How Will Pope Leo Approach the Rising Right Wing of the U.S. Church?

The New York Times ^ | May 9, 2025 | Updated 9:05 a.m. ET | Ruth Graham

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The first American pope arrives at a time of extraordinary complexity and tension in the church in the United States.

The last several months for American Catholics have been a story about the ascent of the Catholic right. In January, a parade of right-wing Catholic power began streaming into President Trump’s remade Washington. Just weeks later came the hospitalization and decline of Pope Francis, who often seemed to stand alone in offering a different vision of global Christian influence.

Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic in the new conservative style, was one of the last people to see Pope Francis alive, a brief meeting between representatives of two contrasting visions for Catholic values in the world.

Then came the stunning arrival on Thursday of a new pope: an American, Chicago-born — and a prelate whose priorities for the church seemed to place him in the mold of Francis. He is potentially another countervailing voice against the country’s newly powerful strain of right-leaning Catholics.

The elevation of Robert Francis Prevost, known to some as Bob, to the throne of St. Peter electrified Catholics across his home country on Thursday afternoon. But the first American pope arrives at a time of extraordinary complexity and tension in the church in the United States.

Now the new pope, Leo XIV, faces the task not just of shepherding the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, but of unifying a fractured American church where the church hierarchy, ordinary Catholics, an influential right-wing Catholic media ecosystem and Catholic power in Washington are often at odds.

The pope assumes the role at a moment of extraordinary muscle and visibility for a certain kind of Catholicism in American public life. More than a third of the members of President Trump’s cabinet are Catholic. So are two-thirds of the Supreme Court, which...

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TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: popebob

[PGR88]

You can’t hate The NY Times enough.

[jimtorr]

Yep. The story isn’t about a new pope’s religious views, but national politics. Right wing catholics and Trump as the bad guys.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

2nd only to the corruption brought by catholicism, yeah, it’s possible. Islam actually ranks number one.

[BenLurkin]

Rising Right Wing?

You mean, people who want the Church to preach the Gospel, follow Christ, and to condemn sin and paganism?

[TornadoAlley3]

Hope he embraces and encourages.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Go take a flying leap Ruthy. The DemonRATS own Provost. He’s a far-lefty.

[stanne]

Rising right wing?

WTH are these atheist yammering about

[Mr. Lucky]

Boy, howdy.

[Da Coyote]

“You can’t hate The NY Times enough.”
I’d be satisfied when the hate reaches “Destroy the bastards and burn the remains” level.
Journalism - when one cannot qualify for entry into a Studies major.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

What right wing catholics

[fidelis]

What right wing catholics

They mean faithful and orthodox Catholics. Like me.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Who is the first name mentioned in the “rising right wing” of the church? A new bishop or cardinal? A right wing theologian? No, JD Vance. LOL. A Catholic who happens to be a Republican. Tom Homan will be next on the list. Cut through the twists and turns and what the article really wants to know when the new Pope is going to cause the church to become part of the Leftwing resistance to Trump.

[17th Miss Regt]

I'm surprised the headline was not:

How Will Pope Leo Approach the Rising Reich Wing of the U.S. Church?

[right way right]

Was this pope chosen to protect pedos and invaders?
NYT must believe so.

[Orosius]

The left wing of the American Catholic Church has a name. They’re called Episcopalians.

[TexasFreeper2009]

you mean the real Christians trying to keep the church from being taken over by a bunch of satenist sodomites that don’t care one wit about Christ or the Church?

[vpintheak]

Even though this is about the Catholic church, these commie pukes have the same concerns about any decent follower of Christ.

[Dick Vomer]

He’s a communist plant to help destroy the church.

Expect a slow “progressive” advancement in making the church more “inclusive” and to try to squash the sacraments, the liturgy and even core beliefs.

He was groomed by a South American communist pope to be a communist “american” pope.

Let them go bankrupt, make the church sell it’s real estate and other assets to fund their “global” religion of “man” and not of God/Jesus Christ...

I know what will save the church... MORE SINGING... and no prayers. Get rid of sin, confession, penance, baptizing infants, kneeling in church, getting the communion from the priest... get rid of all that yucky stuff....

The Catholic Church and God are pure... but MAN is weak and we are being led by sheep with the moral backbone of jello and the balls of a eunuch.

Want some interesting reading... try

AA-1025: Memoirs of the Communist Infiltration into the Church
Book by Marie Carré

It’s fiction... maybe.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The left wing of the American Catholic Church has a name. They’re called Episcopalians.

Is the Episcopal Church related to the Church of England?

Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember hearing that, but I am not sure.