On April 5, for Easter 2026, the current Bishop of Rome (in the Roman Catholic Church) published an “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and to the world) address which he delivered from from his balcony (the loggia) in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.¹ In that address he complained implicitly about the USA’s war in Iran to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. His objection to American foreign policy was highlighted and echoed by the Vatican News service. The headline of their April 5, 2026 story on the message read, “Urbi et Orbi: Pope Urges World Leaders To Lay Down Weapons.”² The anti-war subtext of the message, which was ostensibly about the resurrection of Jesus, was not far below the surface.

He characterized Easter as the “victory of life over death, of light over darkness, of love over hatred.” This, he said, came “at a very high price: Christ, the Son of the Living God (cf. Mt 16:16), had to die—and die on a cross—after suffering an unjust condemnation, being mocked and tortured, and shedding all his blood.” From there the sermon turned to the nature of the power of Christ’s victory. The power, he said, is God himself, who is love and that power is “entirely nonviolent.” It is also self-sacrificing and peace creating. That, he argued, is “the true strength” that fosters respect and does not impose its will.

The central paragraph of the message, which was highlighted by the Vatican itself and by other media says,

In the light of Easter, let us allow ourselves to be amazed by Christ! Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his immense love for us! Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!

Predictably, the President responded strongly to the Bishop’s criticism. On his TruthSocial account, on April 12, he criticized the Bishop as “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. He talks about ‘fear’ of the Trump Administration, but doesn’t mention the FEAR that the Catholic Church, and all other Christian Organizations, had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else, for holding Church Services, even when going outside, and being ten and even twenty feet apart.”³ He added,

I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States and, even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers, and killers, into our Country. 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 get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.

The fear to which the President alluded refers to comments made by the Bishop in which he said to reporters, “I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what the church works for.”⁴

The Bishop accused the President of not understanding the gospel. He said, “‘To put my message on the same plane as what the president has attempted to do here, I think is not understanding what the message of the Gospel is,’Leo told The Associated Press aboard the papal plane en route to Algeria. ‘And I’m sorry to hear that but I will continue on what I believe is the mission of the church in the world today.'”⁵

I might agree with the Bishop that the President probably does not understand “the whole gospel,” but I would say the same for the Bishop. He does not understand that Jesus Christ alone is the head of the church and that Jesus Christ alone is the Savior and that we sinners are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Further, the Bishop of Rome confuses what might be the social implications of the gospel for the good news itself. Moreover, the President understands something that the Bishop of Rome does not: that we live in a twofold kingdom (i.e., Christ’s kingdom), which has two spheres—the common (the secular) and the spiritual (or the sacred). The visible church is the institutional representative of the sacred sphere and the civil magistrate is the institutional representative of the secular sphere. The magistrate has no business telling the church what to teach or how to teach it, and the church has no business telling the magistrate how to conduct foreign policy.

This is not some fantastic theory cooked up in California. It was baked in a Swiss oven, in Geneva, by none other than John Calvin (1509–64). He wrote,

Therefore, in order that none of us may stumble on that stone, let us first consider that there is a twofold government in man: one aspect is spiritual, whereby the conscience is instructed in piety and in reverencing God; the second is political, whereby man is educated for the duties of humanity and citizenship that must be maintained among men. These are usually called the “spiritual” and the “temporal” jurisdiction (not improper terms) by which is meant that the former sort of government pertains to the life of the soul, while the latter has to do with the concerns of the present life—not only with food and clothing but with laying down laws whereby a man may live his life among other men holily, honorably, and temperately. For the former resides in the inner mind, while the latter regulates only outward behavior. The one we may call the spiritual kingdom, the other, the political kingdom. Now these two, as we have divided them, must always be examined separately; and while one is being considered, we must call away and turn aside the mind from thinking about the other. There are in man, so to speak, two worlds, over which different kings and different laws have authority.⁶

According to our latter-day Christian Nationalists, this constitutes a “radical” two kingdoms theory. Of course, it is not radical, and if they would only read Calvin they would see that he wrote that there is one kingdom with a “twofold government” (duplex regimen). Practically, he explained, it means that, when we are thinking of the “spiritual kingdom” we turn away from the political, and when we are thinking of the “political kingdom” we turn away from the spiritual. These he called “two worlds,” “with different kings,” and “different laws.”

This is the President’s complaint about the Bishop of Rome. The Bishop thinks that the affairs of the secular, political sphere should be conducted as if they were the affairs of the spiritual sphere or kingdom, but the Bishop of Rome is himself not content with purely spiritual weapons. He has not only prayer to protect him but also city walls and even his own “elite military unit.”⁷ Evidently he does not always believe that it is possible to sit and dialogue with his enemies. The Swiss Guard is the size of a small company (about 135 officers and soldiers) in the U. S. Army.⁸ Edward Bauer writes that the Swiss Guard is armed with Sig Sauer P220 semi-automatic pistols; Glock 19 semi-automatic pistols; the FN P90, a short-barreled carbine designed for close-quarters combat and capable of semi-automatic fire or automatic fire (850–1,100 rounds per minute);⁹ the Sig Sauer SG 550, a semi-automatic “assault” rifle also capable of firing either one round at a time or automatically.¹⁰ The Guard are also armed with the Steyr Tactical Machine Pistol, a weapon designed for urban combat and capable of firing one round at a time or, if the operator continues pressing the trigger, automatically.¹¹ These are only the weapons about which there is some public knowledge.

One supposes that Leo XIV knows about the sacking of Rome in 1527, the last time that the Swiss Guard saw combat. On May 5, 1527, the Imperial Army of Charles V (1500–58) “reached the outskirts of Rome.”¹² The diplomatic skills of Clement VII (1478–1534), the Bishop of Rome at the time, were insufficient to keep 20,000 Imperial troops from sacking the city and killing all of the Swiss Guard.¹³ To their credit, at the cost of their own lives, a remnant of the Guard were able to save Clement’s life, who spent several months as a prisoner. He was released after he paid a ransom of 500,000 ducats.¹⁴

Why is it immoral for the United States to seek to protect itself and the rest of the world from an Iran armed with nuclear weapons but morally permissible for the Bishop of Rome to keep an armed company of soldiers? Was it wrong for the Swiss Guard to defend Clement VII by use of force? Why does the Bishop of Rome travel in a special vehicle outfitted with bulletproof glass?¹⁵

In this present controversy, the President is doing a better job than the Bishop in distinguishing nature and grace. The President also seems to have a better grasp of the nature of the theology of the current Iranian regime. Since the revolution of 1979, they have been officially committed to a theology described as “Mahdism,” which “revolves around an eschatological figure—the Mahdi, or ‘Rightly Guided One’—who vanquishes evil and ushers in Islamic rule during the end times.”¹⁶ The mullahs and more importantly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are Shia Muslims. They believe

that true leadership of the Muslim world belongs to the prophet Muhammad’s bloodline, beginning with Ali (Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law through his marriage to the prophet’s daughter, Fatima). According to Shia teaching, Ali was the first “rightly guided” imam, followed by his male descendants. Like Muhammad, all of them are seen as infallible and the true interpreters of Islamic law.¹⁷

Raymond Ibrahim describes this Shia sect as “Twelvers” and he explains that, for the “Twelvers,” Muhammad al-Mahdi is the “twelfth and final imam.”¹⁸ He is thought have disappeared, to have been raptured, as it were, in AD 874. They believe that he is still alive and that he will return. The Mahdists in Iran, including the IRGC, who, like the Nazi SS, are “true believers” in Mahdism, believe that Iran can do things to hasten the return of the Mahdi. The most important thing Iran can do to bring about the apocalypse of the Mahdi is to destroy Israel.¹⁹

In other words, the regime in Iran is a not a secularist, materialistic, Western regime (not to say that the families of the regimes mullahs and bureaucrats do not live well in the West, even in the USA). It is a religious regime bent on ending the world and they have given every evidence that they are willing to do it. Any sane political entity would have sued the Americans for peace after the beating the Iranian military has taken, but these cats are dead enders. Like the Führer and Eva Braun and the Japanese military, they are going to hold on until the very end and will only be stopped by force.

Unlike the Bishop, the Americans have been dealing diplomatically and militarily with the Iranians for 47 years and recently the Americans, with the help of the Israelis, saw an opportunity to use force to disarm the Iranians. The Bishop may like to think that the Allied Powers could have talked the Axis Powers into peace, but that is not what actually happened. Perhaps the Americans are wrong, but they are within their rights to use the authority given to them by God (see Rom 13:1–13) to try to prevent a nuclear holocaust. Perhaps the Bishop has forgotten what Augustine wrote to Faustus c. AD 397. He explained that a king has the right to undertake war “if he thinks it advisable for public safety.”²⁰ The American and Israeli assault on Iran meets that test, and it is the President and his cabinet, not the Bishop of Rome, who will have to answer for such decisions.

notes

1. “‘Urbi et Orbi’ Message of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, Easter 2026.”
2. Joseph Tulloch, “Urbi et Orbi: Pope Urges World Leaders to Lay Down Weapons.”  Katie Rogers, writing in the New York Times, April 12, 2026 describes Leo XIV as “one of the world’s most powerful critics of the U. S. with Iran. Trump Attacks Pope Leo as Too Liberal and ‘Weak on Crime’
3. Donald Trump, TruthSocial
4. “WATCH: Pope Leo says he has ‘no fear’ of the Trump administration.” “What Exactly Did Pope Leo Say About Donald Trump?“
5. “WATCH: Pope Leo says he has ‘no fear’ of the Trump administration.”
6. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1 & 2, The Library of Christian Classics (Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 3.19.15.
7. Lesley Kennedy, “Who Are The Vatican’s Swiss Guards?” (May 8, 2025).
8. Chuck Holmes, “Army Unit Sizes: the Structure of Army Units.”  
9. FN P90
10. The manufacturer uses the adjective assault to the describe the rifle.
11. Edward Bauer, “Swiss Guard Weapons—From Halberts to Modern Firearms,” (April 8, 2025).
12. “The Sack of Rome in 1527.”
13. Pope Clement VII; “The Sack of Rome in 1527.”
14. This might be the equivalent of about $2.2 million dollars.
15. Noora Mykkanen, “Vatican Reveals What Is Going to Happen to Francis’ £380,000 Popemobile” (April 21, 2025).
16. Raymond Ibrahim, “Mahdism: The Apocalyptic Ideology Behind Iran’s Nuclear Program” (December 19, 2025).
17. Ibrahim, “Mahdism.”
18. Ibrahim, “Mahdism.”
19. Ibrahim, “Mahdism.”
20. See the references in R. Scott Clark, “Sub-Christian Nationalism?” (Part 18) (March 11, 2024).

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

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Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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