Not Francis 2.0: Why Pope Leo XIV is a problem for the 'woke' agenda



Lots of people are wondering whether Pope Leo XIV is a reformer in the same vein as Pope Francis or more of a traditionalist like Francis’ two predecessors. It depends on the issue, but to those who think he is a clone of Francis, they are wrong. Importantly, he is not an ideologue.

It is striking to see some celebrating what they claim is a “woke” pope, while others are bemoaning that he is one. Neither is right.

The left exists for one thing — power — and leftists are masters at deceiving people.

Beware: All the alarms going off are false.

An article published at Alternet is cheering “Our New Woke Pope.” Why? Because he criticized Vice President JD Vance for saying love should begin with loving your family, then others.

Then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, an Augustinian priest, said on X that “J.D. Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”

It is absurd to conclude from this that the new pontiff is a “woke” pope. Vance was saying love must be set in proper order, and many Catholic theologians agree. No matter, theological disputes are common in all religious circles, but standing alone they do not make anyone “woke.” This is simply a childish way to politicize matters.

Then we have right-wing commentator Laura Loomer. She is branding our new pope “woke” and a “Marxist.” She is badly educated.

To show how crazy those on the extreme left and right are, consider what the Nation is saying. It is a left-wing publication that championed Stalin, the genocidal maniac. Those at the outlet are raising the flag for Pope Leo XIV because they see in him what Pope Leo XIII stood for during his pontificate.

Those at the Nation are right to say our new pope identifies with Leo XIII, but wrong to say that the late 19th and early 20th-century pope was a social justice warrior in the left-wing tradition. They are heralding him for his “sharp critiques of capitalism.” Maybe if they actually read the 1891 encyclical "Rerum Novarum," they wouldn’t sound so silly.

Pope Leo XIII wrote this encyclical eight years after Marx’s death in 1883. He foresaw the horrors that Marx’s ideology would deliver. He said that “ideal equality about which they entertain pleasant dreams would be in reality the leveling down of all to a like condition of misery and degradation.” He also made the case for private property, which is hardly an expression of socialism.

Orthodox Catholics will be happy to learn that Pope Leo XIV is strongly pro-life. He is opposed to abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide. He is also pro-marriage and the family, properly understood.

He has criticized in no uncertain terms the “homosexual lifestyle” and “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.” This is great news for practicing Catholics — the ones in the pews who actually pay the bills — but not for dissidents. He has also condemned gender ideology being taught in the schools of Peru. “The promotion of gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist.” As such, he opposes the exploitation of sexually confused young people.

On immigration, Leo is much more in the liberal camp. He is opposed to the Trump policies and has even criticized the president of El Salvador for his crackdown on illegal immigration. How the heads of state are supposed to deal with those who are crashing their borders, causing misery for its citizens, is something he may have to address.

Is Pope Leo XIV a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent? He’s a Republican, having pulled the GOP lever in the 2012, 2014, and 2016 elections. But apparently he did not vote in the 2016 general election and chose to vote by absentee ballot in 2024. It appears he is more of a Bush Republican than a Trump Republican. But he is certainly not a “woke” or “Marxist” activist.

If some progressives who wanted Francis II are not expressing dismay in public, don’t be fooled. It is because they want to have entrée with the new pope. The left exists for one thing — power — and leftists are masters at deceiving people.

It looks like practicing Catholics will have in Pope Leo XIV someone they can rally around.

This essay was adapted from an article originally published by the Catholic League.

War on faith: How anti-Catholic violence is exploding almost unnoticed



As Catholics around the world eagerly awaited white smoke from the Sistine Chapel, a pastor in rural Pennsylvania watched a very different kind of white smoke pouring from a humble chapel at his church.

At 9:02 p.m. May 6, a 32-year-old man named Kyle Kuczynski allegedly detonated a stick of dynamite on the altar of the chapel at St. Teresa of Calcutta Church — so named because Mother Teresa once visited it — in Mahanoy City. Surveillance footage turned over to law enforcement revealed that Kuczynski had been casing the chapel, entering at least three other times earlier in the week.

It is high time for the federal government to take real action that will deter violence and ensure the safety of its churches.

The bombing marked the 500th documented act of violence or vandalism against a Catholic church in the United States in the last five years.

CatholicVote, the nation’s largest lay Catholic advocacy organization, has tracked each incident, from the destruction of a Nativity scene at a church in the Florida Keys to the smashing of the crucifix at a church in Emmonak, Alaska.

The disturbing long-term pattern of attacks began in May 2020.

As civil unrest gripped the country, Catholic churches were caught up in the chaos, with incidents like satanic graffiti spray-painted on walls and bricks thrown through stained-glass windows. A historic church in California, built in 1790, was burned to the ground.

But even as the national climate calmed down, the attacks against Catholic churches accelerated.

The first wave of attacks was usually tied to loosely related left-wing movements. Others had more broadly spiritual themes. Statutes of Jesus, Mary, and saints were destroyed, often in eerie ways such as beheadings. Altars were ransacked. Nativity scenes were vandalized. More churches were set on fire.

The violence took a darker turn when the draft of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision was leaked in May 2022.

Dozens of Catholic churches were attacked by pro-abortion activists working under the banners of Jane’s Revenge, Ruth Sent Us, and other domestic extremist networks. In one incident, pro-abortion rioters attempted to storm a Catholic church in Manhattan; when they were thwarted by parishioners guarding the doors, the rioters resorted to hurling profanities and performing a strange stunt involving a baby doll.

In one particularly sinister case, someone posted a note threatening a mass shooting if abortion were banned on the door of a college dormitory for Catholic students at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

The tracker specifically excludes cases that are clearly motivated by material gain, like thefts of cash from the poor box. The attacks have common threads of politically and spiritually tinged hatred. Take, for example, a 2023 incident in rural Arkansas in which an intoxicated man took a sledgehammer to a stone altar at an abbey and extracted 1,500-year-old relics of saints that were sealed inside and not externally visible.

Hundreds of statues have been damaged or destroyed. Bricks have been thrown through stained-glass windows in acts of hate that hearken back to the civil rights era. Dozens of altars have been ransacked. Five cases involved gunshots fired at churches, including a remote abbey in Missouri in which nuns were sleeping. A few holy water fonts have been sabotaged with urine and feces. Children have been traumatized by threatening messages.

An estimated $36 million in damages has been caused by the attacks. Fifty of the attacks involved arson, with several churches declared a total loss.

But the price tag does not tell the full story. Some of the damages are not quantifiable, such as irreplaceable antique stained-glass windows or consecrated hosts and relics that have been stolen. Plus, the need to hire security guards or install new security equipment — costs that are usually not covered by insurance — far exceeds repair and replacement price tags.

Precious artifacts donated by immigrants or grandmothers, or slaved over by parishioners, have been lost. In several cases, clergy and parishioners have been physically attacked, including one priest in Kansas who was killed last month.

The violence hearkens back to grim periods in the 19th and 20th centuries when Catholics faced similar attacks and had their loyalties constantly questioned.

This violence was completely unabated during the Biden administration.

The second Catholic president dedicated zero federal resources to combatting the problem. Not a single federal arrest or prosecution was made in any of the cases. No task forces were convened, and no strong statements of condemnation came from the Biden White House. Local arrests have been recorded in only about 30% of the incidents. Pastors have reported that local law enforcement are diligent but hamstrung by a lack of resources that the federal government could have provided.

Fortunately, there is some hope on the horizon.

The Trump administration has vowed to combat anti-religious violence, and Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, recently pledged to prosecute perpetrators of attacks on churches, which can be federal crimes under the FACE Act.

As all eyes are on the Catholic Church, it is high time for the federal government to take real action that will deter violence and ensure the safety of its churches. Anti-Catholic bigotry cannot be tolerated any longer.

The ONE litmus test that will expose Pope Leo XIV’s true agenda



Last week, white smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel before Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, was announced as Pope Francis’ successor.

Millions around the world are now waiting to see if Pope Leo XIV will continue the legacy of his progressive predecessor or refocus the Catholic Church on tradition and orthodoxy.

LifeSiteNews CEO and co-founder John-Henry Westen tells Glenn Beck that one specific thing will tell us which direction this papacy is going: whether or not Pope Leo XIV reinstates Bishop Joseph Strickland.

“In the Catholic world, Bishop Strickland was the holiest bishop in the whole church in America. Everybody knew it,” says Westen.

“He got removed, though, because he went up against the machine. Francis was going anti-Catholic in his teaching on all sorts of issues, including fooling around with abortion, contraception, homosexuality, divorce … and Strickland was one of the only ones who spoke up,” he explains, adding that his removal was a devastating event, considering “700 families” as well as “all sorts of priests and religious orders” moved to Tyler, Texas, just for him.

Unlike many dioceses, Strickland’s “had the best numbers in terms of per capita seminarians”; its “financial situation was in great shape”; and it “[didn’t’] have any sexual abuse scandal,” says Westen.

He, along with a great many others, suspects that Strickland’s removal, which was supported by then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, was almost certainly political retribution for speaking out against Pope Francis.

The biggest indicator of the direction of Pope Leo XIV’s papacy, therefore, is whether he restores Bishop Strickland to his position in the Diocese of Tyler.

“All America — in fact all the world — should be looking for is the restoration of Bishop Strickland,” says Westen. It’s “the true signal, the one sign that will indicate where Pope Leo XIV is coming from.”

“If that man is not reinstated, there's something really wrong,” he tells Glenn.

“Are there any good signs that maybe he's going to be different?” Glenn asks, noting that Pope Leo XIV “has been railing against Donald Trump.”

“He’s a registered Republican in Chicago … but at the same time, he’s anti-Trump,” says Westen. Similar to Francis, “he's real bad on immigration.”

Further, during the pandemic when Prevost was a bishop in Peru, he allegedly imposed restrictions such as requiring communion to be received in the hand rather than on the tongue and promoted confessions by telephone.

However, “there are some signs of hope,” says Westen.

For example, when Pope Leo XIV first emerged on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, he was wearing “traditional vestments,” unlike Francis, who wore “liturgical underwear.”

He also spoke in Latin — a tradition that has largely given way to the modern practice of speaking in vernacular languages.

Does this signify his intent to return to Catholic tradition?

“We’ll see,” says Westen.

However, there was one thing Pope Leo XIV did that gave him more hope than anything else. To hear it, watch the clip above.

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You Can Criticize The Pope And Still Believe In God’s Sovereignty

Sometimes God raises up leaders for our blessing and sometimes for our punishment, but He ordains them nonetheless.

Bishop removed by Pope Francis reacts live to announcement of Pope Leo XIV



Yesterday, smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel, signaling the election of a new pope. An hour later, the Vatican announced Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, as the next head of the Roman Catholic Church.

At the time these events were unfolding, Glenn Beck was interviewing Bishop Joseph Strickland, who was removed from office by Pope Francis after he came out publicly against him for diverting from the Catholic faith.

Before the election of Cardinal Prevost, Bishop Strickland had warned that “there are wolves roaming freely in the conclave.”

Is Leo XIV one of them?

In the following interview, Bishop Strickland and Glenn react to the live announcement of Robert Prevost’s election. Bishop Strickland then shares what he knows about him.

“He was head of the congregation for bishops,” says Strickland. “He’s a relatively new cardinal.”

“Two years ago, Pope Francis chose him to replace Marc Ouellet as prefect of the Vatican's bishops, handing him the task of selecting the next generation of bishops,” adds Glenn, reading from Prevost’s biography.

“What do you know — good guy, bad guy? Any clue?” he asks, noting that Prevost’s past is “clouded by allegations of covering up sexual abuse claims,” although these “were denied by his diocese.”

“As head of the congregation for bishops, frankly, in my opinion he made some really bad choices,” says Strickland. “Of course, it was Pope Francis, but [Prevost] was involved in naming bishops that I find very troubling.”

Strickland also notes that Prevost’s chosen name — Leo XIV — is an interesting choice.

“The predecessor, Leo XIII — he had visions of evil taking the church, and the St. Michael prayer, the archangel prayer, came from Leo XIII. ... He was good, and he was strong in a lot of ways,” he says, calling Prevost’s choice of name “significant.”

The best thing we can do, he says, is “keep praying.”

To hear more of his thoughts on Pope Leo XIV, watch the episode above.

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Why Pope Leo XIV Will Probably Not Be Francis 2.0

For Catholics, the new pope’s disposition toward the Latin Mass will tell us far more about his pontificate than his views on immigration.

Did the conclave pick a LIBERAL to be the new pope?



The conclave in the Vatican has elected a new pope, Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago, who has taken the name Pope Leo XIV.

And while many are thrilled that the Conclave elected an American pope, others are concerned that his political ideology might lean too far to the left, as Prevost hasn’t been shy about blasting Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric.

He made this clear when he shared an American Magazine article on X titled, “Pope Francis’ letter, JD Vance’s ‘ordo amoris’ and what the Gospel asks of all of us on immigration.”

The article centers around a letter Pope Francis wrote to the bishops of the United States regarding immigration and mass deportation, which was in response to the Trump administration’s focus on the immigration crisis.


The letter from Pope Francis also criticizes JD Vance’s interpretation of “ordo amoris,” which is a theological concept the vice president used in explaining his view on immigration.

“It seems like they could have picked a super conservative, and they went, ‘We’ll pick one that wants to be political again,’” Sara Gonzales of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered” comments.

“They could have picked a complete looney liberal. I mean, I’m not surprised that he’s different than a conservative on immigration,” BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden counters, though he believes that “a lot of that has to do with wanting to fill the pews in Catholic churches in the United States.”

“The majority of the people, if you go to Catholic churches here, are Hispanic. So part of it is that,” Marsden continues, adding, “It’s nice that it’s an American pope though. I’m going to take that win.”

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Here Are The Top 10 Rejected Pope Names

Papal history is replete with impressive names — Peter, Gregory, Pius, John Paul. But what about the names that didn’t make the cut?

Read The New Pope’s Far-Left Takes On Immigration, Climate, Covid, And Race Relations

Perhaps most concerning is Leo XIV's stance toward immigration, as he appears to be in favor of open borders and has reposted anti-border control messages in the past.

Why is the mainstream media so obsessed with who will replace Pope Francis?



The papal conclave, which began Wednesday, has attracted unusual interest from a mainstream media normally not given to dwelling on matters of faith.

In both their reflections on the late Pope Francis and their speculations on the next supreme pontiff, the stream of articles coming out of the reputed mouthpieces of American progressivism has been a mix of regret at the passing of a noble ally and trepidation at the prospect of a less friendly pope going forward.

Benedict XVI was painted as an inflexible and cruel man, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. (He literally wrote an encyclical titled "God is Love.")

To give just a few examples, New York magazine published a piece asking, “Will Christianity Make a Turn to the Right Post-Francis?” while the Atlantic examined “Progressive Christianity’s Bleak Future.”

What is the reason for this media meltdown? Is the American media genuinely saddened by the passing of the late Holy Father and fearful for the spiritual welfare of his flock in America?

A useful tool

Certainly not. The reason for the minor hysteria among the legacy outlets is quite simple. The Francis pontificate gave the media a useful tool with which to attack and isolate American conservatives. Pope Francis was less focused on doctrinal matters than he was on pastoral concerns; it was relatively easier for the media to twist the pope’s words when he spoke about the environment and social inequality.

For example, Pope Francis published four encyclicals. Two of them, "Fratelli Tutti" and "Laudato Si," received a plethora of coverage, while the other two, "Lumen Fidei" and "Dilexit Nos," received no attention to speak of. Guess which two addressed more secular issues and which were concerned with theological topics.

Due to a number of factors, it is quite likely that the next pope will be far more conservative than Francis — more in line with his two immediate predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II.

A change of attack

The writers of America’s legacy outlets are aware of this, and they are preparing to change their angle of attack. It is very likely that they will treat Francis’ successor the same way they treated his predecessor.

During the pontificate of Benedict XVI (2005-2013), there was no barrage of media articles trying to convince Americans that the pope was actually a signatory (in spirit) of the DNC platform and that conservatives were bad Christians for not following suit.

Rather, Benedict was labeled as a regressive, out-of-touch traditionalist who didn’t care about the spiritual welfare of his flock. He was painted as an inflexible and cruel man, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. (He literally wrote an encyclical titled "God is Love.") If the next pope is anything like Benedict, we can be assured the media will go right back to these calumnious attacks.

Behind the lies

The question must be asked, why do the media do this? Why do they lie about the popes again and again? It is an important question to answer in order to purge any thought from our minds that these people may be acting with a single shred of genuine religious conviction. To understand why they lie, you have to understand the sort of people they are.

A very useful example for understanding the media lies is the writer James Carroll, who has written about both Benedict and Francis for outlets such as the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and Politico. Carroll was a constant critic of Benedict and wrote articles attacking his “moral weakness” and “disastrous influence.”

When Francis assumed the office, on the other hand, Carroll took to the pages of the New Yorker to praise him as a long-awaited liberal reformer. He contrasted Francis’ seeming openness to progressive ideas with Benedict’s cold-hearted traditionalism.

However, as time went on and Francis did not live up to his progressive ideas, Carroll began decrying the pope’s failure to address patriarchy and gender inequality. By 2018, he stated that he had lost faith in Francis, but was happy to keep contrasting him with Benedict in order to divide Catholics.

Carroll is a prime example of why members of the secular media (even those "raised Catholic") should never be trusted when they comment on the Church. In Carroll's case, we are dealing with a former priest who abandoned his ministry after only five years and has spent the majority of his career since then calling the Church evil and oppressive for not conforming to his progressive ideals.

No greater love

Carroll is most famous for his 2019 Atlantic article titled "Abolish the Priesthood." In other words, there will never be a pope liberal enough for him, and the Church will never be progressive enough to make him happy. In this, too, he is typical of the mainstream media. Do not think for a second that there is even the slightest shred of genuine religious concern in these people.

The purpose of the legacy media in this country is to attack American conservatives. The people who write for these outlets are secular progressives who have liberal globalism as their highest moral ideal. They are not religious in any real sense because to them religion is merely a social construction subordinate to their political goals.

They cannot conceive of true religion as a habit of justice whereby we render to God His due for the same reason they cannot conceive of God as anything other than a vague set of social principles: nothing is more sacred to them than political liberalism.

This lack of any purpose beyond politics explains their hatred of conservatives. They cannot understand genuine religious conviction. They do not believe, and so they assume that nobody else does. They cannot act in good faith, and so they assume that nobody does. When politics is everything, the pope is just one more thing to politicize.