Donald Trump and his administration may have praised the appointment of the first American pontiff, but Pope Leo has been openly critical of the government’s anti-immigration stance.
In the run-up to his election on Thursday as the 267th pope, the then-cardinal Robert Prevost criticised US vice president JD Vance on his social media platform on X.
In early February, Leo shared an article from a Catholic publication with the headline, “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
Days earlier, Mr Vance had cited a Christian tenet about prioritising care for those around as justification for the Trump administration’s anti-immigration stance.
In a Fox News interview, he referenced the Christian tenet “that you love your family and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritise the rest of the world.”
Pope Leo, who had a long career in missionary work in South America, working for nearly 15 years in Peru until 1998, has been an outspoken advocate of pastoral work caring for the poor.
His brother, John Prevost, said the new Pope is likely to follow in the footsteps of the late Francis in advocating for continued care for the poor and marginalised.
The brother added that Leo’s papacy is likely “not going to be real far-left and he's not going to be real far-right”. He said it will be “kind of right down the middle”.
Leo’s final post as a cardinal was a recirculation on April 14 of a post by church chronicler Rocco Palmo about Trump’s Oval Office meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.
Bukele said it was “preposterous” for his country to bring a Maryland man who was wrongly deported there in March back to the US, despite a Supreme Court ruling calling on the administration to “facilitate” Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return.
Leo reposted Palmo’s link to an article by Washington-area Bishop Evelio Menjivar — who was born in El Salvador — asking, “Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?”
Before Mr Trump’s first bid for the presidency, Leo also implicitly criticised the American property mogul’s anti-immigration rhetoric.
As Mr Trump’s campaign ramped up in July 2015, Leo posted to X a Washington Post op-ed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, with the headline, “Why Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is so problematic.”
After Trump’s first election in 2016, Leo reposted a homily in which Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez — characterising the fear among many, including schoolchildren who “think the government is going to come and deport their parents, any day now” — said that America is “better than this.”
In September 2017, months into Trump’s first term, Leo recirculated a post by author-activist Sister Helen Prejean saying she stands “with the #Dreamers and all people who are working toward an immigration system that is fair, just, and moral.”
He also reposted church chronicler Rocco Palmo’s piece with the teaser, “Saying Trump’s ‘bad hombres’ line fuels ‘racism and nativism,’ Cali bishops send preemptive blast on DACA repeal.”
While Mr Trump and Mr Vance have celebrated the election of Pope Leo, the more steeled elements of the Make America Great Again movement have been critical.
“He is anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis," far-right activist Laura Loomer wrote on X.
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