By Tom Dwyer

After more than a decade of appalling statements made by Donald Trump, still we are shocked, or certainly we should be, by what happened over the past 10 days as he reached new depths of immorality, bigotry, vicious insults, and senseless rhetoric.

Two nights ago, President Trump posted the image below (now deleted) of himself robed as Jesus curing the sick. Presumably, this was in response to Pope Leo XIV’s Reflection on Saturday at the Prayer Village for Peace. He also flailed wildly at the Pope, writing in part on his Truth Social media account (full post here):

“And I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do, setting Record Low Numbers in Crime, and creating the Greatest Stock Market in History. Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”

Let’s make no mistake about what we are witnessing – our President sounds and acts like a barbarian – and far too many still think this is normal and okay.

His first outrageous Truth Social post came Easter Sunday:

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F****n’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

The next day, his comments were, unfathomably, even starker and darker:

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

Pause but a minute to remember so many other past statements and actions by our President and his Administration leading to this current nadir. Literally, with each passing day, the injustice and cruelty of this Federal Administration only multiplies, and the immorality of the President himself falls further and faster than heretofore thought imaginable.

For people of good faith, of common decency and of fundamental humanity, the danger does not lie solely in the wickedness of the words.  Words matter because they tend to reveal the mind’s intent.   The danger lies more deeply in the insidious inoculation – the body politic becomes immunized to the shock of such immortality writ over and over on the world’s largest stage.

As one commentator said a few days ago, infinite immorality is now joining with infinite power!  To that we might add today – along with a clear Messianic mindset.  A Boston Globe headline for the lead front page story this past week read: “Trump Threats Alarming Experts.”  With deference to the experts and headline writers, common humanity should be alarmed.

Recall President Trump’s own early January 2026 comments to four New York Times reporters during a two-hour interview in the Oval Office.  When asked if there were any restraints on his ability to order military or economic actions, he said:

“Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Restraints embodied in international law he summarily dismissed, to say nothing of domestic law, the US Constitution, God-given law found in holy writings, or natural law.  In a chilling, eerie way, those interview comments can now be seen clearly as a precursor to what has happened this past week and which appears virtually certain to continue unless he is stopped by the power of the people and their elected representatives.

Excerpts from the Pope’s full Reflection, which apparently so insulted and infuriated the President, are below.

“ My dearest friends, all it takes is a little faith, a mere “crumb” of faith, in order to face this dramatic hour in history together — as humanity and alongside humanity. Prayer is not a refuge in which to hide from our responsibilities, nor an anesthetic to numb the pain provoked by so much injustice…

Prayer teaches us how to act. In prayer, our limited human possibilities are joined to the infinite possibilities of God… A Kingdom in which there is no sword, no drone, no vengeance, no trivialization of evil, no unjust profit, but only dignity, understanding and forgiveness. It is here that we find a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive…

Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!…

Let us, therefore, unite the moral and spiritual strength of the millions and billions of men and women, young and old, who today choose to believe in peace, caring for the wounds and repairing the damage left behind by the madness of war.

Dear brothers and sisters, there are certainly binding responsibilities that fall to the leaders of nations. To them we cry out: Stop! It is time for peace!…

Yet there is a no less significant responsibility that falls to all of us — men and women from all over the world. We are an immense multitude that rejects war not only in word, but also in deed… Let us turn to a Kingdom… that counters polemics and resignation through friendship and a culture of encounter. Let us believe once again in love, moderation and good politics. We must form ourselves and get personally involved, each following our own calling. Everyone has a place in the mosaic of peace!

We must not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the pace of a world that does not know what it is chasing. Rather, we must return to serving the rhythm of life, the harmony of creation and healing its wounds. ”

The Pope’s words, while direct, are not menacing or insulting. They are wrapped in a beautiful vision of what might be and how we might get there. Similar is his brief response (less than 2 minutes) to President Trump’s verbal assault on him.  It is measured, full of compassion, and focused on building a better and more just world.

We are long past the stage where people of faith and goodwill can bury their heads and claim later that they didn’t notice.  That has been tried many times, history teaches, each time resulting in only more evil and everlasting shame and regret.

Harken back to the first few months of 2025, when so many of us reeled in disbelief as the new Federal Administration disemboweled one of our country’s finest enterprises – the US Agency for International Development (USAID).  Considered our international “soft power,” its works uplifted the poorest and most marginalized by creating sustainability opportunities for those with virtually no resources.  It thereby bestowed dignity to millions of our fellow human beings. As a by-product, USAID won us friends and ennobled our own spirits.

Now, only a year later, the war ON soft power has morphed into a war OF hard power.  From a moral use of resources to better lives, we have moved to an immoral use of resources to destroy lives.  The 2025 War on USAID Soft Power cut about $6.5 billion from the Federal Budget, while the 2026 Iran War of Hard Power has already cost about $27.5 billion just through March, more than four (4) times as much.[i]

The past is again prologue, dating all the way back to 2015[ii] when then presidential candidate Donald Trump labeled Mexicans coming to this country as rapists and murderers.  More recently, he has likened black persons, including a former President and First-Lady, to apes.  He has repeatedly called all Somali’s “garbage.”  Threatening now the obliteration of a “whole civilization” is nothing but the inevitable extension of an evil and bitter mind.

In this test of morality, there is another lurking danger.  Many calls for an end to the Iran War cite as a reason the financial havoc being caused, most notably the surge in oil prices as felt at the gas station or in heating our homes.   True enough.  But let us be careful not to rest our case for an end primarily on economic grounds because it loses the essence of what is truly at stake.

It cannot be repeated enough – what we are witnessing, both in deed and word, is brazen systemic injustice and immorality being flaunted at every turn by the highest officials of the government of the world’s most powerful country.  It is not normal, and it cannot be countenanced.

Only a few might have believed a year ago that such language, threats, and images could emanate from our government.  Now we all hear and see plainly.  With people of good faith and goodwill of every stripe, we must stop and reverse this stunningly rapid descent into darkness to escape becoming barbarians as well by our complicit silence.

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^[i]Research and data analysis partially generated by Artificial Intelligence, relying on official government sources and documents, academic papers, and projections by scholars at different universities.
^[ii]Jarringly prescient was this 2016 mock The Boston Globe Page A1 predicting what a future front page would look like if candidate Trump won the presidency.