In April 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a statement condemning an insult aimed at Pope Leo XIV and wrote, "the desecration of Jesus, the prophet of peace and brotherhood, is not acceptable to any free person."
Social media users shared the claim after U.S. President Donald Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV in a Truth Social post on April 12, calling him "weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy." On the same day, Trump shared a since-deleted AI-generated image depicting himself in the likeness of Jesus Christ, drawing significant backlash from people across the political spectrum.
One Facebook user wrote, "Donald Trump is literally uniting the Catholic and Muslim worlds against him."
Posts about the Iranian president's alleged statement also circulated on X (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived) and Reddit (archived). Snopes readers wrote in, asking if the claim was true.
Online claims cited an authentic April 13, 2026, X post (archived) on Pezeshkian's account that read (emphasis ours):
His Holiness Pope Leo XIV (@Pontifex), I condemn the insult to Your Excellency on behalf of the great nation of Iran, and declare that the desecration of Jesus, the prophet of peace and brotherhood, is not acceptable to any free person. I wish you glory by Allah.
Given the above, we find that social media users correctly attributed statements condemning an insult aimed at the pope and the desecration of Jesus to Pezeshkian.
Pezeshkian did not explicitly state in his X post that "the insult to Your Excellency" came from Trump, as some posts suggested. However, the Iranian president shared his post around
Trump's post about the pontiff further claimed Cardinals in Rome only chose Leo to curry favor with the president, writing, "If I wasn't in the White House, Leo wouldn't be in the Vatican."
Trump also wrote that Leo should "get his act together" and claimed that the pope's attempts at politics were "hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it's hurting the Catholic Church."
Addressing reporters on a flight to Algeria on April 13, Leo denied Trump's claim that he was attempting to play politics. The pope said, "I do not look at my role as being political or a politician, I don't want to get into a debate with him," referring to Trump, but added that he would continue to encourage peace.
"I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the Church is here to do," Leo said.