New Delhi, April 13 -- US President Donald Trump launched a sweeping and deeply personal assault on Pope Leo XIV on Sunday, targeting the first American pope over his criticism of US military action in Iran and Venezuela, an extraordinary public feud between the leader of the free world and the leader of the Catholic Church.

The attack came in a lengthy post on Truth Social, followed swiftly by remarks to reporters at Joint Base Andrews, where Trump arrived aboard Air Force One. In both instances, the president was unsparing.

"Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy," Trump wrote, in what became the defining line of a tirade that ran to several hundred words and touched on immigration, nuclear weapons, Venezuela, COVI...