And when you believe the success of your religion depends on the success of any politician, it’s only a matter of time before politics becomes your religion. That means that too many Christians will evaluate even the Pope through a partisan political lens.
And that’s exactly what happened last week, as people found the new Pope’s social media feeds and began devouring his old posts. Is the new Pope MAGA? Is he woke? How does he fit into the American culture war?
The headline of a story from The Federalist, a MAGA publication, said it all – “Read the New Pope’s Far-Left Takes on Immigration, Climate, Covid and Race Relations”.
And what is far left about the new Pope? It turns out that he was opposed to family separation for migrants crossing the border during Trump’s first term, and disagreed with Vice President J.D. Vance’s interpretation of a theological idea called ordo amoris, which Vance had used to argue that American compassion “belongs first to your fellow citizens”.
Leo had also expressed his sympathy after the death of George Floyd, reposting a tweet by Bishop Michael Olson that said, “I join my voice and prayers to those of my brother bishops that we might work hard to end racism in our hearts and in society. May God give comfort to the family of #GeorgeFloyd in this time of anguish.”
He also posted, “We need to hear more from leaders in the Church, to reject racism and seek justice.”
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That’s far left? It seems simply Christian to me.
The new Pope had also reposted a message from Democratic senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut in support of gun control in 2017, and reposted a message expressing alarm that the US wouldn’t meet its carbon-emission goals, also in 2017. He expressed support for the COVID vaccine, reposting in 2021 a message that said, “May God grant us the grace to face #COVID19 with the strength of faith, ensuring that vaccines are available for all, so that we can all get immunised.”
Again, these positions aren’t far left. They’re all quite mainstream. But if your catechism is the MAGA party platform, then the Pope’s positions are very challenging indeed.
At the same time, he doesn’t fit well into the Democratic box, either. He is strongly anti-abortion, and he upholds the church’s traditional teachings on sexual morality and gender identity. Don’t look for Leo to alter the church’s doctrines on abortion or marriage.
So, no, the Pope is neither MAGA nor woke. He’s Catholic, and party platforms are irrelevant to church doctrine.
It is not the church’s power or wealth, but the church’s witness, that helps transform the world.
In the case of Leo, the church’s witness to the world also becomes part of America’s witness to the world. Millions of Americans have been lamenting that the most prominent American in the world is a person who embodies cruelty and spite.
Many of us (and certainly many dissenting evangelicals) are also lamenting that Trump owes his victory to the evangelical church more than to any other group in American life. He won the votes of white evangelicals by a 65-point margin. He lost the rest of the electorate by 18 points. Trump’s election, in other words, isn’t just an expression of American political will; it’s also an expression of American Christian will.
He’s also the living embodiment of one of America’s most important and profound transformations – from a Protestant-dominated nation that was often deeply intolerant of Catholicism and Catholics to a nation in which people of all faiths can worship freely.
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Leo will forge his own path, and it’s important not to read too much into various tweets and social media posts. But if there is one thing we can glean from the new Pope’s words and the way he has lived his life, it’s that he shares Pope Francis’ love for the poor and the vulnerable. He’s expressing and trying to embody a religious faith that views all life as precious.
“The church,” the Reverend Martin Luther King jnr said, “must be reminded once again that it is not to be the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state”. The Catholic Church, however, is a global church. It’s not the conscience of one nation. It is the conscience of many nations.
As one American steps onto the world stage as a man of malice, another American answers, leading with love and compassion. They represent two starkly different visions of American character. And, if all goes well, Leo will command the world stage long after Trump is gone from public life.
I don’t know what kind of pope Leo will ultimately become. But on Thursday, I felt the cultural wind shift just a tiny bit. An American man who confounds political categories now leads the world’s largest church. As a friend texted me right after the Pope’s selection was announced, that shift “almost feels like … hope”.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
