Pope Leo vs. Christian Nationalism
This was a papal move
When I heard the news that the cardinals had selected Robert Prevost, a Chicago-born, Villanova-educated American to become the next pope, my stomach dropped.
Could this be a MAGA move somehow? Did JD Vance have something to do with this? This convert Catholic who spent the final moments with Pope Francis, who wrote the foreward to Dawn’s Early Light by Heritage Foundation CEO Ken Roberts?
But alas, Robert Prevost, who chose the name Pope Leo XIV from Pope Leo the Great, who dissuaded Attila the Hun from attacking his people in the 400s, and after Pope Leo XIII who served at the turn of the 20th century and was outspoken against capitalism and pro-labor rights. A papal legacy of standing up against power? I’ll take it.
Because the world needs more leaders protesting corruption. It needs more leaders putting their foot down and defending their people against unchecked capitalism of the global elite and the bastardization of Christianity of the Religious Right. It needs people advocating for worker and labor rights, for kindness to the immigrant and to the refugee.
I’ve been outspoken on TikTok about the rise of the Religious Right: its history, its influence, Project 2025/Mandate for Leadership. While I’m rushing to transcribe those videos for posts to post here, I’m just going to have to assume you, Reader, know that this shit has been on the rise for decades and has made itself known through this Trump administration. The MAGA-Trump-Heritage Foundation connection is alive and well. And it’s well-organized, well-funded, and well-branded. The red MAGA hat is a brilliant marketing tool, and as someone with a background in marketing, I hate admitting that. The Religious Right has been able to build coalitions across organizations that may not agree on all the same ideas, but has the same goals: deregulate the government and gain converts. Whether it’s for the purposes of prayer in schools or abortion or hating environmental and labor regulations for the sake of capitalism, they don’t like the government. They don’t like rules. They don’t care to consider humanity, or the Earth. And they don’t like the secular Left either, who they blame for the moral ills of society. They’ve infiltrated everything. They claw at American education, healthcare, pop culture, our politicians. They twist the Bible and Flag to the point of inseparability.
I am a former minister and a veteran of the United States Air Force Reserves. I am not an evangelist. I am not here to proselytize or attempt to convert you about what your extremely personal faith and spiritual life should like. If you’re Muslim, and you came to me for spiritual care, cool, we’ll call it Allah during the talk. If you’re pagan and want to call it Gaia or the Divine, we’re rockin with it. If you want me to attend a religious ceremony with you that is not my tradition because you don’t want to go alone, tell me when. If you want to skip faith-talk altogether and go on a walk in the park and talk about your problems and feel like you have someone on your side, let me grab my shoes.
My faith is bigger than any book, building, or boundary. While I am rooted in a faith tradition which gives me a language and community, to me, God is bigger than any religion. Religion is for humans, a way to self-organize and come together and find rituals and meaning and tradition. Religion can be extremely beautiful and comforting and give us a window into the sacred that is challenging to find in the mundane world. But God? God can’t be narrowed down like that.
While in the service, I experienced the brute of Christian Nationalism. My chain of command in the Chaplain Corps was predominantly Southern Baptist or from the other evangelical traditions and almost daily, I was reprimanded for ministering to non-Christians, told I wasn’t preaching or evangelizing enough, or was admonished for not being a committed Christian and was in defiance of Jesus because I wasn’t at home as a dutiful wife. They questioned why I served. They questioned my ideas about inter-faith ceremonies, or how I made an off-hand comment about being thankful that most humans evolved to tolerate dairy breastmilk as I licked down a cookie dough ice cream scoop on a waffle cone (“Did you just say evolved? Heretic!”).
The Religious Right is everywhere. The Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination in the US, and the ‘nondenominational’ evangelicals are close behind them. Nevermind that the name ‘nondenominational’ makes my eyes roll so far back in my head I can see my optic nerves, the nondenominational folks are what I consider centralized-decentralized. They may not want to call themselves a denomination, but boy are many of these churches planted by the same umbrella investment groups, and use the same sermon and Sunday School material coming from Focus on the Family, amongst other organizations. “We’re free-standing! Except for where we get our source material and money”. Right.
Pope Leo XIV knows this all too well. He is an American-born and raised Catholic boy outta Chicagoland, with a degree from Villanova. He’s got a brother that is your stereotypical Florida MAGA-man with a social media presence that makes one think, ‘Wow, we all really do have a family member like this’ (Side note: It’s strange to think this pope may have opinions on Dennis Rodman).
Pope Leo XIV knows how money and religion move and talks — he’s the public-facing leader of the Catholic Church for crying out loud. He knows what signs of Crusades and religious warfare looks like, he’s now part of the papal lineage that called for the Crusades.
So to elect a pope who has his finger on the pulse of rising religious extremism in his home nation, the nuke-heavy, Bible-thumping, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps United States of America *eagle screech*, means this Christian Nationalist shit is for real. It’s a real problem and once it takes over America, it’s coming for the rest of the world. Claiming Canada as the 51st state and attempting to take over Greenland will be the least of the world’s concerns.
Did the cardinals solely choose this pope because of American politics? No, he’s a global pope to 1.8 billion Catholics praying the Hail Marys. Is it discussed in the background as America arms up Israel against Palestinians in Gaza, takes over the world’s data through technocratic white supremacist assholes like Musk, and pardons motherf*ckers for rioting the Capitol while flying Christian and American flags? Yeah, my dudes. This isn’t a joke, even though JD Vance’s conversion to Catholicism may sound like one.
The papacy is placing a proverbial foot soldier on American soil, so to speak, to grab the attention of American Catholics and have a stronghold in what can be argued as anything Christian here in the USA. I don’t agree with Catholics on women’s ministry leadership, queer rights, or their stance on Planned Parenthood, but maybe that’s the point.
It’s time for the Left to drop the purity tests and start building coalitions. If the pope is now considered middle or moderate or ‘woke’, folks, things are not good. We do not need to agree on everything to be allies, we just need to agree on a common enemy.
And Christian Authoritarian Nationalism is our greatest threat.