{"id":82172,"date":"2026-04-16T08:27:53","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T12:27:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/?p=82172"},"modified":"2026-04-16T08:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T12:30:14","slug":"pope-in-toughest-remarks-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/pope-in-toughest-remarks-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope In Toughest Remarks Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>From The New York Times:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/04\/16\/multimedia\/16int-pope-cameroon-02-tpgm\/16int-pope-cameroon-02-tpgm-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"People in a crowd smile and wave under a sunny sky. One person holds a picture of the pope.\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Pope Leo XIV is not backing down.\u00a0Amid a growing dispute with the Trump administration over the legitimacy of American attacks in Iran, Leo used a speech on Thursday in Cameroon to express \u201cwoe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.\u201d\u00a0\u201cBlessed are the peacemakers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">The Pope was speaking in a region of Cameroon where <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/06\/28\/world\/africa\/cameroon-secession.html\">separatists have been clashing with the government<\/a> for a decade, and he praised local religious leaders seeking to end that conflict. The Trump administration has sought to portray its war in Iran as a \u201cjust war\u201d\u00a0<a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2NrJU2aqGvQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">backed by the will of God<\/a>\u00a0and Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n<div class=\"gsp_post_data\" \r\n\t            data-post_type=\"post\" \r\n\t            data-cat=\"news\" \r\n\t            data-modified=\"120\"\r\n\t            data-created=\"1776328073\"\r\n\t            data-title=\"Pope In Toughest Remarks Yet\" \r\n\t            data-home=\"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From The New York Times: Pope Leo XIV is not backing down.\u00a0Amid a growing dispute with the Trump administration over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-82172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-news","7":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82173,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82172\/revisions\/82173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}