All of these are entirely normal positions of the Church which were also stated repeatedly by Francis and Benedict and John Paul II through various media

April 10, 2026 - 21:00 UTC

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Trying to imagine some medieval popes' tweets. Innocent III sending increasingly sweaty tweets on the necessity for the Fourth Crusade to move on to the Holy Land. Gregory VII incessantly subtweeting the Emperor.
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But this time it is in American!!!
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To be fair, JPII did have a clear lack of tweets.
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The one thing that would make him even more based is if he adjusted his last tweet/position a bit. “Okay turns out there is some justified violence. Just as Jesus is in the hand of the woman that smites her rapist, so too is he in the hand of Ukrainian drone operators. The orc must die.”
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Chris Hale is a destructive voice gonna be honest. Absolute idiot politicization of church social teaching largely set in stone since Vatican I in 1800’s.
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I don't recall anyone asking about your opinion of Mr. Hale.
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not to mention John XXIII
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And who are the guys who hate Vatican II again? Oh yeahhhhh. Them.
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Wait you mean Catholicism has specific teachings, not just a vibe?

Huh. Live and learn
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I'm old enough to remember when it was assumed that if you were Catholic you supported Democrats. I was in high school when articles and news stories about Catholics supporting Republicans started frequently appearing.
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It’s like bro do you even Rerum novarum??
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Yes they are -- which is why their curious absence from the mouths of the American religious right before this particular Pope is all the more stark.
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Yeah. Though the cool thing about Pope Leo is that he chose as his name, the name of the Pope who wrote Rerum Novarum which is the foundation of the pro-labor, capitalism critical Catholic Social Teaching which has been the official teaching of the church since-& is the basis of all these.
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though in fairness there are a *lot* of Popes Leo.
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another point in the "Americans only care about what other Americans say" counter
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Leo XIII ass pope didn’t even pick an original pope name just cribbing off of Rerum Novarum
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It’s like people have only recently discovered Roman Catholicism.
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Yes. The right wing American Catholics managed to drown a lot of this out with their voluble hatred of abortion.
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Guy who doesn't know anything about catholicism: uhhh did radical and sudden change on a short timeline just occur within the catholic church hierarchy?
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Nothing happens suddenly.

The Italians talk about the Rule of the Three Popes.

Pope 1: Never! The Church has always condemned this.
Pope 2: Not in my lifetime!
Pope 3: Thus the Church has always so taught...
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I see him as defending the Catholic Church against Christian Nationalist heresy so no change in the church at all.
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The thing about the Catholic Church do not map cleanly to the Conservative-Liberal politics that dominate America. The Church, to oversimplify, is extremely left-wing economically, but conservative socially (but even then there are multiple exceptions to these rules).
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American Exceptionalism.
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Hale gonna Hale.
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I beg people to read Rerum Novarum.
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What’s important is that the “Based Pope Leo” myth that right-wing American Catholics started pushing immediately upon his election has become impossible to support
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Idk he seems pretty based to me
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It's fascinating though that they haven't rejected him as an idol worshipping lib. I guess because he wears the mozetta
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Yes but were those other popes American?
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It is good that Leo is saying these things but it is not actually unusual for him to say them.
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I think this is mostly a product of non-Catholics who dont pay attention seeing it being said for the first time
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What would be unusual that I wish would happen is for Da Pope to make statements that explicitly names names.

Say “Donald Trump”; say “JD Vance”; say “the government of the United States”.

Even if the subtext is obvious…just spell it out.
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But historically contingent. There have been times when the position of the Pope (as formulated and communicated to secular powers by senior official representatives) has been 'Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius'.
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That said, him and Francis have been a lot more open about actively opposing their own right-wing clergy, whereas previous popes gave them far more leeway, to put it mildly. For instance, Leo XIII was regarded as relatively pro-Jewish, but he doesn’t seem to have been all that effective at
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Any generic statement of virtue and decency is viewed as an attack by the Trump regime
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but he says it in chicagoese
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Now, that noted, that they are being said as very pointed public rejoinders is unusual.
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It’s been apparent for a while now that Hale is determined to spin Leo for his own purposes and won‘t let inconvenient facts get in the way
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in fact, these were all said by the *previous* leo
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It's wild how the window of decency just got dragged so far into the mud in the last decade or two, that just staying the course makes you look radical.
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Not entirely sure that it was repeatedly by Benedict
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www.dispatch.com/story/news/2007/05/14/capitalism-marxism-twin-evils-benedict/23811237007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=false&gca-epti=z1146xxe1146xxv000082&gca-ft=231&gca-ds=sophi
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That's not how I remember Benedict's time in the chair.
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But this is the deep dish version
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That's why its hilarious whenever the 'tradcaths' get mad about it.
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Yeah, this is pretty standard Catholicism to me, so I'm curious who would be surprised by these positions.
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Mr Hale is an excitable fellow!
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Trump is a weak glue for the religious right because Catholicism‘s alliance with evangelical Christianity was based on anti abortion politics. If the cultural cleavages are going to be about immigration and wealth now things will be more uncomfortable for America’s catholic bishops.
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I grew up in Christian non-denominational YWAM (most people won't know that is) and even in an ecumenical environment like that there was still suspicions about Catholics (and LDS). The coalition between conservative Protestants, Catholics, and LDS is much less firm than it appears
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Basically, since they started, my view of "ICE raids" has been that they're modern-day anti-Catholic violence. Last throes of WASP culture trying to keep out non-Protestant foreigners. Trump has a family history: his father was arrested at Klan rally in Queens, and NYC Klan was primarily anti-Cath.
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Which is funny because it (partially) explains why there was such virulent anti-Catholicism in the 19th century (mostly "Those People" a major rump of the country was Othering at the time were the Italians and Irish whereas now it is Central/South Americans.)
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36% of Catholics in the US are Latino and they are more likely to attend weekly mass than any other demographic. This the LATIN church we're talking about here. It's going to be beyond uncomfortable and already is.
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