image has been deleted, it was an objective blasphemy for which the President has not apologized, and this requires reparation. At this time and in general, I recommend devotion to the Holy Face, which is geared toward making reparation for the sins which most offend God: atheism, blasphemy, and the desecration of holy days. For those who fear that our nation’s self-exaltation will soon be brought very low by divine judgment, one prayer seems particularly appropriate:

Eternal Father, turn away Your angry gaze from our guilty people whose face has become unsightly in Your eyes. Look instead upon the Face of Your beloved Son, in Whom You are well pleased. We now offer You this Holy Face, covered with shame and disfigured by bloody bruises, in reparation for the crimes of our age, in order to appease Your anger, justly provoked against us. Because Your Divine Son, our Redeemer, has taken upon His Head all the sins of His members, that they might be spared, we now beg You, Eternal Father, to grant us mercy. Amen.