What is behind Trump's clash with Louis XIV

WashingtonAs if Donald Trump didn't have enough open fronts with the rising cost of living and the war in Iran, this week it seems he has decided to open a theological one. The US president has left a good part of his Christian voters petrified by the clash with Pope Leo XIV and the meme of him as Jesus. From the outside, the strangeness is immense because it seems to have put Vice President JD Vance, a convert Catholic, in a thorny situation. The saga with the Vatican can only be explained from the prism of the internal struggles that currently exist between the different religious currents that make up the MAGA coalition. Especially in the tensions between Catholics and evangelicals, and antisemitic Christians and Christian Zionists.

In this amalgam of spiritual sensibilities and ideologies, the Catholics – like Vance – who surround Trump are of a very specific type. It is the most radicalized section that connects with a traditionalist current that rejects the reforms of the 60s which, among other aspects, sought to abandon the anti-Semitism of previous centuries. "He wants to return to these older models of Catholicism and, in the process, they are also embracing part of the old anti-Semitism that existed in a large part of Catholicism and reconnecting with it," Matthew D. Taylor, a researcher at Georgetown University specializing in white Christian nationalism, explains to ARA. Hence, the confrontation with Leo XIV does appeal to these more radicalized factions and contrary to a Catholic hierarchy that in recent years has moved closer to more progressive positions.

For Taylor, it is a Catholicism that embraces the postulates of the far-right, and which falls under the umbrella of white Christian nationalism. The latter is an ideological and political movement, and not a religious current as such. Within this group can be found members of the government, such as Vance or the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth – who has an obsession with the crusades –, as well as influencers from the MAGA world, such as Nick Fuentes.

The White House has no problem confronting the Vatican, precisely because it connects with an increasingly radicalized base of American Christians. The weight that Christianity has gained within the second Trump administration is, in part, a reflection of this tendency towards more extremist positions rather than an increase in Christianity at a social level. Different studies from the Pew Research Center show how Christianity in the US had been declining in recent years, although a recent survey conducted between 2023 and 2024 indicated a "stabilization" of the trend with 62% of Americans identifying as Christians.

"I wouldn't say it's a religious revival, but rather a radicalization; what's happening is that more and more people are starting to sympathize with the perspective of a Nick Fuentes or similar. People are radicalizing: people who were already Christian are being dragged towards these theologies, towards these messages, and are clinging to them in very damaging ways. And this is happening on both sides of this spectrum between philosemitism and antisemitism: they are moving in both directions towards more radical versions, and I think that's why there's so much religious rhetoric being heard lately," explains Taylor.

This philosemitism, or also Christian Zionism, is found especially among evangelicals. They are the largest sector and have made their influence within the government very visible. The image from March with Trump in the Oval Office, surrounded by evangelical leaders with their hands on him while they prayed, was an exhibition of political muscle beyond the White House corridors.

Taylor explains how Christian Zionism "is pro-Israel, but not pro-Jew." Beyond the fact that Israeli and Jew are not interchangeable synonyms, in the case of Christian Zionism the nuance is important to understand the instrumentalization of a group of real people for religious purposes. "They are very aligned with the State of Israel, but Jews are, in a way, accessories in all of this, because the point is to fulfill Christian theological purposes, not the well-being of the Jewish people in general," Taylor emphasizes.

Precisely, it is these two opposing impulses that have defined one of the main religious trenches within the Trump administration. The war between the two factions has been latent for a long time and had already shown friction with the Gaza war, but the Iran war has acted as a trigger for these tensions. On the surface, the initial reading of the criticisms of the military campaign coming from the MAGA universe was the breaking of the America First promise. But there is a second layer that crosses the cracks caused by the Middle East campaign, and it is this tension between the two religious currents that prevail in the Trumpian court. Tucker Carlson, the former presenter and one of the president's great allies, certified his divorce from the Republican by evading this premise. If examined through a theological sieve, Carlson is also a figure increasingly aligned with this traditionalist and far-right Catholicism, and also close to anti-Semitism, in which Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk, the assassinated ultraconservative, also participates.

In this light, there are also other movements that take on a clearer form, such as the resignation of the head of US counter-terrorism, Joe Kent, for his opposition to the war. On March 18, Kent resigned from his post with a public letter in which, among other things, he accused Israel of having "deceived" Trump into getting involved in the conflict. The former US government official is precisely known for his affiliation with white supremacy and sympathizes with anti-Semitism.

For Taylor, what is happening right now within MAGA circles of influence responds to a single question: "When Trump is no longer here... who will govern the spirituality and religion of the movement? This is the struggle that is happening right now". The question connects with one of the reflections made by one of the most prominent voices of Trumpism, the far-right influencer Laura Loomer. From a more general perspective and in reference to the Republican's weight as a central driver, Loomer warned that Trumpism would not survive Trump. Precisely because many of the cracks seen on the surface of the MAGA world are the result of internal struggles within Trump's noble court, and it cannot be automatically extrapolated as the opinion of the movement's popular bases.

Despite the criticisms seen regarding the war by some figures like Carlson, an Ipsos poll conducted in mid-March highlighted that 76% of the Republican's voters in 2024 supported the war. But, even so, the reactions of Trumpist spokespeople remain relevant because they are the ones seeking to set the pace and direction for these same masses.