Chevalier de la charité

President Donald Trump renewed his attacks on Pope Leo XIV by accusing the pope of believing that « it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. » The president’s May 4 accusation is false. Leo does not want Iran to possess nuclear weapons. In fact, like his predecessors, he has consistently rejected nuclear weapons.

« The church has spoken out for years against all nuclear weapons, so there is no doubt about this, » the pope responded after the president suggested he was sympathetic to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Pope Leo also said: « If anyone wishes to criticize me for proclaiming the Gospel, let them do so with the truth. »

That phrase matters.

The pontiff was not merely correcting a factual error. With remarkable restraint, he pointed to a deeper moral problem increasingly present in public life: the willingness to distort the beliefs of others in service of political narratives. His response reminded us that truth is not simply a rhetorical weapon, but a moral responsibility that places limits on power itself.

More and more, truth is treated not as an obligation but as a political instrument — something to bend, simplify or weaponize in service of power. Opponents are no longer criticized for what they actually believe, but for distorted positions constructed to generate fear, outrage and doubt.

The accusation against Leo followed this logic. If one questions military escalation, one must secretly sympathize with the enemy. If one urges restraint, dialogue or diplomacy, one is portrayed as naive, weak or even dangerous. Yet the Catholic tradition has never accepted that binary. The pope can reject Iran’s nuclear ambitions while also rejecting the growing assumption that peace is secured primarily through force, escalation and the permanent threat of catastrophic violence. That is why the president’s accusation against Leo is so misleading.

The Catholic Church does not want Iran to possess nuclear weapons. It also does not want the United States, Russia, China, North Korea, Pakistan, India, France, the United Kingdom or Israel to organize international order around the permanent threat of mass annihilation. This is not a recent development in Catholic thought. Nor is it the product of contemporary political progressivism. The church’s moral unease with nuclear weapons emerged almost immediately after humanity first acquired the power to destroy itself.

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Pope Pius XII warned that scientific progress detached from moral responsibility could become catastrophic for humanity. In Pacem in Terris, written after the Cuban missile crisis, Pope John XXIII insisted that nuclear weapons must ultimately be banned because peace cannot rest indefinitely upon terror. Successive popes deepened that teaching. Pope Francis eventually declared not only the use but even the possession of nuclear weapons immoral.

The Holy Father stands firmly within that tradition. His rejection of military escalation does not imply support for Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Rather, he rejects the premise that authentic peace can be built upon fear, domination and the permanent readiness for mass destruction. In recent months he has repeatedly called for dialogue, reconciliation and what he describes as a « culture of peace. » During his visit to Africa, he warned of a world « ravaged by a handful of tyrants » and lamented the « masters of war » who destroy in moments what generations labor to build.

His voice stands against a vision of power that is sustained not only by political rhetoric, but also by vast economic interests — defense industries, military contractors and entrenched structures of power that thrive on perpetual insecurity and the endless expansion of arms.

At moments of tension and fear, it becomes especially important to pause and ask whether what we are hearing is true or whether it primarily serves interests that benefit from sustaining fear, conflict and division. Some political leaders present themselves as defenders of civilization by portraying critics as allies of danger or chaos. But civilization cannot be defended through falsehood. Truth is not weakness in public life; it is the foundation of moral credibility and human trust.

On the evening of his election, Leo spoke of the need for « a peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering. » At his inaugural Mass in May 2025, he deepened that vision further by reminding the church that her « true authority » is « the charity of Christ. »

To a political culture fascinated by strength, deterrence and domination, such language can appear naive. Yet Christianity has always proposed something far more demanding: that truth cannot be produced through intimidation and that no nation possesses the moral right to place itself above the dignity of the human person.

Leo is not asking the world to allow Iran to possess nuclear weapons, nor does he ignore the many civilian victims of tyranny, violence and repression. Faithful to the Gospel, he continues to call the leaders of the world toward paths other than fear and destruction, keeping alive the hope that peace can still be built through justice, restraint, dialogue and reconciliation. We should be grateful for voices such as his, which summon the world back to the patient, difficult and deeply human work of peace.

Who wants an encounter with God that is « leaky, vulnerable, porous, wet, soft? » According to Elizabeth Berget, we might actually want to know God in such a human way — and, as she claims in the new book Love Like a Mother: How the Sacred Work of Motherhood Reveals the Maternal Heart of God, we already have. 

The « leaky, vulnerable, porous, wet, soft » God of Berget’s writing reflects her claim that biblical texts, Christian history, art and women’s lived experience are saturated with maternal imagery for God. This descriptor pulls double duty, referring both to pregnant, birthing and postpartum bodies and to the physicality of Jesus’ miracles. 

In assembling her expansive view of God, Berget rummages through metaphor, story and encounter with a childlike wonder and enthusiasm. She draws connections between bodily fluids, baby gear, Biblical verse and our best theology, as if on a « seek and find » quest, each epiphany a marvel. The prize for her sleuthing? The expansion of our spiritual imagination, moving readers from a « one-note » experience of God to « both hands pressing down on the [piano] keys in harmony, » offering a galvanizing redemption of the holy labor of motherhood itself. 

Music to our ears, indeed.

Berget’s work is durable. Moving readers through a thematic arc following pregnancy, labor, birth, loss, feeding, sleep, protection and the mental load of motherhood, Berget provides readers examples, references and experiences that stack her thesis of the existence and endurance of a Mothering God. She invokes timeless voices, including Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila, and introduces lesser-known appearances of God-as-Mother, like in Medieval art depicting bleeding pelicans and yonic renderings of Jesus’ crucifixion side wound. 

Her engagement with Scripture is particularly deft. Berget draws parallels between the disruptions inherent to parenthood and the « ministry of interruption » that characterized Jesus’ miracles. She contrasts the masculine God of Isaiah with the comforting, nourishing, feminine God who, per the very same prophet, is as entwined with her beloved as a mother nursing her child. In 1 Kings, God cares for Elijah like a mother tending a toddler, offering him a « a snack and a nap » when he clearly needs it. 

Berget is diligent with etymology. For example, after tracing the roots of the Hebrew words for « birth » and « breath, » the author brings the didactic into dialogue with daily life:

We mothers experience a shred of the raw energy that existed in the precreation deep or the cresting waves of the flood. I wonder whether, as we bear down and as the birth waters burst forth, we reflect a God who delivered all of creation … It matters that our bodies can turn a cluster of cells into a baby with a beating heart and conscious brain. It matters that we contain ovaries and uteri and have waters that burst as we labor. It matters that we breathe and moan and rock and sway, or chuwl, in our own process of co-creation … our bodies are places where we can meet God — in pregnancy, labor, birth, and even in miscarriage, stillbirth, and infertility. 

Love Like a Mother is light on its feet. Themes of memory, materiality and embodiment emerge through lighthearted references to overstuffed diaper bags, newborn car seats, white noise machines and blackout curtains. Complex theological claims are balanced with tales of toddlers throwing food from their high chairs. The levity affords Berget room to navigate rocky theological terrain without leaving readers behind; however, this same levity at times downplays the seriousness of birth trauma and the physical toll of childbearing on women’s bodies.

Reading Love Like a Mother resurfaced a sensation I often feel when gathered with other young mothers commiserating over birth stories: Mine doesn’t belong. I struggle to relate to those who found their births redemptive or empowering, and have suffered through many a dismissive, « But wasn’t it all worth it? » or « Just look at your beautiful baby! » that closes the already narrow space for women who don’t fit into the prevailing discourse. 

Importantly, Berget does reveal her own excruciating experience of the manual removal of her placenta following the birth of one of her children, as well as the harrowing anxiety of discovering a potentially fatal antibody in another during the final hours of labor. But her stories are buoyed with humor and resolved with tear-soaked, euphoric unions with newborns. Given her efforts elsewhere to include marginalized voices speaking to adoption, fostering, miscarriage and stillbirth, I was disappointed by how little attention was paid to cesarean birth, traumatic birth and fraught postpartum experiences. 

Still, given the dominant American discourse and its torrent of bellicose, virile and hegemonic impressions of God, Berget offers a redemptive alternative that is at once pliant and powerful, compassionate and courageous. « When we convince ourselves that the way to God lies only in the high and lofty paths of holiness, » she writes, « we miss out on the downward call of God to find him in what’s right before us. » 

Thanks to Berget, the ongoing and ever-complicated work of fumbling for the least-wrong way to talk about God advances, and a warmer light illuminates the path. Motherhood is of God, shared with God and powerfully reveals God. We need not depart from our everyday to know this divine love.

A legal clash between church and state that has the potential to reach the U.S. Supreme Court is playing out in Quincy, Massachusetts, a medium-sized city 11 miles south of Boston.

Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch, a conservative Catholic who left the Democratic Party in 2018 because of his anti-abortion views and who has blamed « homosexual issues » for the clergy sex abuse scandals in the church, is trying to install two large bronze statues of Catholic saints on the edifice of the city’s new public safety headquarters.

Koch and his allies argue that the Italian-crafted statues of St. Michael the Archangel and St. Florian — the respective patron saints of police officers and firefighters — transcend religion and have long-held symbolic meanings of protections for first responders.

« These statues will reflect the values our police officers and firefighters live out every day — courage, sacrifice, and service. Honoring those ideals should unite a community, not divide it, » Koch said in a prepared statement.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State have sued to prevent the statues from being erected. In October 2025, a state judge agreed with their arguments and ruled that the statues violate the Massachusetts Constitution’s guarantee that all religions are equal under the law.

The state’s highest court — the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court — agreed to hear the case on appeal, and on May 6 attorneys for both sides, accompanied by Quincy residents and uniformed public safety officials, presented their arguments in a packed Boston courtroom.

« The reason that these figures are being proposed for the building is not because of their religious significance, though they do have that, » said Joseph Davis, an attorney with the Becket Fund, the Washington, D.C. law firm known for litigating high-profile religious liberty cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Becket Fund is representing Quincy.

Though they have religious roots as Catholic saints, Davis argued that over time Sts. Michael and Florian have « come to take on a broader significance » representing firefighters and police officers more generally.

« These are the figures that embody the virtues they seek to display, » Davis said.

Jessie Rossman, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, argued on behalf of 15 Quincy residents who joined the lawsuit asserting that the statues’ civic symbolism does not outweigh their religious significance.

« You have two Catholic saints … whose power to inspire is directly connected to Catholic doctrine, and who are on the outside of a building that is meant to be welcoming and to ensure that people have equal access to public safety services, » Rossman said.

The Massachusetts justices peppered both sides with challenging questions. Justice Gabrielle Wolohojian noted that no other fire and police departments in the state had statues of either saint on their buildings. 

« Isn’t that part of history and tradition as well? » Wolohojian asked. « This would be the first one in the commonwealth. »

Justice Serge Georges, Jr., noted that Quincy’s contract with the Italian artist who created the statues — at a cost of $850,000 to city taxpayers, according to court documents — refers to them as patron saints.

« If these statues inspire first responders and that depends on their traditional roles as protectors of firefighters and police, is the city then asking us to separate the secular and professional meanings from the religious intersection that gives these symbols their force? » Georges asked.

While grilling Rossman, Justice Scott Kafker raised the question of how the U.S. Supreme Court would look at the case. He noted that the high court in recent years has expressed concerns about government actions that can be seen as hostile to religion.

« We can’t allow more hostility to religion than the Supreme Court would tolerate, and they have a very low tolerance, » Kafker said.

Rossman responded that government neutrality toward religion « is not the same as government hostility to religion. » Later asked about the possibility of the Supreme Court reviewing the case on appeal, Rossman told reporters that there was no « potential violation of federal law » in prohibiting the statues’ installation.

Davis, who also addressed reporters on the steps of the courthouse after the arguments, said the nation’s high court would look askance at a state court ruling that determined the statutes were unconstitutional because they depict Catholic saints.

« If you had a decision that says [the statues] can’t be displayed because they also have a religious meaning to some people, that’s hostility to religion, » Davis said. « I think that’s the kind of thing the U.S. Supreme Court has been quite sensitive to in recent years. »

Claire Fitzmaurice, a Quincy resident who grew up Catholic but now attends a Unitarian Universalist church, is one of the 15 city residents challenging the statues. She said the city « does not have the right to elevate one religion above any others, certainly not on my dime. »

« To affix these statues permanently onto our new public safety headquarters is to signal that non-Catholics have second-class status in Quincy, » she said. « Such discrimination is anti-American. »

More than a dozen organizations, including several large firefighter and police unions, submitted amicus briefs asking the Supreme Judicial Court to rule in Quincy’s favor. The Knights of Columbus submitted a filing expressing concern that a ruling against Quincy would make it impossible for civil authorities to honor its founder, Blessed Michael McGivney, because he was a Catholic priest.

A decision from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is expected by the fall.

The two faculty unions at St. John’s University have filed an unfair labor practice complaint charging the Catholic university in Queens, New York, with violating state labor law when it announced in February that it would no longer recognize the unions.

The complaint also alleges a pattern of illegal surveillance, harassment and intimidation that the administration at St. John’s University is said to have undertaken against faculty members for their union organizing on campus.

« It’s outrageous behavior and we won’t stand for any of it, » said Sophie Bell, a core studies professor who is the acting president of the American Association of University Professors chapter at St. John’s University. 

Christopher Denny, a theology and religious studies professor who serves as president of the university’s Faculty Association, told National Catholic Reporter that the unions have been certified as collective bargaining units by the state of New York since 1970.

« In the opinion of our attorneys, the university cannot raise a First Amendment claim that would preempt its contractual recognition of the unions for the past 56 years, » Denny said.

The New York State Public Employment Relations Board scheduled a conference on May 5 to review the unions’ complaint, which was filed on April 13. 

The complaint accuses the university of violating several sections of the New York State Employment Relations Act by withdrawing recognition of the unions, circumventing the collective bargaining agreement, unilaterally implementing new terms of employment, including salary changes, and interfering with faculty members’ protected union activities.

Bell told NCR that the administration, led by Dominican Fr. Brian Shanley, is not only violating state labor law but also disrespecting the Catholic social teaching principle that workers have a right to organize.

« It’s a really disastrous move, anti-union, anti-faculty, and anti-Catholic, » Bell said. « This was an outrageous thing to do, and we’re fighting it really hard. »

Contacted by NCR, a spokesperson for St. John’s University declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. 

On Feb. 19, St. John’s University notified employees that it would no longer recognize the unions. In an email to faculty members, university leaders said the decision to withdraw recognition of the unions had not been made « lightly or rashly, » but that it was done to secure the university’s long-term future.

« It was pretty shocking, and a little odd, » Bell said. « The administration didn’t give a particular reason besides that they needed more flexibility. There really was no legal argument made. »

The unions and the university had been negotiating for about a year on a new contract to replace the collective bargaining agreement, which expired on June 30, 2025. The parties’ last round of contract negotiations was in December.

In their Feb. 19 email, university leaders said there would be no further contract negotiations despite the unions’ calls for the university to return to the bargaining table. Bell said she thought both sides were making « good progress » until the administration’s announcement. 

« Instead of going through the legal process to say, ‘OK we’re done with this bargaining round so here’s your contract,’ which they could have done, they just decided to union-bust instead, » Bell said.

Union leaders had expressed concerns about the university’s intentions in November, shortly after St. John’s attorneys filed a response to an unfair labor practice complaint that the unions had brought against the university during contract negotiations.

Asserting its identity as a religious institution of higher education, attorneys for St. John’s University argued that New York’s Public Employment Relations Board lacked jurisdiction over the university on First Amendment grounds. The university’s response further argued that the state board was « preempted » from asserting jurisdiction under the federal National Labor Relations Act.

Since the university’s Feb. 19 announcement, union leaders have organized rallies on campus and at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, gathering the support of elected officials and other labor unions in New York City. Bell said more than 3,000 people have signed a petition calling on the administration to reconsider its decision to stop recognizing the faculty unions.

According to the unions’ unfair labor practice complaint, five faculty members were contacted by the university’s chief of public safety in March and told that their activities, which included gathering petition signatures and distributing fliers, ran afoul of university policies regarding demonstrations.

« It’s really an expansive definition of what constitutes a demonstration, » Denny said.

When a group of faculty members delivered their petition to the university’s board of governors on March 24, they received an email from the chief of public safety notifying them that they had violated multiple university policies that pertained to demonstrations and building access. The faculty members were also told that the public safety department had recorded them.

In addition, two faculty members were told that they were required to attend a meeting with the public safety department, and that if they did not, their campus access would be restricted, according to the unions’ complaint.

Bell accused the administration at St. John’s University of using surveillance and intimidation tactics to stifle union organizing on campus.

« It’s an attempted chilling effect, » she said. « Which is backfiring but also unconscionable and illegal. »

« With the behavior that we’ve experienced from public safety, we’re basically charging them with unlawful surveillance of union members engaged in protected union activity, » said Denny, who added that the unions’ fight appears to be the beginning of what could be a long struggle.

« If the university tries to get this matter into federal court, you could very well have a federal-state showdown as far as jurisdiction is concerned, » he said. « Stay tuned. »

In the days between the funeral of Pope Francis and the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV, The New York Times’ Jason Horowitz published an interesting story with the headline « As Cardinals Prepare to Elect a Pope, One Motto is ‘Unity.’ That’s Divisive. » He explained that the call for unity was coming from conservative cardinals who wanted to roll back Francis’ initiatives, which they viewed as divisive. Instead, the cardinals chose a cardinal who was profoundly committed to continuing the reforms Francis had begun.

Yet, since his election, Leo has made unity one of his principal themes. What the conservative cardinals wanted was a unity on their terms, a heckler’s veto. Instead, Leo is pursuing a unity that is founded on the person of Jesus Christ and the proclamation of the Gospel. As my colleague Justin McLellan explained in his incisive roundup of the pope’s trip to Africa, « Instead of fixing the church’s gaze solely on the problems that plague it, in Algeria Leo lifted it upward, insisting that reform be guided by charity and rooted in the proclamation of the Gospel. » For Leo, as for most of the cardinals who elected him, this is precisely what Francis tried to do, but Leo is pursuing ecclesial reform with a softer touch, and perhaps more consideration toward conservatives than Francis demonstrated.

We moderns tend to forget that the first word Jesus used when he proclaimed the Gospel was « Repent. » As I have noted before, the Catholic right tends to reduce sin to sexual sins and the Catholic left reduces it to injustice. Leo, on the plane ride back from Africa, and having confronted the poverty and inequality that plagues the people of that continent, announced his priorities, saying: « First of all, I think it’s very important that the unity or division of the church should not revolve around sexual matters. We tend to think that when the church is talking about morality that the only issue of morality is sexual. And in reality I believe there are greater and more important issues such as justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion that would all take priority before that particular issue. »

Many of us agree that it is wrong to overemphasize sins of a sexual nature. Still, Leo might have framed the issue a bit differently. The « holy restlessness » of which the pope spoke in his address at the Catholic University of Central Africa is rooted in something deeper than sexual sins or injustice, something to do with pride and concupiscence.

In the Rule of St. Augustine, the great saint teaches: « Indeed, every other kind of sin has to do with the commission of evil deeds, whereas pride lurks even in good works in order to destroy them. And what good is it to scatter one’s wealth abroad by giving to the poor, even to become poor oneself, when the unhappy soul is thereby more given to pride in despising riches than it had been in possessing them? » This insight into the complexity of human motivations is one of Augustine’s most distinctive characteristics. Like Shakespeare, Augustine seems almost modern because his insights, not just his ideas, are so deep, they resonate across the centuries.

Canon 2514 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: « St. John distinguishes three kinds of covetousness or concupiscence: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life. In the Catholic catechetical tradition, the ninth commandment forbids carnal concupiscence; the tenth forbids coveting another’s goods. » It is interesting that the deadliest of the seven deadly sins, pride, does not figure into the Ten Commandments, except perhaps the first. Look around. Is America not drowning in false gods?

Sin manifests itself in many ways, but it is always a deviation from God’s will as that will has been revealed to us in the Scriptures and the tradition of the church, both of which spring from the same source, the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The Second Vatican Council proclaimed:

In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will (see Eph. 1:9) by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature (see Eph. 2:18; 2 Peter 1:4). Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God (see Col. 1;15, 1 Tim. 1:17) out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends (see Ex. 33:11; John 15:14-15) and lives among them (see Bar. 3:38), so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself. This plan of revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them. By this revelation then, the deepest truth about God and the salvation of man shines out for our sake in Christ, who is both the mediator and the fullness of all revelation. (Dei verbum #2)

The problem of our time is that half the church thinks it is following God’s will because it conforms to what the church teaches about sexual matters and the other half thinks it is following God’s will because it conforms to what the church teaches about social justice. Both groups tend to self-assertion and pride in their stances and, just so, display the degree to which they stand convicted of that deadliest of sins: pride. Both, also, become allergic, even hostile, to any sense of correction or conversion to which they might be called. We moderns do not make a golden calf as the Israelites did (cf. Exodus 32). No, we just look in the mirror and admire what we see. The ease with which we denounce others, even those of previous centuries, further betrays the pridefulness that is so common among the affluent Catholics of the United States.

After Leo’s trip to Africa, my friend and colleague Jesuit Fr. Thomas Reese wrote a column asking if the continent really was the future of the Catholic Church. Citing patterns of birth rates and the consequences of urbanization, he wrote: « There is no reason that the African church will be immune from the same pressures that impacted the church in the West, especially given the ubiquity of social media and internet access. » 

This is perhaps true, but Reese misses the real issue. Africa’s people are mostly poor and we in the West are mostly rich. Jesus announced his ministry in the fourth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, saying: « The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me, to proclaim good news to the poor. » We in the West are no longer poor. We know our worth. We possess self-esteem. We know our minds, too. Maybe we can no longer hear the call of salvation in the word « Repent! » Maybe, just maybe, we no longer have the ability to hear the good news. I hope the son of Augustine who sits on the chair of Peter will teach us all how to be poor again.