Free Republic

If the morally-confused Pope Leo XIV continues to assume the role of a partisan podcaster, he will very quickly lose his moral authority.And that’s exactly what Leo is doing.We all expect a pope to talk about and pray for peace in times of war, express a desire for unity in times of political divisiveness, and to always appeal to the best in humanity. That’s not what this pope has done. Instead, apparently under the sway of Barry Obama’s hatchet man and former campaign manager, David Axelrod, Leo is recklessly engaging in a left-wing campaign to damage President Trump’s and the...

Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert who occasionally has sparred with church leaders over their criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, said in an interview on Fox News Channel on Monday night that the president’s social media post with the Jesus-like image was “a joke.” “Of course, he took it down because he realized a lot of people weren’t understanding his humor,” Vance said. He repeatedly dismissed the focus on the president’s fight with the pope, saying it “isn’t particularly newsworthy” and there will be disagreements from time to time with the Vatican. But Vance also suggested the...

There's no lack of blame to go around for the overnight spat between Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican, and President Trump doing his late-night tweets.AdvertisementFollowing the heavily advertised 60 Minutes segment featuring the pope's three closest and wokest U.S. cardinals repeating their criticisms of Trump's Iran actions and work restoring U.S. immigration law, Trump put out these intemperate tweets:B R E A K I N G 🅱️ President Trump SLAMS Pope Leo for catering to woke radical leftists.. 👀 pic.twitter.com/5Ua04zcvuG — American AF 🇺🇸 (@iAnonPatriot) April 13, 2026The president posted this not long after attacking the Pope: pic.twitter.com/RlRhO63ZCoAdvertisement —...

Hours after Leo XIV became pope in May, Trump confidant and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer posted a brief message on social media. It said: “WOKE MARXIST POPE.” She was not the only member of the American right to immediately cast Leo as a culture war villain. Steve Bannon, a Catholic and former altar boy, called him the “worst pick for Maga Catholics” and described his election as a victory for “the globalists that run the Curia”. You might expect Donald Trump’s Maga base to embrace the first American pope. His administration is stacked with officials who speak proudly of their...

Cardinals Cupich, McElroy, Tobin slammed for pushing leftist talking points on 60 MinutesThe heterodox, Francis-appointed cardinals criticized Trump, pushed mass immigration, and ignored abortion in the interview, which occurred a few days after Pope Leo’s meeting with David Axelrod.Before President Donald Trump publicly criticized American-born Pope Leo XIV, three U.S. cardinals – all appointed by Pope Francis – joined CBS’ 60 Minutes TV show to deliver leftist talking points and denounce Trump.During their conversation with correspondent Nora O’Donnell, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, and Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C., seemed to give...

President Trump refused to apologize Monday to Pope Leo XIV amid their public fight over the US-Iran war, claiming the leader of the Roman Catholic Church “said things that are wrong.” “He was very much against what I’m doing with regard to Iran, and you cannot have a nuclear Iran — Pope Leo would not be happy with the result,” Trump said. “Iran wants to be a nuclear nation so they can exterminate the world. Not gonna happen.”Trump also accused the pontiff of being “very weak on crime” during an impromptu press availability outside the Oval Office at the White...

Days after Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, to a closed-door Pentagon meeting for a bitter lecture. “The United States,” Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.” One U.S. official present at the meeting brought up the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy bent the Catholic Church into submission,...

Pope on Iran: Peace not built with mutual threats or death-dealing arms Speaking at the Angelus on Sunday, Pope Leo XIV expressed “deep concern” over recent events in the Middle East and Iran.“Stability and peace are not built with mutual threats, nor with weapons, which sow destruction, pain, and death, but only through a reasonable, authentic, and responsible dialogue,” he said.The Pope warned of an immense tragedy if violence escalates out of control.“Faced with the possibility of a tragedy of enormous proportions,” he said, “I address to the parties involved a heartfelt appeal to assume the moral responsibility to stop...

The Vatican will not join President Donald Trump’s newly formed Board of Peace, its top diplomatic official said Tuesday, signaling reluctance from the Holy See to take part in the post-war initiative. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the Holy See "will not participate in the Board of Peace because of its particular nature, which is evidently not that of other States," the Vatican’s official news outlet reported. The Board of Peace, which was chartered in January and includes nearly 20 countries, is tasked with managing recovery efforts in the Gaza Strip after the Israel-Hamas war. While responding...

The Pope’s interfaith rhetoric collapses against Europe’s blood-soaked reality, revealing a globalist agenda that demands Christian nations surrender to the very forces destroying them. The Pope’s interfaith rhetoric collapses against Europe’s blood-soaked reality, revealing a globalist agenda that demands Christian nations surrender to the very forces destroying them. On his carefully orchestrated “interfaith” tour through Turkey and Lebanon, Pope Leo XIV was confronted with a question he could no longer avoid: whether Islam threatens the Christian identity of the West. The Pope was asked a serious and unavoidable question: “Is Islam a threat to the Christian identity of the West?”...

Pope Leo lays wreath at grave of Turkish leader Atatürk despite links to anti-Christian genocidesUnder the leadership of Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, his forces committed widespread murder and persecution of Greek, Armenian, and other Christian minorities.Pope Leo XIV paid homage at Atatürk’s tomb on November 27, 2025, at Anıtkabir in Ankara, despite the Turkish leader’s links to genocides against Christian minorities.On November 27, 2025, in Ankara, Pope Leo XIV – arriving for his first apostolic visit to Turkey – paused at Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, where he laid a wreath and signed the Honor...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican on Saturday returned 62 artifacts to Indigenous peoples from Canada as part of the Catholic Church’s reckoning with its role in helping suppress Indigenous culture in the Americas. Pope Leo XIV gave the artifacts, including an iconic Inuit kayak, and supporting documentation to a delegation of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops during an audience. According to a joint statement from the Vatican and Canadian church, the pieces were a gift and a “concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity.” The items were part of the Vatican Museum’s ethnographic collection, known as the Anima...

Speaking in English, and reaching a US audience directly, he reiterated the Catholic belief that every Christian will ultimately be judged on how they welcomed "the foreigner". In some of his strongest criticism to date of President Donald Trump's administration, the first ever US-born pope also warned that the US bombing of Venezuelan ships, suspected of carrying drugs, risked increasing tensions in the region.

Over the Christmas weekend, as the Catholic world was otherwise occupied, the Francismachine made a move against the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights of Malta that seems to have perplexed many observers. The Holy See announced it would launch a “commission” to investigate the firing of one of the Knights’ leaders, sacked recently after it was revealed he had been allowing the distribution of condoms in Myanmar. In various venues, we saw Catholics responding with much confusion to the announcement and it quickly became clear that most Catholics don’t have a good handle on what, exactly, the Knights of...

... The elevation of environmentalism to the level of doctrine, the pseudo-pagan deification of the earth and the implication that those who do not believe in the environmental movement are heretics who need to undergo a conversion “that transforms both personal and communal lifestyles” which he equated to a conversion to Christianity and the claim that failure to participate in made it impossible for anyone to call themselves “disciples of Jesus Christ” were radical positions, but the real radicalism lay in the infrastructure of leftist political organizing. Pope Leo’s attacks on ‘climate blasphemy’ were accompanied by a meeting with “environmental...

Apparently, when Pope Leo isn’t busy blessing a block of ice, he is approving prayer rooms for Muslim scholars visiting the Vatican Apostolic Library.Fr. Giacomo Cardinali, Vice Prefect, told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, “Some Muslim scholars have asked us for a room with a carpet for praying and we have given it to them.”How very inclusive of them.Actually, that’s apostasy.But, incredibly, today’s Vatican appears more willing to offend Christians than Muslims and more terrified of engaging in apostasy against the world view of the left/progressives than of the dictates of their own religion.This is disturbing to say the least.Care...

The Vatican Apostolic Library, located in Vatican City, has designated a prayer space for visiting Muslim scholars, marking a notable gesture of inclusivity at one of the world’s most important centers of religious and cultural scholarship. The move, confirmed by Vice Prefect Giacomo Cardinali, comes after several Muslim academics requested a quiet area for daily prayers during their research visits. In response, the library provided a room equipped with a prayer rug to meet their needs. Cardinali told La Repubblica, an Italian daily, that the request was modest and easily fulfilled. He emphasized that the library serves a global academic...

[Catholic Caucus] Heterodox German bishop criticizes public act of reparation for Vatican LGBT ‘pilgrimage’Auxiliary Bishop Ludger Schepers of Essen, Germany, the queer representative to the German Bishops' Conference, has a history of promoting the LGBT movement.Pro-LGBT Auxiliary Bishop Ludger Schepers of Essen, Germany, who serves as the queer representative of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK), slammed in a recent interview the four bishops who recently made a public act of reparation for the Vatican LGBT pilgrimage during this year’s Catholic Identity Conference (CIC).In an interview with the German Catholic News Agency (KNA) published October 10, Schepers called the act of...

Vatican Creates Muslim Prayer RoomHow many Christian prayer rooms are there in Mecca?Pope Leo has been vocally championing the Muslim mass invasion of Europe, so at least he’s being consistent.Muslim scholars visiting the Vatican Apostolic Library are being accommodated with prayer spaces, its Vice Prefect has confirmed.Fr Giacomo Cardinali, Vice Prefect, said in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that Muslim academics had requested a small area in which to pray, and the library had agreed. “Some Muslim scholars have asked us for a room with a carpet for praying and we have given it to them,” he...

Pope Leo tells US bishops to address Trump's immigration crackdownPope Leo told U.S. bishops visiting him at the Vatican on Wednesday that they should firmly address how immigrants are being treated by President Donald Trump's hardline policies, attendees said, in the latest push by the pontiff on the issue. Leo, the first U.S. pope, was handed dozens of letters from immigrants describing their fears of deportation under the Trump administration's policies during the meeting, which included bishops and social workers from the U.S.-Mexico border. "Our Holy Father … is very personally concerned about these matters," El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz,...