If you are outraged—which would be both understandable and justifiable—by President Donald Trump’s social media attack last night on Pope Leo, take a moment to step back and follow the pope’s example rather than taking the president’s bait.

You may remember that at the beginning of May, during the preparation for the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV, the president posted an A.I.-generated image of himself as pope dressed in a white cassock and miter, his hand raised in blessing. The White House’s official X account later reposted the image, which remains up on the account.

As the America team in Rome and back at home discussed how much to cover that story, I reminded my colleagues that to the degree that the Trump-as-pope meme meant anything, it meant that Mr. Trump was unable to tolerate anyone other than himself commanding the world’s attention.

Mr. Trump posted a screed against Pope Leo late on the evening of Sunday, April 12. It was, as my colleague James Martin, S.J., posted last night, “unhinged, uncharitable and un-Christian.” It was immeasurably beneath the dignity of the office of the president. (Not satisfied with merely attacking the Vicar of Christ, Mr. Trump posted another A.I.-generated image, this one seeming to depict himself as Jesus.)

Mr. Trump’s post also makes little sense. It achieves the almost impressive feat of becoming less coherent the longer you think about it.

It slams Pope Leo as “WEAK on crime,” probably Trumpian code for Leo’s opposition to the administration’s immigration policy. It then veers into a tirade about priests and ministers being arrested for holding services during the pandemic, followed by Mr. Trump’s praise for the pope’s brother Louis as “all MAGA.” Finally, turning to the foreign policy disagreements that probably triggered the post, it accuses Leo of thinking “it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.” (Not only does Pope Leo not think Iran should have nuclear weapons, he does not think any country should have them, including the United States.)

In the most muddled part of the attack, Mr. Trump says he is the reason that Leo got elected as pope and that the cardinals in conclave thought that was “the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.” This manages to be wrong both coming and going. It is farcical as an account of the motives of the cardinals and, as I will explain below, it misunderstands the purpose of Leo’s own witness entirely.

Far more telling than anything in the president’s post was the timing of it. During a weekend full of bad news for Mr. Trump, his post followed a lack of progress in negotiations with Iran and the resounding electoral loss of his favorite European leader, Viktor Orban, in Hungary. Relative to the Catholic world, his post came the day after Pope Leo XIV led a prayer vigil for peace in St. Peter’s and was joined in prayer all around the world. It came within hours of a “60 Minutes” broadcast of an unprecedented joint interview by three U.S. cardinals, in which they clearly laid out the church’s moral objection to both the Iran war and the administration’s mass deportation agenda.

Mr. Trump, however, was not responding to any of those events in kind. Mr. Trump’s outburst is not trying to convince anyone of his claims but rather to make people angry. In that sense, its incoherence is more a feature than a bug.

The way his attack on the pope functions best for Mr. Trump, like so much of the ragebait with which he pollutes our collective consciousness, is by pulling attention back to him so that we talk about him within terms that he has set. If we are doing that, Mr. Trump does not much care, I suspect, whether we agree with him or oppose him, because at least we are back in orbit around him.

Perhaps the way in which Pope Leo presents the greatest challenge to President Trump is in his consistent demonstration of what it looks like to remain morally centered on the Gospel instead of acting for or against Mr. Trump’s interests. In general, even when offering critiques that respond to American foreign policy moves, as in his description of Mr. Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization as “truly unacceptable,” Pope Leo does not mention the president by name. In part, this follows well-established Vatican diplomatic practice, but it is also meant to remind us that the pope is speaking more from principle than he is in response to persons, even the most powerful person on earth. When Leo is speaking more explicitly about persons, it is to call our attention back to people who are suffering: the poor and the victims of war or violence.

Leo has also encouraged U.S. bishops to speak up more forcefully and more frequently. As can be seen in recent days, both from the “60 Minutes” interview by Cardinals Cupich, McElroy and Tobin and the swift response by Archbishop Paul Coakley, the president of the national bishops’ conference, to Mr. Trump’s threat against Iranian civilization, the pope has been strikingly successful in encouraging the bishops to exercise such leadership.

That encouragement has been most significant and most effective on immigration. Back in September, in his first major interview, the pope said in response to a question on engaging with Mr. Trump that “I think that it would be much more appropriate for the leadership in the church within the United States to engage him, quite seriously.” Shortly thereafter, after direct encouragement from Pope Leo to Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso for the U.S. bishops to speak in a united voice, the bishops issued a near-unanimous “special message” on immigration, decrying the “indiscriminate mass deportation of people.”

Pope Leo’s teaching and moral witness enables and elevates the moral witness of others, from his brother bishops to Catholic laypeople to non-Catholics who are inspired by his calls for peace. This is what Mr. Trump does not really understand about Leo, I suspect: The pope aims at more than just getting people to pay attention to him and to do what he wants. He is making a moral appeal as the Vicar of Christ, announcing both the mercy and the challenge of the Gospel’s call for peace and refusal of the sword, and inviting people to rise to meet it.

On the flight to Algeria at the beginning of his journey to Africa today, Pope Leo spoke briefly about Mr. Trump’s attack, saying, “I have no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor 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.” In his post on Sunday night, Mr. Trump told Leo to “focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.” On the plane, Leo said: “I do not look at my role as being political, a politician. I don’t want to get into a debate with him. I don’t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing.”

Pope Leo is giving us an example of how to respond from the virtues of faith rather than just in answer to what is insulting. Do not cooperate with the outrage that fuels the engines of anger and keeps the wheels of attention spinning so fast that you cannot focus on anything else. Focus on the Gospel instead.

Focusing on the Gospel does not mean you should not be disappointed with this misuse of the presidential office. By all means, go ahead and call on Catholics who defend Mr. Trump or try to avoid addressing his attack to speak up against it; but do not get stuck there if they fail to meet the moment.

Instead, take up and amplify Pope Leo’s call for peace. Redouble your own prayers for peace and invite others to pray with you. If you have not already watched it, spend time with the “60 Minutes” interview and share it with others. Follow the advice Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C., gave at the end of his homily on Saturday during the vigil for peace: “As citizens and believers in this democracy that we cherish so deeply, we must advocate for peace with our representatives and leaders. It is not enough to say we have prayed. We must also act.”

Christian faith is being misused and disgraced by those, including the president, who claim to act in its defense while ignoring its meaning and values. But the Gospel demands more from us than to be outraged on its behalf, and Jesus who carried the Cross and bore the insults of the powers of the world does not need us to defend his honor—instead, he reminds us that in our care for the least of these, the poor and vulnerable of the world, we encounter him face to face.