Any honeymoon Pope Leo XIV had with American conservatives could be over, after he indirectly and unexpectedly took aim at the hard-line immigration policies of the U.S. government.
Leo, a Chicago native, was asked about plans by Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich to give a lifetime achievement award to Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin for his work helping immigrants. The plans drew objections from some conservative U.S. bishops opposed to abortion, given that Durbin is a pro-choice Democrat.
Leo said he wasn’t familiar with the specific initiative, but that the “overall work” of the senator could be considered as it “related to the teachings of the Church.”
“Someone who says I’m against abortion but is in favour of the death penalty is not really pro-life,” Leo told reporters on Tuesday. “Someone who says I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
Former Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland, a fierce Francis critic who was relieved from duty by the late pope but has praised Leo, criticized the new pope on social media for causing “much confusion … regarding the sanctity of human life and the moral clarity of the Church’s teaching.”
Leo’s predecessor, Francis, drew conservative Catholic ire throughout his 12-year papacy. Francis spurned much of the pomp of papacy, repeatedly clamped down on the traditional Latin Mass and allowed priests to bless same-sex couples on a case-by-case basis.
“So tired of papal interviews. He should return to his previous silence,” opined the Rorate Caeli blog, which had previously criticized Francis and praised Leo.
Ideas53:59Encounters with St. Augustine: Pope Leo XIV and the Catholic Church
Reigning Pope Leo XIV has been deeply influenced by St. Augustine, and so the fourth-century titan of Western thought has re-entered the global conversation. IDEAS Producer Seán Foley reaches out to Canadian scholars who have read St. Augustine closely to determine what it is about how Augustine’s thought and character might shape the Catholic Church in these times.
Conservatives shouldn’t be surprised: author who interviewed Leo
President Donald Trump’s administration, which was sharply critical of Francis but has rarely commented on Leo, also pushed back. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said she rejected the characterization of inhumane treatment of immigrants.
“This administration is trying to enforce our nation’s laws in the most humane way possible,” Leavitt said.
The Trump administration has faced criticism about the treatment of immigrants in holding facilities and instances in which there was a lack of due process in deportation proceedings, as well as deportations of individuals to countries far from their place of origin.
Vatican officials and papal associates said Leo cares especially deeply about the treatment of immigrants and is unlikely to be deterred by criticism. But it could detract from his mission, expressed during his inaugural papal mass, to work for unity across a global Church that has become more divided and polarized in recent decades.
“Is he going to ruffle the feathers of American conservatives at some points? Yes,” said Elise Allen, author of a biography of Leo for Penguin Peru and the only journalist to interview the Pope since his election.
“They shouldn’t be surprised that he does that,” she told Reuters.
Praise for Trump peace plan
In a recent interview with Allen, Leo expressed concern that “sometimes decisions are made more based on economics than on human dignity” in the U.S.
Leo said in that July interview that he had not met nor spoken to Trump since being elevated to the papacy. This week, Leo praised Trump’s efforts to broker peace amid the Israel-Hamas war largely fought in Gaza.
Pope Leo XIV offered a message of communion during his inaugural mass in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday. An estimated 200,000 pilgrims, patriarchs and political leaders — including Prime Minister Mark Carney — were there to witness the first American Pope’s mass.
Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny, a senior adviser to both Francis and Leo, said the new pope was following an instruction given by St. Paul, a first-century leader of Christianity: “Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season.”
“[Leo] encourages and challenges each local Church and each Christian, faced with complex and urgent issues, to live the Gospel,” Czerny told Reuters.
Leo was a relative unknown on the global stage before his election in May. He spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru, where Allen said he developed a desire to care for immigrants and speak up for social causes.
“He understands the priority of the abortion issue, but he’s not going to be somebody that says that’s far more important than immigration,” she said.
Leo earned conservative praise immediately in the hours after his election by wearing a traditional red papal garment called a mozzetta, which Francis never wore, in his first public appearance.
But the new pope also attracted some conservative criticism early in September for giving a high-profile private audience to a prominent U.S. priest who ministers to 2SLGBTQ+ Catholics.
David Gibson, a U.S. academic who follows the papacy, said conservative Catholics had grasped at Leo’s attempts to foster unity as if he were endorsing their entire agenda.
“Leo was never going to do that,” Gibson, director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture, told Reuters. “The two popes are different men, but both men of tradition and of the centre.”
Back in Illinois, Sen. Durbin decided to decline the award. Cardinal Cupich said he was “saddened” by the news, but respected the senator’s decision.
