(LifeSiteNews) — Catholic author Phil Lawler and blogger Chris Jackson warned that the Democrat Party may benefit from President Donald Trump’s feud with Pope Leo XIV and liberal Catholic prelates.

In a Monday post, Lawler criticized Cardinals Blase Cupich, Joseph Tobin, and Robert McElroy for a recent “60 Minutes” interview, in which the three prelates took aim at Trump while celebrating Leo and ignoring issues like abortion.

“The three American cardinals who held forth on Sixty Minutes were all promoted by Pope Francis. They do not represent the mainstream thinking of the US bishops’ conference. But they do represent the leftward lurch of the previous pontificate, which Pope Leo has done little to correct,” Lawler wrote.

“The concerted political attacks on President Trump represent the priorities of the past pontificate. The sooner Pope Leo can establish his own leadership style, the sooner the world will listen to his own more measured appeals for peace.”

Lawler also said that he thinks that the U.S. papal nuncio’s office has been orchestrating attacks on Trump but that Trump may suffer for “picking a fight with the Roman Pontiff.”

“The President will alienate many faithful Catholics—members of a key ‘swing’ constituency—while pleasing only those who are already fully behind him,” he wrote.

The U.S. president attacked Leo on Truth Social late Sunday after the pontiff repeatedly condemned the U.S.-backed war on Iran and other Trump policies. 

READ: Has Leo XIV contradicted Catholic teaching on just war?

Trump claimed Leo had “weak” positions on crime and foreign policy, saying he doesn’t “want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela” or “who criticizes the President of the United States.”

Jackson, who writes the Hiraeth in Exile blog on Substack, posted to X on Monday a computer-generated graphic of Pope Leo with his hand on top of a donkey representing the Democratic Party, with rays emanating from its head, as if the pope is blessing it. Prominent Democrats like Barack Obama and Kamala Harris look up at the pope as if in gratitude and adoration. Angels hold a banner spelling out what the scene represents: “Midterms.”

Here is what’s actually going on, guys. #midterms #popeleoxiv #DonaldTrump #CatholicChurch pic.twitter.com/isWlnGMf7v

— Chris Jackson (@BigModernism) April 13, 2026

“Now, no public document proves some formal Vatican-Democratic election task force. That would be too easy. But politics rarely works that way. More often it works through converging incentives, useful idiots, flattering access, and mutually beneficial narratives. So let us state the point carefully: there is no smoking gun proving coordination, but there is more than enough to explain why conservative Catholics would suspect that the Trump-Leo conflict is being leveraged to demoralize the right ahead of the midterms,” wrote Jackson in a Tuesday Substack post.

“A liberal American pope publicly clashes with Trump. Democratic operatives, including Axelrod, clearly have Vatican access. The Catholic commentariat amplifies every Trump provocation while muting or rationalizing Leo’s scandals. Conservative Catholics are then gently nudged toward the conclusion that politics is disgusting, voting is futile, and Republican support is spiritually suspect,” he added.

“That sequence does not need formal coordination to function. It functions because every piece points in the same direction,” Jackson continued.

“The Democratic alternative is not some harmless corrective to Trump’s excesses. It is a machine of cultural liquidation. It hates borders, hierarchy, masculine authority, national cohesion, and the remains of Christian moral order. It will use courts, schools, HR departments, federal agencies, NGOs, and the media to punish resistance,” he further warned.

Jackson lays some blame on Catholics for highlighting Trump’s remarks while playing down Leo’s questionable or heterodox actions, though Trump himself has already alienated some Catholics due to his policy change in support of war with Iran.

The president has been heavily criticized by prominent Catholics, including longtime Trump supporters, for attacking Leo in defense of U.S. military actions and threats. Trump also criticized Leo for recently meeting with David Axelrod, a Democratic political operative and former advisor of President Obama. 

Catholics for Catholics, a leading pro-Trump Catholic organization in the U.S., called Trump’s Truth Social attack on Leo “disheartening,” saying it “merits an apology.”

The group went so far as to assert that Trump’s remarks come amid a “well-organized” effort by the left to distance Catholics from the Republican Party. 

“The recent amplifications of a discord between Rome and the White House, oftentimes exaggerated, trace back to left-leaning ‘Catholics in name only,’ who are determined to swing the Catholic vote back in the other direction,” the post continued.

“This is a highly coordinated operation from key Obama advisors and prominent liberal Catholic clergy intentionally stoking the flames of discord with the intention of separating the Catholic base from the Republican Party,” wrote the Catholic advocacy group. 

Bishop Robert Barron, who is part of the Trump administration’s Religious Liberty Commission, similarly called on Donald Trump to apologize to Pope Leo XIV for harshly criticizing him, though Barron praised Trump for his defense of religious liberty. Other high-ranking prelates, some of them heterodox, like Cardinal Tobin, have issued defenses of the pope as well.