The new pope, Leo XIV, or Robert Prevost, is the first American to be elected pope. Unfortunately, that is not such a great honor for the American Catholics as one might assume, since Prevost has made multiple comments in the past indicating his leftist political views and opposition to both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. While Prevost has reportedly been a Republican in the past, one of Trump‘s major platform policies roused the new pope’s ire.
The great Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who was born on this day in 1895, once observed, “America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance — it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded.” That is absolutely true both of America and the Vatican right now, and sadly, the new pope seems to be one of those broad-minded, tolerant leftists who have brought so much trouble on our world.
Trump is excited by the election of the first American pope, but he will probably be less excited when he finds out how Leo XIV has criticized and bemoaned Trump‘s immigration policies. As it happens, since the pope can only pronounce infallibly on certain topics in certain circumstances as prescribed by canon law, the pope cannot demand that Catholics have to believe in open borders. But it is disappointing that the new pope should be apparently so much on the side of lawbreaking criminals and so little on the side of his fellow American citizens. Where is his love and empathy for the victims of illegal alien crime or for the Americans struggling to make ends meet while their taxpayer dollars help illegal aliens live high?
Oddly enough, Prevost is supposedly a registered Republican. It therefore remains to be seen whether, as pope, he is willing to prioritize his pro-life views over his pro-illegal immigration views. Regardless of his past voting history, he certainly seems opposed to Trump and Vance’s platform.
As far back as 2015, Prevost was posting, “Why Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is so problematic.” GB News reported on how Prevost also very recently reposted a comment that said, “As Trump & Bukele use Oval to [laughing emoji] Feds’ illicit deportation of a US resident, once an undoc-ed Salvadorean himself, now-DC Aux +Evelio asks, ‘Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?’” Indeed, the post remains at the top of Prevost’s personal X feed, his most recent tweet before he went to the conclave and was elected pope.
On February 3, Prevost posted, “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others.” The article he included bashed Vance, even while acknowledging that the VP’s opinion is one rooted in hundreds of years of Catholic thinking (at least back to Aquinas), for believing we need to love our own citizens first.
JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others https://t.co/hDKPKuMXmu via @NCRonline
— Robert Prevost (@drprevost) February 3, 2025
Related: Meet the New American Pope of the Catholic Church
The article utilized the tired claim that because Jesus told a parable about a Samaritan, who was an outcast/foreigner among the Jews of that era, America is therefore required to welcome every criminal illegal who shows up on the border and erase our national sovereignty. Of course, Jesus also affirmed the authority of political rulers and refused himself to get involved in political disputes, which is the only activity that seems to interest modern leftist clerics (see Mark 12:17, and John 18:36). The Catholic Church always affirmed national sovereignty until the last 60 or so years with illegal immigration.
Also in February, Prevost posted, “Pope Francis’ letter, JD Vance’s ‘ordo amoris’ and what the Gospel asks of all of us on immigration.” The article he posted was promoting Pope Francis‘s letter bashing the Trump administration for its immigration enforcement. I was not able to find any tweets from Prevost commenting on or criticizing Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.
In actuality, Trump and Vance are much more in the long tradition of Catholic thought upholding national sovereignty, including popular sovereignty, and Christ’s validation of lawful and just political authority. The Catechism of the Catholic Church even explicitly affirms the right of a country to regulate immigration and the obligation of immigrants to obey a country‘s laws. Hopefully Leo XIV will come to see the error of his ways and align his papal actions more with the Bible than with the Democrat Party platform.
