Recently when President Donald Trump shared an AI image of himself as the next pope in the wake of the death of Pope Francis, apparently in jest, it caused controversy.
For neoconservative godson Bill Kristol, it created an opportunity to needle Vice President J.D. Vance, who is Catholic.
Hey, @JDVance, you fine with this disrespect and mocking of the Holy Father? https://t.co/xbPs1hf5Gn
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) May 3, 2025
Vance replied:
As a general rule, I’m fine with people telling jokes and not fine with people starting stupid wars that kill thousands of my countrymen. https://t.co/2WQPsofVIH
— JD Vance (@JDVance) May 3, 2025
Kristol was obviously trying to use Vance’s Catholic faith to shame him and his boss. But Vance replied with something much more obvious and shameful: Kristol is responsible for goading America into the stupidest war in her history, taking the lives of so many, something he and his ilk have never shown the slightest bit of remorse or regret for. They still defend it.
In fact, on foreign policy the neoconservatives have always been at great odds with the Catholic Church.
Pope John Paul II staunchly opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. NBC News reported in 2004, “John Paul spoke out publicly against the war more than any other world leader and in the months leading up to the conflict the Vatican became a diplomatic stage for all the parties involved.”
Two months before the United States invaded, the Holy Father framed opposition to the war in pro-life language, saying in an address, “War itself is an attack on human life since it brings in its wake suffering and death. The battle for peace is always a battle for life!”
In 2004, John Paul told President George W. Bush on live TV to end the war as “quickly as possible with the active participation of the international community and, in particular, the United Nations organization, in order to ensure a speedy return of Iraq’s sovereignty, in conditions of security for all its people.”
Of course, this did not happen.
The Vatican’s opposition to America’s war in Iraq never wavered. Pope Benedict declared in his 2007 Easter message in St. Peter’s Square that “nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees.”
Kristol wrote without shame in 2015, twelve years after the war began and against all evidence and reason, “We were right to invade Iraq in 2003 to remove Saddam Hussein, and to complete the job we should have finished in 1991.”
American neoconservatives, with Kristol topping that heap, have been fully in favor of our government funding the Ukrainian side of their war with Russia, the invader, framing it as a black-and-white fight for “democracy” (apparently democracies ban opposition parties and suspend elections) against Vladimir Putin.
The Vatican condemned Russia’s invasion. Pope Francis also urged a quick diplomatic peace and acknowledged the complexity of the war, saying in a 2022 interview that Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine was “perhaps somehow provoked.”
Francis condemned the “ferocity and cruelty of the Russian troops” but also warned against framing the conflict as good versus evil. “We need to move away from the usual Little Red Riding Hood pattern, in that Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad one,” Francis said. “Something global is emerging and the elements are very much entwined.”
Francis said that a couple of months before the war he met a head of state, who he would not identify, but described as “a wise man who speaks little, a very wise man indeed…He told me that he was very worried about how NATO was moving. I asked him why, and he replied: ‘They are barking at the gates of Russia. They don’t understand that the Russians are imperial and can’t have any foreign power getting close to them.'”
The neoconservatives, particularly Kristol, are longtime cheerleaders of Ukraine becoming part of NATO. Doing so could put American soldiers on the hook for fighting Russia in Ukraine’s defense, “starting stupid wars” that could kill J.D. Vance’s countrymen.
That’s fine with Kristol.
Then there’s Gaza.
After the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas which killed nearly 1,200 people, Israel’s military has killed more than 51,000 Palestinians. The International Criminal Court is investigating charges of genocide, an allegation Israel denies.
Pope Francis not only strongly condemned the ongoing bloodshed in Gaza, he took it personally.
NPR reported after Pope Francis’ death:
For most people around the world, Pope Francis was a religious leader seen on video or read about in the news. For the congregation of a tiny Roman Catholic church in Gaza, he was the voice on the other end of the phone every night, calling to check on them in wartime.
The story continued:
“He used to call us at 7 p.m. every night. No matter how busy he was, no matter where he was, he always called,” George Anton, spokesperson for the Church of the Holy Family in Gaza, told NPR on Monday, the day of the pope’s death at age 88.
“He would ask us how we were, what did we eat, did we have clean water, was anyone injured?” Anton said. “It was never diplomatic or a matter of obligation. It was the questions a father would ask.”
Kristol preferred Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election because he reportedly believed another Democratic administration would allow Israel more free rein in Gaza than the current Republican administration.
In other words, continue the killing unabated and keep the pope worried.
This is not new. Kristol and the neoconservatives have long been rabid advocates for war and the Catholic Church, for peace.
Kristol doesn’t care about the pope. His sudden feigned respect and reverence for the Holy Father is born of his deep-seated bitterness toward a president that has made life harder for neoconservatives in the Republican Party, and a restraint-minded Catholic vice president who shares that mission.
That’s it.
But if mocking is a concern, starting stupid wars that kill thousands of Americans needlessly is about as disrespectful of the U.S. military as it gets.
Just ask Bill Kristol. He’s an expert.
