After the election of Pope Leo XIV, liberal reporters cited the new Pope’s views, expressed prior to his elevation, as a way of criticizing the Trump administration. “He represents values that are different than the values on the world stage of the MAGA Trump administration,” former Time managing editor Richard Stengel applauded during MSNBC’s live coverage on Thursday afternoon.
Later that night, MSNBC All In host Chris Hayes saluted Pope Leo for a worldview “fundamentally at odds with the nationalism of Donald Trump and JD Vance.”
As a matter of rhetorical strategy, it’s a way for anti-Trump journalists to take the inherent moral authority that a Pope represents and use it as a weapon to fight domestic political battles. But when past Popes (or even this one) espouse religious and moral views that are at odds with the secular liberal…
