The Episcopal Conference of Costa Rica this Monday supported Pope Leo XIV, leader of the Catholic Church, after the repeated attacks against him by the president of the United States. Donald Trump caused a new diplomatic incident by calling the pontiff “weak” for his criticism of the war in Iran.
In a press release, the bishops of the Episcopal Conference “express their full communion with the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV and regret with concern the statements directed against him by the President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump, in recent hours.”
The pontiff, the first American to hold the position, is traveling on his first international trip to Africa. But over the weekend he reiterated his concern about the war in Iran and Lebanon.
At his April 11 Peace Vigil he repeated his call to end the war and declared: “Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of force! Enough of war!”
“I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person, and he’s a man who doesn’t believe in stopping crime,” Trump said at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Trump accused Leo XIV of “playing with a country that wants a nuclear weapon.”
The Episcopal Conference of Costa Rica supported his statements and said that “his service does not respond to political interests, but to the proclamation of the Gospel, as well as the search for peaceful solutions to conflicts.”
“In his vehement insistence on peace there is no other interest than justice and love, especially towards the thousands of innocent people who continue to be the great victims in the wars currently open in the world,” the statement says.
“War, any war, is always a defeat for humanity because it entails the destruction of human brotherhood,” the text says.
