Maybe Republicans are right. Has the pope even read the Bible? | Opinion
Rex Huppke
USA TODAY
Updated April 15, 2026
Is it just me, or does it seem like Pope Leo XIV won’t stop talking about religion?
He’s all “the Gospel says this” and “Jesus taught us that” – dude, we get it, you’re head of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church. But does that really make you an expert?
As our Catholic Vice President JD Vance, who has a book coming out on his conversion to Catholicism, said, “I think it's very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
Exactly. Vance has been a Catholic since 2019, the year Lil Nas X’s "Old Town Road" hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, so I’d take his warning seriously, Pope. He’s seven years deep into the Catholic faith – you don’t wanna mess with him. He’s part of the new Catholicism, the one that’s afraid to say “transubstantiation” because it sounds woke and has “trans” in it.
All this started when Pope Leo took a ridiculous “war is bad” stance and found himself facing off against U.S. figures like Vance, President Donald Trump, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and even Fox News host Sean Hannity, who recently asked of the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics: “Have you even read the Bible?”
That’s a great question, Sean. We know President Trump has definitely read the Bible, because he sold ones with his name on them, and I can’t imagine he’d sell a product he can’t 100% guarantee. Does Pope Leo sell a Bible with his name on it? That’s the kind of question the Vatican needs to answer before its leader goes out and opines on whether it’s moral to kill lots of people to distract from a child sex trafficking scandal.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/04/15/trump-johnson-just-war-doctrine-catholic-pope-leo/89629589007/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQPMjc1MjU0NjkyNTk4Mjc5AAEeg6u28E-dOZjAVppfHcrnOMYVOJ0rkAEHSS3fBgJqTWwX3E-w4WTOj_r3TTQ_aem_SfZBLWerBB7h8o61XZnpdg