For years, President Donald Trump and his political allies have worked to blur the line between church and state, encouraging Christian faith leaders to speak out on political matters. 

But now that some of those leaders are saying things the president doesn’t like, particularly about immigration and his deadly, economically destructive war, the Trump regime apparently wants them to quiet down. 

During his first administration, Trump began encouraging pastors to speak on political matters, signing an executive order to protect the tax-exempt status of churches whose leaders proselytize about politics. Since returning to office, Trump has aligned himself with Christian zealots who want to end church-state separation and has tried to lift restrictions on church leaders endorsing political candidates. Just this week, the head of Trump’s so-called Religious Liberty Commission claimed the Constitution’s separation of church and state is “the biggest lie that’s been told in America since our founding.”

Trump’s administration, simply put, does not seem to believe in the separation of church and state — at least right up until Christian leaders start saying things Trump doesn’t like. The past week has put this hypocrisy on full display. 

Two top administration officials — Vice President JD Vance and Trump’s deportation czar, Tom Homan, both of whom are Catholic — followed up on the president’s political attacks on Pope Leo XIV by effectively telling church leaders to keep quiet about politics. 

Vance recently told Fox News that the Vatican, under the first American pope, should stick to “matters of morality” and leave politics to Trump, as my MS NOW colleague Steve Benen noted. It was an absurd claim, particularly since Leo has always framed his objections to Trump’s war with Iran in moral terms.

But at a Turning Point USA event on Tuesday, Vance had the nerve to warn Leo to “be careful” when talking about, of all things, theology. “In the same way that it’s important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy,” Vance said, “I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”

Homan struck a similar tone in comments Tuesday, in response to a rebuke from several Catholic institutions of the administration’s racist anti-immigrant crackdown. Homan told reporters, “I wish they’d stay out of immigration,” referring to Catholic bishops, going on to say, “They don’t know what they’re talking about.” 

Homan later told pro-Trump news outlet Newsmax that faith leaders from the Vatican should “sit down and let me educate them” on immigration matters. “I’ve spent my whole life in the Catholic Church, but I’m disappointed that they want to weigh in on political issues like this,” he said.

Homan and Vance’s hubristic — and entirely ahistorical — complaints are typical of the Trump administration’s hypocrisy. “Shut up and dribble” was the phrase that MAGA world once used to scold athletes who spoke out about politics. Now top Trump officials are exhibiting a similar frustration with church leaders who speak out on politics, a sentiment best summarized as “shut up and preach.”

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