The Left will soon tire of Pope Leo XIV. This is so certain that we can even affix the day by which it will happen: Jan. 20, 2029. That’s the day Donald Trump will no longer be president.
Currently, America’s Left is fawning over Pope Leo XIV. They quote him. They extol him. Of course, he is the first American pope. However, it is not patriotism that drives America’s Left to Leo; it is partisanship. In Pope Leo, America’s Left feels they have another foil for President Trump. (RELATED: The Church’s Misguided Mercy)
The points for comparison between Pope Leo XIV and President Trump are unavoidable.
President Trump is the leader of the world’s most powerful country; Pope Leo is the leader of the world’s largest religious denomination. President Trump exemplifies a life lived at the heights of the secular world; Pope Leo exemplifies a life lived at the heights of the spiritual world. President Trump embraced living at the pinnacle of fame, business, and politics; Robert Francis Prevost, before he was elected pope, had spent much of his adult life in relative obscurity in Peru. President Trump was born into immense wealth in New York society; Pope Leo was born into the middle-class world of Chicago’s Southside ethnic melting pot. (RELATED: Why We Should Give to God What Is God’s, and to Caesar What Is Caesar’s)
Now, with both at their respective pinnacles, there is the juxtaposition of remarks on world events: Specifically, over the Trump administration’s deportation policies and the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran. The Left has focused on Pope Leo’s remarks (such as his “handful of tyrants” statement) and interpreted them as attacking President Trump (even when Pope Leo has said they were not aimed at Trump). And as Paul Kengor pointed out recently at the National Press Club, they have ignored Pope Leo’s explicit condemnation of Iran’s treatment of its own people. (RELATED: Pope Leo XIV on Immigration: Order, Dignity, and Misconception)
They only care about religion when its spiritual tenets can be used to overlay their purely secular aspirations.
Herein lies the Left’s real purpose for their embrace of Pope Leo. To them, Pope Leo is not just another foil for Trump; he is the perfect foil for Trump. Pope Leo is another way to attack Trump and offers the potential of separating a group of supporters from Trump.
Of course, America’s Left has no use for Pope Leo or his theology — or for Catholicism or religion for that matter — unless they can seize elements from them which advance their goals. Like everything else, religion is only a means to an end for America’s Left. They only care about religion when its spiritual tenets can be used to overlay their purely secular aspirations.
Once Trump is gone, they will turn on Pope Leo and attack everything they dislike about Catholicism, which is all the spiritual and so many of its stances that disagree with their views (same-sex marriage, women in the priesthood, etc.). Then Pope Leo and the Catholicism that he has not “reformed” will be condemned for not embodying the changes the Left demands.
If you do not believe that this can and will happen in the case of a “non-political” like Pope Leo, then just look at the jihad that they are increasingly waging against one of their own: Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
When Fetterman was running for election initially and during his early Senate tenure, he could do no wrong. He was extolled for being authentic and courageous for battling his health problems; his eccentricities were seen as refreshing contrasts to the Senate’s stodginess. Of course, these all occurred when he was: First, the alternative to a Republican winning a Pennsylvania Senate seat; and second, when he had a pivotal vote at a time Democrats held a 51-49 Senate majority.
Once Democrats veered toward their extremist wing with accordingly radical positions — especially on Palestine, Hamas, and Israel — and Fetterman began calling Democrats’ extremism out, they began taking a different view of Fetterman. Now being firmly in the Senate minority, Fetterman’s vote is not important to them. Being reflexively knee-jerked in opposition to Trump, Fetterman’s objective evaluation of Trump’s policies was not endearing to them. (RELATED: Is John Fetterman Channeling Scoop Jackson?)
America’s Left has fallen out of love with, and into open dislike of, Fetterman. When he was a viable alternative and a reliable vote, Fetterman was useful; when he began to question the Left’s orthodoxy and then oppose it, Fetterman became very un-useful. And increasingly unwanted.
The Left did the same thing to Senator John McCain (R-AZ) years earlier. When he was a Republican maverick, he was a hero; when he became the Republicans’ presidential nominee, he was a zero.
America’s Left will do the same thing to Pope Leo XIV. Right now, they are thrilled to use him for their own purposes, not because they are attracted to him as a person — and certainly not because they are attracted to his spiritual message or Catholicism — but because they are attracted to him as a counterforce with which to cudgel Trump.
Trump will only be president for a little over two more years. Leo could be pope for many. In between these two periods, expect the Left to revise their opinion of him until Pope Leo is relegated to the same place as Trump himself.
READ MORE from J.T. Young:
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J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left, from RealClear Publishing. Follow him on Substack.
