Pope Leo XIV fired back after President Donald Trump attacked him on social media, saying his calls for peace are rooted in the Gospel and should not be treated as a political argument with the White House.

“I have no fear of the Trump administration,” the pope told reporters aboard the papal plane Monday en route to Algeria.

“The message of the church, my message, the message of the Gospel: Blessed are the Peacemakers. I do not look at my role as being political, a politician,” he added.

Trump had criticized the pope’s positions on Sunday in a scathing rebuke on Truth Social.

POPE LEO URGES WAR LEADERS TO HALT FIGHTING AFTER DEADLY STRIKE ON SCHOOL SPARKS OUTRAGE

“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” Trump began in a lengthy post.

“Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church,” he concluded.

The pope responded Monday, taking a shot at Trump’s Truth Social  – “it’s ironic, the name of the site itself; say no more” – despite claiming “I will not enter into debate.”

POPE LEO XIV TO VISIT FASTEST-GROWING CATHOLIC CONTINENT DURING 4-NATION AFRICA TRIP

“The things that I say are certainly not meant as attacks on anyone,” he also said, speaking in English, adding, “I don’t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing. I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among the states to look for just solutions to problems.”

“Too many people are suffering in the world today,” Leo added. “Too many innocent people are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say there’s a better way.”

VATICAN DECLINES TO JOIN TRUMP’S GAZA ‘BOARD OF PEACE,’ CALLS FOR UN LEADERSHIP

The pope’s stance against Trump’s peace efforts in the Middle East came after the president’s Sunday night Air Force One tarmac comments.

“We don’t like a pope that’s going to say that it’s okay to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters, echoing remarks from the Truth Social post. “We don’t want a pope that says crime is okay in our cities. I don’t like it.”

“I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person, and he’s a man that doesn’t believe in stopping crime,” Trump added. “He’s a man that doesn’t think that we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world.”

POPE WARNS ESCALATING IRAN CONFLICT COULD TIP MIDDLE EAST INTO ‘IRREPARABLE ABYSS’

Leo claimed he was speaking for the church and not himself or Iran.

“To put my message on the same plane as what the president has attempted to do here, I think is not understanding what the message of the Gospel is,” Leo said. “And I’m sorry to hear that but I will continue on what I believe is the mission of the church in the world today.”

Trump claimed Leo has him to thank for being elevated to pope, the first American pope.

“I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA,” Trump wrote in his Truth Social post. “He gets it, and Leo doesn’t.”

“If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican,” Trump said.

The Denver Broncos took a flyer on quarterback Paxton Lynch during the 2016 NFL Draft, selecting him in the first round that year in one of the event’s biggest shockers.

However, the former Memphis Tigers standout would only play five NFL games before he bounced around the league from practice squad to practice squad. He was last seen on the Pittsburgh Steelers’ roster in 2020.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM

Lynch was attempting to find a route back into the NFL and landed with the Colorado Spartans of the National Arena League before the 2026 season. He was in his third game with the Spartans when he suffered a torn LCL.

“I was p—ed off,” he told The Denver Post. “And it sucks. I didn’t want it to be like this.”

Lynch appeared to take solace in being able to play again – even if it was in an indoor football league. He suggested he was up for the challenge.

PROJECTED TOP 10 NFL DRAFT PROSPECT WAS DRIVER IN 2024 DEADLY CRASH

“I was like, ‘OK, if I play this year in arena football, I’m going to play as Paxton Lynch. I’m going to have full confidence in myself. I don’t really care.’ And that’s what I did,” he told the paper.

“It felt good to do that again.”

He had three touchdown passes in three games with Colorado. Javin Kilgo replaced him at quarterback. Through five games, Colorado is 2-3.

Lynch told The Denver Post he wasn’t sure if he would play in 2027, but if the National Arena League is where his career ended, he said he was just fine with that.

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Archaeologists have uncovered a previously unknown remnant of Thomas Jefferson’s era at Monticello: a brick kiln used to build his home.

The kiln was recently found on the east side of the Founding Father’s home amid an excavation that began in March, officials said.

Monticello historians believe it dates back to the early 1770s — some time before Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

MASSIVE INDUSTRIAL SITE UNCOVERED IN UNLIKELY LOCATION AS ARCHAEOLOGISTS CITE ‘ENORMOUS’ POTENTIAL

It was part of the construction of Monticello I, the first version of Jefferson’s home. 

The current structure reflects a later rebuild and expansion completed after his time in France, after 1789. 

Photos from the site show researchers working around a rectangular dig at Monticello, exposing evenly spaced brick channels and revealing several bricks stamped with initials.

The kiln was a large, temporary oven used to harden bricks, said Crystal O’Connor, manager of archaeological field research at Monticello.

LEGENDARY CAPTAIN WHO INSPIRED ‘THE THREE MUSKETEERS’ MAY HAVE BEEN FOUND UNDER CHURCH ALTAR

O’Connor told Fox News Digital that archaeologists found brick channels “filled with overcooked brick rubble, and the soil beneath them had been baked hard by intense heat.”

Archaeologists “immediately started hitting brick, and uncovered a series of low parallel brick walls, evenly spaced about a foot and a half apart, with channels running between them,” she said.

“While the team and I weren’t sure of what we were looking at initially, that pattern is a telltale sign of a brick kiln,” O’Connor added.

Workers once stacked thousands of unfired bricks atop the kiln and kept fires burning for several days until the bricks, eventually used to build Monticello, hardened.

“When the firing was done, workers took the kiln apart and carried the finished bricks to the house,” said O’Connor.

She added, “This kiln was crucial to building the home of the author of the Declaration of Independence.“

TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ

O’Connor noted that it was likely run by George Dudley or William Bishop, two White workmen who were hired by Jefferson — and that it relied heavily on slave labor.

Though Jefferson wasn’t making the bricks by hand, the Virginia statesman was certainly aware of the kiln’s existence.

“Jefferson knew about this work because he contracted with his brickmakers for a set number of bricks before each major building campaign,” O’Connor said.

“He would not have overseen the firings himself. Dudley or Bishop would have managed that process.”

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER

O’Connor said records show Jefferson calculated whether hauling finished bricks uphill or producing them on site was more efficient in late 1774.

“We wonder if the brickmakers themselves pointed out the problem of dragging barrels of water and loads of firewood uphill, and if that helped push Jefferson to do the math and move the work downhill, closer to the raw materials,” she added.

O’Connor noted that “very few” artifacts were found at the site, other than bricks — but 18th-century remnants were interesting nonetheless.

These included “several bricks shaped in special molds to match the design of the house.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE LIFESTYLE STORIES

“These are decorative bricks with curved and S-shaped profiles,” said O’Connor. “Jefferson used them in the exterior brickwork of the dining room wall, which dates to around 1772.”

She added, “They don’t appear anywhere else on the house and represent a crazy amount of customization. Finding them in the rubble next to the kiln is what tells us it dates to the early 1770s.”

The official stressed the importance of archaeology at Monticello, especially because the kiln was entirely unrecorded in Jefferson’s maps, drawings, notes and letters.

“The discovery has already changed how we understand the building of Monticello,” she said.

“Even at one of the best-documented historic sites in America, archaeology keeps revealing what the written record does not.”