A Catholic Trump voter and Catholic expert on Trump’s tangle with Pope Leo | Opinion

Catholics are on the rise in North Carolina, but how recent tensions between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo could affect their vote in November remains to be seen.

Catholics still represent only around 10% of North Carolina’s population. Yet their vote could make a difference, particularly since it traditionally has favored Trump.

I reached out to a local conservative Catholic and a Duke expert on Catholicism for their takes on how the historic and politically charged exchanges between the president and the pope — followed by more criticism from Vice President JD Vance — might affect Catholic voters.

Terrence Duff, 78, of Garner, is a lifelong Catholic who regularly attends daily Mass. He’s a Trump voter and still backs the president, though he has qualms about how Trump reacted after the pope criticized the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.

“Trump likes to punch back. I think the pope initiated this with his comments and got under Trump’s skin and I think the pope knew that he would do that and probably anticipated Trump firing back,” Duff said.

Duff disagreed with Trump calling Pope Leo “weak on crime” and other comments in his April 12 post on Truth Social.

“I don’t like what he said, and I don’t like how he said it,” Duff said, but he thinks the pope invited such a response. “When he gets into an area that isn’t Catholic doctrine, I expect that he can be criticized, a response can come from people with different viewpoints.”

Peter Casarella, a professor of theology at Duke Divinity School, previously served at DePaul University, where he was the founding director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology.

Casarella said his impression is that the president’s criticism of the pope has hurt his standing with Catholics and others.

“I’ve talked to people who voted for Trump, who supported MAGA at the time of the election,” he said. Trump “turned it into something very personal. So people who support his agenda find that is just one step too far.”

Joshua Mercer, vice president and co-founder of CatholicVote, a national group, said many Catholic Trump supporters are unhappy with the president’s response, but they are not necessarily turning on him.

“We think it was disappointing that President Trump launched a personal attack on the pope. We feel he should apologize. It’s not constructive,” Mercer said.

Casarella said the impact of the episode could extend beyond Catholics. “Catholics define themselves over and against non-Catholics as supporting the pope and there’s plenty of non-Catholics now, who for whatever reason, are supporting the pope,” he said.

He added, “So those are two different dynamics, the Catholics who voted for Trump that could be offended — and probably are offended — by his personal attacks on the pope, and then the secular non-Catholics who are suddenly in love with the pope.”

Casarella said that speculation about how the Catholic vote will be affected because both parties draw Catholics on different issues. A majority of Catholics support Trump in opposition to abortion, for instance, but many also favor humane treatment of immigrants in keeping with Christ’s imperative to “welcome the stranger.” While Trump received 55% of the Cathoic vote in 2024, Joe Biden received 52% in 2020.

“Catholics do not have a party,” Casarella said. “Catholics have a hard time finding a party that fits with the teachings of the church. It doesn’t exist right now, and I don’t know if it ever existed.”

One result of the tension between the president and the pope may be that the first U.S. pope may postpone a visit to his native land. Casarella said there was talk of a possible papal visit in the fall, but that now seems unlikely.

During the 12 years of his papacy, Pope Francis never returned to his home country of Argentina. He supposedly did not want his visit to be caught up in the country’s political polarization.

After his experience with Trump, Pope Leo may feel the same way.

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583 or nbarnett@newsobserver.com

This story was originally published April 21, 2026 at 8:00 AM.