Mar-a-Lago's Catholic Bishop Delivers Sunday Rebuke to Trump

Source: Yahoo! News/Daily Beast

Sun, April 19, 2026 at 8:57 PM EDT


The bishop of Palm Beach has rebuked Donald Trump for his “disrespectful and violent attacks” on Pope Leo XIV, as outrage over the president’s feud with the pope reaches his own backyard.

Bishop Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez, whom Pope Leo XIV appointed as bishop of the Diocese of Palm Beach in December, delivered a scathing rebuke of Trump during Sunday Mass, a week after the president lashed out at the pope in a deranged Truth Social meltdown.

“The Diocese of Palm Beach stands firm with our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, and strongly rejects the disrespectful and violent attacks that Donald J. Trump has directed against the Holy Father,” a projected statement read, according to a photo posted by Catholic commentator Christopher Hale.

The statement continued, “These attacks also constitute a grave violation of the religious freedom enshrined in the Constitution of the United States and, as such, harm the rights of the American Catholic faithful.” “Please pray for the safety of the Holy Father,” the statement concluded, signed off with Rodríguez’s name. The Dominican-born bishop previously served as a pastor at a Catholic church in Queens, New York, roughly seven miles from where Trump was raised.

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