The Right Wanted a MAGA Pope. Let’s Check In on How That’s Going.

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The new American pope, Leo XIV, has somehow managed, in the four months since his election, to stay mostly out of the news. His predecessor, Pope Francis, had been committed to expanding the church’s modern appeal, reaching out to divorced and LGBTQ+ Catholics and expanding the church’s identity beyond Europe. He made enemies along the way, cracking down on the traditional Latin Mass, which had become associated with dissident traditionalism.

Leo, then known as Robert Prevost, was elected to be a safer if somewhat boring stabilizing force, meant to heal the rifts Francis left. So far, he has largely made good on that vision. He has continued Francis’ priorities on climate change, Gaza, and migrants but used careful, noninflammatory language. He has also extended olive branches^[2] to traditionalists by twice meeting with one of Francis’ loudest critics and allowing him to celebrate the Latin Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, in the Vatican. He has appeased both sides of the gay rights conversation by presenting himself as neither a reformer nor a reactionary, de-emphasizing the issue overall. He has shown little interest in wading into the culture wars that define so much of U.S. Catholicism.

But this week, that record broke, primarily because of a petty fight over Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin.

The conflict revolved around an award that U.S. Cardinal Blase Cupich planned to give Durbin, a Democrat who is retiring at the end of his term, in recognition of his advocacy for immigrants. When about a dozen bishops^[3] and other conservative Catholic figures objected, citing Durbin’s record of supporting abortion access, it became big enough of a story in Catholic media for Leo to be asked about it^[4].

The pope, while speaking in Italian to reporters on Tuesday, offered to take one question in English. A reporter from a conservative Catholic publication then asked him what he thought of the cardinal’s decision. The pope gave a small laugh and said he was not “terribly familiar” with the situation. But then he went on:

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. … 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.

Since Leo became pope, many American conservatives have hoped to have found a new and powerful ally in Rome. Most knew that Leo would take a more progressive stance on immigration, but there had been signs, given his past statements, that on issues related to reproduction and sexuality, the pontiff might break from his predecessor and emphasize stark positions on personal sexual morality. Many conservative Catholics bemoaned Francis’ seeming lack of concern for sexual sins and excessive attention paid to structural societal problems. Leo, they figured, might recognize the urgency of fighting abortion, same-sex marriage, and other corrupting influences of modernity. And as an American with fluency in U.S. politics, he could, in a way his South American precursor could not, understand the political party responsible and repudiate it. Leo, they hoped, could put the American church squarely on their side in the culture wars. But with this answer, Leo made it clear he wasn’t interested in joining anyone’s team.

When Leo first became pope, both sides of the American political spectrum saw signs of a potential ally: the left because he had, as a cardinal, criticized J.D. Vance and the deportation policies of the Trump administration; and the right because Leo seemed committed to holding the church’s line on abortion and same-sex relationships and appeared to enjoy the more traditional liturgy and aesthetics elements championed by conservatives. This answer appeared to show that he was aware of the infighting in the U.S. church and willing to challenge both sides.

And it wasn’t just the Durbin case. Answering a question in Italian about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s meeting of senior military officials, at which Donald Trump gave a speech, Leo deemed the American leaders’ rhetoric “concerning” and indicated his displeasure: “This wording, like going from minister of defense to minister of war—let’s hope it’s just a figure of speech.”

Conservative Catholics and right-wing pundits received the news with dismay. One popular dissident figure in the church, the former bishop of Tyler, Texas, wrote that^[5] Leo’s comment “undermines the very foundation of the Gospel of Life.” “Awful stuff from the Pope,” pundit Matt Walsh, a Roman Catholic, wrote on social media^[6]. “Truly horrendous on about five different levels,” he added. “Just total error,” wrote far-right influencer^[7] Jack Posobiec, another Catholic. Non-Catholics weighed in as well. Christian influencer Allie Beth Stuckey, an evangelical, called the pope’s remarks^[8] “awful, left-wing logic.”

The Durbin incident, though, tapped into a deeper tradition of conflict in the Catholic Church in the U.S. By the time Cupich announced that Durbin would receive a lifetime-achievement award from a Chicago ministry, Durbin was already a veteran of the Catholic culture wars. For the past two decades^[9], he had been unable to receive Holy Communion, a rite the church considers the central sacred component of its worship services, from his own parish. Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield had personally upheld Durbin’s ban, citing the politician’s support for abortion. Paprocki has long been controversial in his leadership, having called on priests in 2017 to deny Communion and funeral rites to people in same-sex unions^[10]. In 2018 Paprocki declared bans against^[11] any lawmaker in his diocese who supported abortion rights legislation. It was Paprocki who rallied his conservative allies in protesting Durbin’s award.

Catholic clergy members have long debated whether to withhold Communion to challenge or punish politicians with whom they disagree. John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden have all been warned by individual bishops that they would be denied Communion. Francis always denounced such ploys, saying that Communion was not a reward for perfect behavior but a kind of spiritual nourishment for everyone, including sinners. But the U.S. Catholic leadership, which in the past few decades has grown significantly more conservative than the global church, has recently realized the power of this tool in making political statements.

So although this was not a fight over Communion, it follows the same kinds of patterns: urgently protesting a politician for their views on abortion while ignoring others’ views on the death penalty or immigration, issues on which the church holds more-progressive stances. Just in the past couple of weeks, for example, Bishop Robert Barron, an influential media figure in the Catholic world, called Charlie Kirk an “apostle of civil discourse,” while Cardinal Timothy Dolan described him as a “modern-day St. Paul.” (Leo himself spoke of Kirk^[16] shortly after the assassination, but only to condemn political violence and pray for his family.) Many U.S. Catholic clergy had no problem celebrating Kirk, whose positions on immigration, Palestine, climate change, race relations, and a host of other issues were entirely at odds with the Vatican’s. The American Catholic Church has embraced a partisan political fight, something ill fitting for the global church. Pope Francis found this tiring. So, it seems, does Leo.

“I would ask first and foremost that there be greater respect for one another,” Leo said on Tuesday, in answering the question about Durbin. “And that we search together, both as human beings—in that case as American citizens, or citizens of the state of Illinois—as well as Catholics, to say we need to really look closely at all of these ethical issues and to find the way forward as a church. Church teaching on each one of those issues is very clear.”

Putting aside the bizarre reality of a Catholic pope’s knowing the names of the senators from Illinois—it’s his home state!—the incident showed that Leo is paying attention to U.S. Catholic politics and willing to weigh in.

Despite the pontiff’s remarks, conservatives can still expect to see success when they threaten Democratic politicians with religious opprobrium. On Tuesday, not long after Leo’s comments, Durbin announced that he had declined the award. One Catholic publication has reported^[18] that the U.S. bishops had been planning to release a statement about the accolade. Durbin, Cupich, and the Vatican all had reasons to want to avoid such a divisive spectacle.

But Cupich, in a statement^[19] issued in response to Durbin’s refusal of the award, still expressed concern at the idea that Catholics could never work alongside Democratic politicians.

Polling tends to show that when it comes to public policies Catholics themselves remain divided along partisan lines, much like all Americans. This impasse has become more entrenched over the years. … Some would say that the Church should never honor a political leader if he pursues policies diametrically opposed to critical elements of Catholic social teaching. But the tragic reality in our nation today is that there are essentially no Catholic public officials who consistently pursue the essential elements of Catholic social teaching because our party system will not permit them to do so.

The cardinal’s point is that for as long as Catholics insist that abortion is the great, singular evil, there are only two options left for church leaders in the U.S.: either to fully retreat from trying to find allies in Congress, weakening the activism on behalf of migrants and environmental causes that they feel morally compelled to pursue; or to attach themselves entirely to the Republican Party. Many American bishops see the appeal of the latter. These bishops were eager to learn how Leo, the first American pope, would respond to that approach. They got an initial answer to that question this week. They didn’t like it very much.

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