The Conclave has spoken, and President Donald Trump will not be the next pope. Instead, that designation will go to Robert Francis Prevost, who will be known as Pope Leo XIV, the Vatican announced on Thursday.
Leo, who is 69 years old and was born in Chicago, will be the first American pope following the April 21 death of Pope Francis—and everyone wants to claim it as a win for their side of the political aisle. To some on the right, Leo’s selection is a boon for Trump’s “America-first” administration. To other Republicans, he is not pro-Trump enough, based on a series of seemingly critical posts on his X account. The left, on the other hand, is eating those up.
Trump called Leo’s selection “a Great Honor for our Country” in a Truth Social post congratulating him. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk claimed that voting records show Leo is a strong Republican who has consistently voted conservatively. Some of his prior comments appear to make him indistinguishable from the MAGA crowd: The New York Times previously reported that in 2012, Leo spoke out against what he called “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.” And as a bishop in Peru, Leo railed against what he called “the promotion of gender ideology” in schools, which he alleged “seeks to create genders that don’t exist.”
But Trump opponents quickly pointed to Leo’s X account as evidence that the new pope may be a member of the resistance. Leo’s most recent repost shared comments from Evelio Menjiva, an auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, who criticized the Trump administration’s seemingly illegal deportations to El Salvador.
Leo also posted two links this year that criticized Vice President JD Vance following Vance’s attempt to use an ancient Catholic concept to justify the administration’s mass deportations of immigrants, which Francis blasted as incorrect. “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others,” read the headline of one article Leo posted. Ten days later, Leo shared another article recounting Vance’ and Francis’s different interpretations of the doctrine. Nonetheless, Vance congratulated him on his selection as pope on Thursday.
In May 2020, at the height of protests following the police murder of George Floyd, Leo wrote: “We need to hear more from leaders in the Church, to reject racism and seek justice.” And during Trump’s first term, Leo shared posts decrying Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and the violence in Charlottesville, where Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides”; supporting Dreamers; urging Trump to take action on climate change; and criticizing Trump’s Muslim ban.
Some political strategists and advocates on the left pointed to these posts as evidence that the pope shared their politics. Some of Trump’s most ardent supporters, on the other hand, were triggered. Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer called him “anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis” in a post on X.
“Catholics don’t have anything good to look forward to,” she added. “Just another Marxist puppet in the Vatican.”
After far-right activist and Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec dug up Leo’s prior X posts, he wrote, “God Save the Church,” and, “The Pope is not infallible on political matters.”
The truth is that only time will tell where Leo falls on the ideological spectrum. As his own record suggests, he will more than likely not be a faithful adherent to either side of the political aisle. Pope Francis was not either. While he supported immigrants and Palestinians under Israeli bombardment and tepidly welcomed gay people into the Church, he was firmly anti-abortion, reportedly repeatedly used an anti-gay slur, and claimed “gender theory…does not recognize the order of creation.”
Like Francis, we can only expect Leo to be fully loyal to the man upstairs.
