Monday, April 20, 2026
The Briefing with Albert Mohler
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
4.8 • 8.4K Ratings
🗓️ 20 April 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Part I (00:14 – 11:00)
President Trump vs. Pope Leo: The White House Squares Off with Vatican Over a Range of Issues
Part II (11:00 – 20:35)
The White House’s Argument for a Just Conflict in Iran – Does the Conflict Meet the Criteria of Just War Theory for a Justified Use of Military Force?
Part III (20:35 – 25:01)
On Both Sides, It’s More Heat Than Light: This Controversy Has Not Really Helped to Define the Issues
Part IV (25:01 – 27:43)
Just War Theory Across the Globe: This is a Pressing Question in Many Conflicts Worldwide Right Now
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Monday, April 20, 2006. I'm Albert Moller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. |
| 0:13.7 | The controversy between the President of the United States and the Catholic Pope continues, and oddly enough, |
| 0:20.5 | it's caught the attention of much of the watching |
| 0:22.5 | world, it seems. The most immediate occasion is an exchange between the President and the Pope, |
| 0:28.8 | some direct, some indirect, and you have now open criticism coming from the Speaker of the House, |
| 0:34.8 | the Vice President of the United States, others in the administration, and of course, leading point in this is the president himself. Now, at this point, |
| 0:43.3 | let's just make an historical observation. This is the most public conflict between a president |
| 0:48.7 | of the United States and the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church in all time. Nothing like this has ever happened before. |
| 0:55.6 | Now, that's not to say that the papacy has not run into political conflict before, because it |
| 1:00.5 | certainly has. As a matter of fact, there were centuries of political conflict between the papacy |
| 1:06.0 | and other kingdoms, most importantly European kingdoms. You even had a time in which the papacy was in exile. |
| 1:13.7 | You also had major developments such as the fact that by the time you get into the late medieval age, |
| 1:19.1 | and you go into centuries closer to us, and in particular even the 19th century, |
| 1:24.7 | you had the pope as not only a religious, but as a temporal authority over a |
| 1:30.5 | significant amount of land. And so until 1870 in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, |
| 1:36.7 | you're looking at the papal states, as they were known, covering a good deal of territory that |
| 1:42.0 | became incorporated into the kingdom of Italy. |
| 1:45.2 | But of course, even now, the Roman Catholic Church claims that the Vatican is in itself a sovereign state |
| 1:51.6 | and that the Pope is the monarch of that state and the monarch of the church. |
| 1:57.1 | It's a unitary job. |
| 1:58.9 | And thus, that sets the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church over a part |
| 2:02.0 | any other religious leader on earth, certainly having any historic connection to Christianity. |
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