Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost became the first American pope on Thursday, adopting the name of Pope Leo XIV. His election, which has been described as a continuation of Pope Francis' papacy, brought to the forefront Catholic Americans' opinions during the Trump administration.
The new pope is said to be uneasy with the Trump administration's policies on immigration. Months before former-Cardinal Prevost became a world leader, a social media account under his name expressed criticism of Vice President JD Vance, sharing an article that called the vice president's interpretation of Christian doctrine "wrong."
The piece, published by The National Catholic Reporter, was a rebuttal to Vance's interpretation of a Catholic teaching that he had used to defend the Trump administration's deportation policies.
On the issue, Hispanic Catholics in the U.S. have a similar disdain. According to a recent survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, only 29% of Hispanic Catholics approve of the way President Trump is handling immigration, compared to 63% of white Catholics.
The recent survey from PRRI, a nonpartisan religion research institute, was conducted between Feb. 28- March 20, among 5,025 adults living in all 50 states in the United States. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.69 percentage points.
But immigration is not the only issue where Hispanic Catholics have departed from the Trump administration. In fact, only 26% of Hispanic Catholics approve of the job the president is doing in the White House, becoming the second group that is least likely to approve of Trump's performance. Hispanic Catholics are only passed by Black Protestants, only 18% of whom approve of the president's performance.
Likewise, on the economy, another one of Trump's policy pillars, only 26% of Hispanic Catholics approve of the way he is handling it, being the second group that is least likely to approve of his performance on the issue, only behind Black Protestants (20%).
Considering these, a vast majority of Hispanic Catholics (69%) are likely to agree with the statement "President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy." By comparison, a smaller majority (56%) of white Catholics say the same.
The new pope has been described as the "least American" from the American cardinals who attended the Conclave at Vatican City this week, due to his decades-long tenure at Chiclayo, Peru. While he has recently not denounced the Trump administration, it does seem like he shares some long-time disdain for it, given his pro-immigration views.
In July 2015, his alleged account reposted an article by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York that described Trump's "anti-immigrant rhetoric" as "problematic." Three years later, the account shared a post from Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, saying there was "nothing remotely Christian, American or morally defensible" about the administration's policy of separating migrant children from their parents.
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