Pope Leo takes aim at MAGA’s false gospel

Even though Pope Leo XIV, the first-ever U.S.-born pontiff, was labeled the “woke pope” soon after he was chosen in May by cardinals to succeed the late Pope Francis, conservatives in the U.S. reportedly held out hope the new pope would abandon the progressivism of his outspoken predecessor. Now, five months into his tenure, the Chicago-born leader of the Catholic Church has angered MAGA-aligned conservatives on multiple fronts, including escalating his pointed criticisms of the Trump administration as it ramps up deportation operations.

“The fact that I am American means, among other things, people can’t say, like they did about Francis, ‘he doesn’t understand the United States, he just doesn’t see what’s going on,’” Leo said in a recent interview. Born Robert Francis Prevost on Chicago’s South Side, the pope reportedly voted in several Republican primaries. But an X account under his name, with tweets going as far back as 2015, previously shared links criticizing Trump’s approach to immigration and hinting at other political views, such as stricter gun control laws. “Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed?” he apparently posted in 2024, criticizing Trump’s meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele about deportation collaboration. In recent weeks, Leo has started to aim his criticisms directly at Trump’s regime, like the more aggressive posture sought by Secretary Pete Hegseth. “This wording, like going from minister of defense to minister of war — let’s hope it’s just a figure of speech,” he recently said in Italian. 

He named himself after Pope Leo XIII, who led the Catholic Church from 1878 to 1903, and was known as “The Pope of the Workers,” making it his mission to confront the ruthless laissez-faire economics of the era. During an interview with Crux, a Catholic news site, Leo XIV zeroed in on “some things going on in the (United) States that are of concern” in our current era, and suggested that “sometimes decisions are made more based on economics than on human dignity and human support.”

He got more specific in his Oct. 5 homily during the Holy Mass for the Jubilee of the Missions and of Migrants. Leo told a crowd of more than 10,000 people gathered in front of St. Peter’s Basilica that “in the communities of ancient Christian tradition, such as those of the West, the presence of many brothers and sisters from the world’s South should be welcomed as an opportunity, through an exchange that renews the face of the Church and sustains a Christianity that is more open, more alive and more dynamic.” He followed the sermon with a post on X that same day: “No one should be forced to flee, nor exploited or mistreated because of their situation as foreigners or people in need! Human dignity must always come first!” 

Before being named pope, Leo reposted an article headlined, “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” In January, the vice president invoked St. Augustine to justify the Trump administration’s decision to cut international aid and impose a brutal immigration crackdown. A Catholic convert, Vance told Fox News that “there is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritise the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.” 

“Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others,” the future Pope Leo said in response, calling the vice president “wrong.”

Needless to say, MAGA was already unhappy about the elevation of an American pope before he ever spoke out in an official capacity. Calling his selection “shocking,” former White House strategist Steve Bannon said Leo was the “worst pick for MAGA Catholics.” Right-wing agitator Laura Loomer immediately labeled Leo “Anti-Trump, anti-Maga, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis.” The late Charlie Kirk suggested Leo was an “open borders globalist installed to counter Trump.” The president, for his part, initially responded to the pope’s election with praise: “To have the pope from the United States of America, that’s a great honor.”

In an “Apostolic Exhortation” titled “Dilexi te” — which translates to “I have loved you” — the 40-page text, the pope said, was first started by Francis, but is ultimately his work. With its focus on what he labeled a “dictatorship” of wealth inequality, the document was seen by some on the right as confirmation of Leo’s condemnation of American conservatism.

“God has a special place in his heart for those who are discriminated against and oppressed, and he asks us, his church, to make a decisive and radical choice in favor of the weakest,” Leo wrote. “Thus, in a world where the poor are increasingly numerous, we paradoxically see the growth of a wealthy elite, living in a bubble of comfort and luxury, almost in another world compared to ordinary people.”:

The fact that some dismiss or ridicule charitable works, as if they were an obsession on the part of a few and not the burning heart of the church’s mission, convinces me of the need to go back and reread the Gospel, lest we risk replacing it with the wisdom of this world.

As the Washington Post noted, “the document’s release follows the most vocal 10 days of Leo’s pontificate.” Carrying on the work of his predecessor, Leo began his swing when he spoke to 1,000 representatives at the tenth anniversary celebration of Pope Francis’s climate summit, Laudato Si. One week after Trump claimed that climate change was a “con job” during an address at the United Nations General Assembly, Leo said that he hoped the Vatican conference would get leaders to “listen to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor.” Many in MAGA media mocked Leo for placing his hand on a large chunk of ice taken from a melting glacier in Greenland. Flanked by stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, the pope said, “We will raise hope by demanding that leaders act with courage, not delay.” He then asked: “Will you join with us?”

“Throw that holy water on these communists,” BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler ranted. “See how many demons jump out of them.” Calling the event “horrific,” Daily Wire pundit Matt Walsh said, “The leader of the Catholic Church shouldn’t be anywhere near this nonsense.”

Rather than abandoning Francis’ environmental legacy, as conservatives in the U.S. would like, Leo is overseeing a Vatican plan to convert an agricultural field north of Rome into a vast solar farm, which is expected to make Vatican City the world’s first carbon-neutral state. American conservatives, on the other hand, are too beholden to a powerful oil industry to be concerned about climate change.

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But what really infuriated conservatives was Leo’s response to a question about an award that Archbishop Blaise Cupich of Chicago planned to give to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the Senate whip who is retiring at the end of his term, in recognition of his advocacy for immigrants. More than ten bishops from around the country, including from Durbin’s home parish, objected, citing his record championing reproductive rights.

“I think that it’s very important to look at the overall work that a senator has done during, if I’m not mistaken, 40 years of service in the United States Senate,” the pope told reporters. “It’s important to look at many issues that are related to what is the teaching of the church. Someone who says ‘I’m against abortion’ but says ‘I’m in favor of the death penalty’ is not really pro-life. Someone who says ‘I’m against abortion, but I’m in favor of the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States’—I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”

That answer, as one senior Vatican official told the Post, shows that “the difference between Leo’s vision and Catholics of the right in the United States is clear.” Not long after Leo’s comments, Durbin announced that he had declined the award. 

“Awful stuff from the Pope,” Daily Wire pundit Matt Walsh, wrote on social media. “Just total error,” wrote far-right influencer Jack Posobiec, who attended a White House roundtable with the president this week. Christian influencer Allie Beth Stuckey slammed the pope’s remarks as “awful, left-wing logic.”

The conservative uproar for Leo to stay in his religious lane is especially comical, considering that “catholic” means universal. There is nothing especially controversial about what he has said and done so far. The Vatican remains steadfast in its fundamental teachings, even as Leo brings an entirely new atmosphere to the church with events like the first hip-hop performance at the Vatican. The modern Catholic church has consistently held to a pro-life position that encompasses more than abortion, including opposition to the death penalty.

Leo’s last few weeks in the public eye has been perhaps more political than many people expected. It’s been a period when the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics spoke up against the “pandemic of arms” following another American school shooting, called out Elon Musk for extravagant income inequality and met privately with Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, a critic of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, and Reverend James Martin, a leading advocate for LGBTQ Catholics. While Leo recently said it is “highly unlikely, certainly in the near future, that the church’s doctrine in terms of what the church teaches about sexuality, what the Church teaches about marriage, [will change],” he indicated support for softening hearts. “We have to change attitudes before we even think about changing what the Church says about any given question,” he told Crux. 

To MAGA’s dismay, now that Leo has begun expressing his views, there is little indication he plans to rein them in. The first American pope “was very clear that what is happening to migrants in the United States right now is an injustice,” Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Texas-based Hope Border Institute, who attended Leo’s meeting with Seitz, told the Post. “He said the church cannot remain silent.”