SCOOP: Our Turning Point Action team pulled the voting history for Pope Leo XIV. He's a registered Republican who has voted in Republican primaries when not living abroad. Our data shows he's a strong Republican, and he's pro-life
An interesting question is, How did this election of Prevost go down? For Prevost—a relative unknown who kept most of his views close to the vest—to have been elected on the 4th ballot is actually rather remarkable. No doubt hope for a future American cash infusion played a part. But Prevost first had to block and overcome strong campaigns by several Italians—not an easy task in and of itself. Then, he had to garner 2/3 support from around the world in a relatively short period of time. No way could he have done that on his own, in my view. To me that suggests he had influential backers who worked the College of Cardinals assiduously for months if not longer. Perhaps later we’ll find out more about who the people behind him were.
But what are his views?
In his own words. Understand that having an opinion doesn’t translate directly into dogma. For example, opposing the death penalty may be based on ‘prudential’ considerations rather than being a matter of basic principle. Also, stating that we have a responsibility to “take care of the planet” isn’t the same thing as buying into the entire enviro cult—much less making that cult a matter of dogma. Those views may be an irritant to some percentage of the faithful, but as personal opinions can be forgiven if Prevost takes a firm line on restoring confidence in the Vatican by upholding traditional Catholic teaching—especially in matters of basic morality.
Like his predecessor, Francis, Leo XIV is a strong believer that the faithful have a responsibility to take care of the planet.
The then-president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops argued in November of last year that it is time to move “from words to action” on the “environmental crisis.”
…
Gender ideology and homosexuality
While Francis famously told reporters, “Who am I to judge?” gay people and said homosexuals “must be integrated into society,” Leo XIV may be less accommodating.
In a 2012 address to bishops, Prevost accused the news media and popular culture for encouraging “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel,” according to the New York Times.
Among those “beliefs and practices” Prevost cited were the “homosexual lifestyle” and “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.”
While bishop of Chiclayo in northwestern Peru, Prevost opposed a government initiative to promote gender ideology teachings in schools.”
“The promotion of gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist,” he told local news media at the time.
Abortion
On social media, Prevost has expressed strong support for the Catholic Church’s anti-abortion stance.
In 2015, Prevost posted a photograph from the March For Life rally in Chiclayo, exhorting his followers: “Let’s defend human life at all times!”
Prevost also retweeted a 2017 Catholic News Agency article on New York Archbishop Timothy, Cardinal Dolan condemning abortion at a mass ahead of the March for Life rally in Washington, DC.
…
Capital punishment
Prevost has expressed opposition to capital punishment, reflecting the Catholic Church’s position and Francis’ commitment to see the practice ended worldwide.
“It’s time to end the death penalty,” he wrote March 5, 2015, in an X post
Euthanasia
In 2016, Prevost reposted a Catholic News Agency article in which citizens of Belgium, where euthanasia is legal, urged Canadians not to support legislation that would allow for assisted suicides.
“’Don’t go there’ – Belgians plead with Canada not to pass euthanasia law #Prolife,” read the tweet that Prevost shared.
…
Gun rights
In October 2017, Prevost retweeted a call for new US gun control from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) after a gunman murdered 60 people in Las Vegas.
“To my colleagues: your cowardice to act cannot be whitewashed by thoughts and prayers. None of this ends unless we do something to stop it,” Murphy wrote in the tweet shared by the new pope.
Damian Thompson suggests a mixed bag awaits Catholics although, again, his personal views don’t translate into dogma and are often separable from internal Church matters. And yet Thompson’s views aren’t always well argued or supported. They smack more of speculation—which, of course, doesn’t mean he’s wrong:
But whether Pope Leo will be able to heal the political and liturgical wounds in the wider Catholic Church remains to be seen.
It doesn’t seem likely, for example, that he will entirely remove Pope Francis’s restrictions on the old Latin Mass, which have caused particular anguish for Catholic traditionalists in the United States – and who will be praying that he at least adopts a more relaxed approach, given the growing popularity of the ancient ceremonies among young Catholics.
Indeed, it was rumoured in Rome on Thursday night that Pope Leo sometimes says the old Mass in private and, significantly, in his first appearance as Pope – unlike Francis – he wore full ceremonial robes.
When it comes to American politics, Pope Leo is fiercely anti-MAGA, going out of his way to attack Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, on social media.
He used X to share an article from a left-wing Catholic outlet headed ‘JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.’
He also reposted an accusation that President Trump was using the Oval office to support the ‘Feds’ illicit deportation of a US resident’.
OK, but do those two retweets make him “fiercely anti-MAGA”? That’s a pretty slender base upon which to make a very broad assertion. From some other Prevost (re)tweets my view is that, while he may be a crackerjack canon lawyer, I wouldn’t trust his views on US law. On the ohter hand, I’d welcome criticism of US support for genocide coming from the Vatican on moral grounds. There’s a lot more to MAGA than narrow legal issues that the US judicial system is trying to sort out—or not.
Where does Leo stand on sensitive questions of sexuality, pastoral care and women’s ordination that now divide Catholics far more sharply than they did when Francis took office in 2013?
The College of Cardinals Report, an influential survey of the views of all the cardinals in the Church, wrote this year: ‘On key topics, Cardinal Prevost says little but some of his positions are known. He is reportedly very close to Francis’s vision regarding the environment, outreach to the poor and migrants … He supported Pope Francis’s change in pastoral practice to allow divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion.'
Prevost appears somewhat less inclined to curry favour with the LGBTQ lobby than Francis, but he showed mild support for unofficial blessings for gay couples.
In other words, Pope Leo’s record on ‘hot-button’ issues will do nothing to reassure theological conservatives, whose sense of disappointment was palpable in Rome on Thursday night.
But other Catholics, including some critics of Francis, believe the former Cardinal Prevost will restore a degree of order to the administration of the Church, which – especially in the Vatican – is nothing short of chaotic, thanks to the Argentinian pope’s dictatorial style and habit of bypassing canon law.
We’ll have to wait and see.
Thanks for reading Meaning In History! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
...There is now a rumor that the Pope's family were Cubs fans, but that he might have been a White Sox fan. However, if you believe in papal infallibility, that cannot be true. It is a matter faith.
The fact that he wore the stole/Mozzetta, took a traditional name, and celebrates the TLM in private are good signs. I’m hoping he will be an improvement on Francis: same social teaching but better on liturgy.
Honestly, it would be great to see a Pope celebrating Mass in public again.
Jonathan Turley @JonathanTurley
...There is now a rumor that the Pope's family were Cubs fans, but that he might have been a White Sox fan. However, if you believe in papal infallibility, that cannot be true. It is a matter faith.
The fact that he wore the stole/Mozzetta, took a traditional name, and celebrates the TLM in private are good signs. I’m hoping he will be an improvement on Francis: same social teaching but better on liturgy.
Honestly, it would be great to see a Pope celebrating Mass in public again.