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.

Slimy media attack on Pope Francis — or lack of moral clarity?



Pope Francis’ passing has rattled the world, but it was who he was believed to be when he was alive that Liz Wheeler of “The Liz Wheeler Show” is focused on.

“The hallmark of his papacy, in my opinion, was confusion for the faithful, due partially to his Argentine liberation theology, or his theology that was informed by his experiences in very close relationship with Argentine liberation theology,” she says, noting that “he simultaneously denied” being part of the theology, which is a Marxist view.

“It’s also worth noting that Pope Francis differed significantly from his predecessors — his two immediate predecessors, Pope Benedict and Pope St. John Paul II — because Pope Francis did not seem to understand the power of the media,” she continues.


“He never seemed to push back when the media misinterpreted what he said, and that happened often, by the way,” she adds, explaining that most of the time he spoke in Italian or Spanish, which allowed what he said publicly to be interpreted by the American media.

“How it was translated by either international or American media was often incongruent. It was often reported inaccurately, what Pope Francis actually said, and the media, of course, we know, has a bias not only politically but theologically, spiritually, religiously,” Wheeler explains.

“And so, the media often portrayed Pope Francis as saying things that he didn’t say, because it’s what the media wanted him to say,” she adds.

While the media made the pope out to lean left, Wheeler notes that, actually, he was “against gender ideology.”

“And he was very clear about marriage being between one man and one woman,” she says.

However, the pope elevated priests like Father James Martin, who is advocating for changes to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, because he’s “an LGBTQIA+ lobbyist.”

“That’s confusing to me; that’s confusing to the faithful,” Wheeler says.

Pope Francis also once described abortion as “hiring a hit man to resolve a problem.”

“You cannot stand for life more strongly than that, and yet, at the same time, he stated that the church ‘cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage, and the use of contraceptive methods,’” Wheeler says. “He instead suggested a broader focus on social justice issues, and I find that to be confusing.”

“How can you acknowledge that abortion is murder? How can you acknowledge that an unborn child is a human person, with as much right to life as you, that this unborn person with a right to life is made in the image and likeness of our creator, and then dismiss it as just, like, one of many social justice issues?" she continues.

“One of the roles of the pope is supposed to be to speak with moral clarity. There should be no misinterpretation possible when a pope is speaking, especially one of the hot-button issues that is kind of rife with confusion in the first place,” she adds.

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Sage Steele says her 2021 Biden interview was ‘heavily scripted’ by ESPN execs, but the sports network likely wasn’t the head of the snake



Former ESPN journalist Sage Steele, who’s now an independent podcaster, has revealed that her 2021 interview with Joe Biden was “heavily scripted.”

“It was so structured, and I was told, ‘You will say every word that we write out. You will not deviate from this script,’” she told Fox News in an interview, adding that “every single question was scripted and gone over dozens of times by many executives.”

“I knew that this was a lot bigger than just the wonderful editors that I worked with. This went up to the ‘fourth floor,’ as we said, where all the bosses, the top executives, [and] the decision-makers are,” she continued.

“I think it's obvious to anyone paying attention why ESPN executives needed her to stick to the script when interviewing the dementia patient in chief, seeing as the network decided years ago to just carry water for the Democrats no matter the cost,” says Sara Gonzales.

BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden, however, thinks the ESPN execs who were puppeteering Sage’s interview with the president aren't where the chain of command stopped.

“Who is ESPN owned by?” he asks.

For those who don’t know, the answer is Disney.

“Interesting,” says Marsden. “It’s almost as if there are these conglomerates that have a vested interest in the Democratic Party.”

“I’ll go one further on that same line,” says Jason Buttrill, “dedicated interest in propaganda.”

“If you’re writing the script, you’re not allowing a journalist to be a journalist and get information out. You’re just spewing propaganda,” he continues.

So what’s making the majority of these journalists so willing to regurgitate the leftist narrative? Is it because they genuinely believe in left-wing ideologies?

According to Marsden, some probably do buy into the wokeism, but many others are just “scared of losing their jobs.”

As an actor, “I know all about that,” he says. “If you stray away from the narrative, you get canceled, and then once you get canceled, you can't get any more work so then you're out there working at Trader Joe's.”


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The state of Washington aims to ban sale of most non-electric vehicles by 2030 as part of its plan to combat 'climate change'



Last week, the current Democrat Governor of Washington state, Jay Inslee, signed a bill into law that aims to ban the sale of most non-electric vehicles in the state by 2030.

This legislation follows the lead of other deep-blue states like California and New York that recently announced bans on gas-powered vehicles in a move to end sales of these vehicles no later by 2035.

The Post Millennial reported that Inslee signed the “Move Ahead Washington” package into law stipulating that all publicly owned and privately owned “passenger and light duty vehicles 2030 model or later that are sold, purchased, or registered in the state” must be electric.

This legislation comes with a $16.9 billion price tag and will receive funds generated by taxes on gasoline. Inslee claimed that the package would help “combat climate change,” but the state of Washington will be reliant upon its residents and visitors continuing to fill their cars with gasoline in order to fund reach this green goal.

In a statement, Inslee said, “Transportation is our state’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. There is no way to talk about climate change without talking about transportation. This package will move us away from the transportation system our grandparents imagined and towards the transportation system our grandchildren dream of.”

A blog post from the governor’s office said, “[Inslee] has pursued ambitious policies that some influential voices doubted but have come to fruition in recent years including the nation’s most ambitious 100% clean electric policy, and a national leading clean buildings policy. He’s long promoted rapid electric vehicle adoption and made Washington a leading clean tech hub thanks in part to the launch of a state Clean Energy Fund and the Clean Energy Institute at the University of Washington.”

The blog post indicated that the “Move Ahead Washington” package includes funding for other elaborate infrastructure projects in the state beside the prioritization of electric vehicles.

It said, “The Move Ahead Washington package focuses an increased share of funding on maintenance and preservation of existing roads and bridges than prior packages, and includes major projects such as the replacement of the I-5 bridge across the Columbia River.”

“The largest share of Move Ahead Washington goes toward climate and clean transportation,” the post continued. “The package includes funding for four new hybrid-electric ferries, tens of thousands of new EV changing stations, 25 transit electrification projects across the state and free fares for passengers 18 and younger on all public transportation.”

The state of Washington moving towards the coerced implementation of carbon pollution-free electric vehicles for public and private transit mirrors the White House’s moves towards “net-zero emissions.”