When the late Pope Francis challenged Donald Trump on immigration, climate change and poverty during the president’s first term, the White House and its allies responded with a collective shrug.
But with Catholic Cardinals choosing an American to lead the Church for the first time in its history, that will change. The Chicago-born Robert Prevost, America’s first pope, has a worldview that appears to be at odds with “America First.”
Elected on just the second day of voting, Pope Leo could become a global rival to the president, one who has the homegrown credibility to sway Catholic Republicans more than his predecessor did and speak with a voice that has a louder boom here in the U.S.
Trump on Thursday immediately praised the selection of Leo, who lived most of his adult life in Peru, promising to meet with the new pope soon.
“It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope. What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our Country. I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!” Trump posted on Truth Social.
But it’s not difficult to imagine the looming conflicts to come. Like his predecessor, Leo hails from a more progressive, inclusive wing of Catholicism, preaching peace and the importance of building bridges in his first address from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, though it appears he still holds traditional Catholic views on LGBTQ+ issues.
Already, the pope is earning enemies in his homeland as conservative Catholics in Washington, D.C., sent flurries of texts Thursday afternoon sharing posts from a social media account under Leo’s name criticizing Trump and Vice President JD Vance. POLITICO has not been able to independently confirm the authenticity of the account. The Vatican press office, the Vatican’s embassy to the U.S. and the diocese in Chicago and Peru did not respond to questions.
Why the cardinals chose an American for the first time is likely to remain within the Sistine Chapel’s walls. But Leo’s selection comes at a pivotal moment as America’s place on the world stage is more uncertain than ever. The U.S. has slashed foreign aid and become growingly skittish about involving itself in global conflicts, no longer content to be the world’s policeman.
“The fact that he’s American raises the possibility that the front-and-center issues are going to continue to be sort of first-world issues — and that could be, again, a recipe for division and tension with the administration,” said Ramesh Ponnuru, a conservative commentator and practicing Catholic.
Leo’s American citizenship is likely to give him a certain cache with the president — and, should he so choose, the authority to offer critiques from a worldview that the Argentine Francis lacked.
“I don’t know that, substantively, the new pope is going to be different in terms of he’s still going to say we have to take care of the poor, obviously, as he should. But it might not have that same kind of sweeping character of condemnation that we sometimes got from Francis” by virtue of Leo’s American upbringing, Ponnuru said.
Some Catholic Church observers say Leo is stylistically different from Francis and likely to take a more measured approach than the outspoken one his predecessor was known for. Francis most recently clashed with Vance over a theological concept surrounding the structuring of love, known as ordo amoris.
The elevation of Leo also comes at an pivotal moment for the Catholic Church, whose leadership is drifting leftward even as people in the U.S. who regularly attend Mass have been drifting to the right. Recent years have seen an increasing embrace of traditional Catholicism — adherents are colloquially referred to as “trad caths” — who prefer traditional Latin mass and reject what they perceived as a movement toward modernism in the Church.
“Bit of a mixed reaction to Prevost, honestly. DC is a tradcath capital so we were hoping one of the more conservative candidates would be picked,” one MAGA Catholic who works in politics, granted anonymity to speak freely about the reaction to Leo’s selection, said over text. “Prevost will be Francis-like, I think. Sympathetic to his progressive causes but a little more restrained.”
One of the president’s most prominent Catholic allies, Steve Bannon, called Leo the “worst pick for MAGA Catholics,” deeming him the “anti-Trump pope.”
“This is an anti-Trump vote by the globalists that run the Curia — this is the pope Bergoglio and his clique wanted,” said Bannon, referring to Francis by his given name, Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
A group of hard-line conservative Catholics had launched what was essentially a lobbying campaign for a more conservative pope. One of the hard-right candidates, Athanasius Schneider, a bishop in Kazakhstan, had claimed that refugees in Europe are a “mass invasion” leading to the spread of Islam, while another, American Cardinal Raymond Burke, actually endorsed Trump.
Not all Trump allies were downcast about the pick, though. MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk suggested in missives that he’d dug up a party tracking file he claimed was proof the pope was a Republican, which POLITICO has also not been able to independently verify. Others like conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt appeared to welcome the rise of an American to what is essentially the most public religious leadership position in the world.
What’s more, Trump — who loves the pomp and circumstance of any major celebration — is likely to be genuinely curious about the new pope.
The president has been particularly warm as of late in his embrace of Catholics after winning 59 percent support among the group’s voters in the 2024 election. He carried Catholics with 50 percent support in 2016 and former President Joe Biden won Catholics with 52 percent support in 2020, according to CNN exit polling. Vance is also only the second Catholic to hold the office, after Biden, and Trump’s Cabinet is stacked with Catholics. Despite his frequent clashes with Francis, Trump made a whirlwind trip to Rome late last month to attend Francis’ funeral, days after Vance had a brief audience with the pontiff in his final hours.
It is unclear whether those feelings translate to the papacy, though Trump did attribute his decision to attend Francis’ funeral in part to his win of the Catholic vote. In recent days, Trump has also joked that he should be picked as the new pope, posting to his Truth Social account an AI-generated image depicting him as such that was later shared by the White House. Some Catholics called the gesture distasteful.
Vance, in a post on X, wished Leo only congratulations.
“I’m sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for his successful work leading the Church. May God bless him!” Vance wrote.
Irie Sentner and Jessica Piper contributed to this report.
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