WASHINGTON —Newly elected Pope Leo XIV spent years amplifying criticism of President Trump’s policies on social media — with the Catholic Church’s first American leader taking particular aim at the Republican’s hard-line immigration stance.
Leo XIV, until Thursday known as Robert Francis Prevost, 69, shared or retweeted the opinions of colleagues using his verified account @drprevost on X, formerly known as Twitter.
His final X post before being elected by the Conclave in the Sistine Chapel was a retweet of a message from Philadelphia-based Catholic commentator Rocco Palmo, who on April 14 slammed Trump’s partnership with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele on deportation of illegal migrants.
“As Trump & Bukele use Oval to [laugh emoji] Feds’ illicit deportation of a US resident… once an undoc-ed Salvadorean himself, now-DC [auxiliary bishop] Evelio [Menjivar] asks, ‘Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?’” the tweet reads.
On Feb. 3, Prevost shared a link to a National Catholic Reporter article headlined “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
That article took issue with remarks Trump’s vice president made during a Jan. 29 Fox News interview, in which he stated: “There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far-left has completely inverted that.”
Prevost was also an active participant in US political discussion during Trump’s first term — in 2017 retweeting a post from Palmo that said, “Calling refugee bans ‘a dark hour of US history,’ [Chicago Archbishop] Blase [Cupich] says ‘the world is watching as we abandon our commitment to American values’.”
Follow the latest on the election of Pope Leo XIV:
Also in January 2017, the new pope retweeted a message from Jesuit priest James Martin, who wrote: “We’re banning all Syrian refugees? The men, women and children who *most* need help? What an immoral nation we are becoming. Jesus weeps.”
The same year, he shared a message that reads, “Saying Trump’s ‘bad hombres’ line fuels ‘racism and nativism,’ Cali bishops send preemptive blast on DACA repeal.”
The new pope expressed his opinion on other subjects as well.
In October 2017, Prevost retweeted a call for new US gun control from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) after a gunman murdered 60 people in Las Vegas.
“To my colleagues: your cowardice to act cannot be whitewashed by thoughts and prayers. None of this ends unless we do something to stop it,” Murphy wrote.
Trump the following year banned “bump stocks” — a tool that hastens gun firing rates — after they were used in the Vegas massacre.
The new pope also shared a variety of messages reflecting the Catholic Church’s position on government policies — including opposing abortion, the death penalty and euthanasia — and circulated a post condemning “gender ideology” in schools.
Prevost emerged as a surprise pick to be the leader of the world’s estimated 1.4 billion Roman Catholics, as his name had not been floated as a possibility prior to the two-day conclave.
Trump congratulated the new pontiff on Truth Social and told reporters outside the West Wing that he was thrilled that an American would hold the post.
“Congratulations to Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who was just named Pope,” Trump wrote in his initial message. “It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope. What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our Country. I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!”
“That’s a great honor,” the president told the press. “I was watching it and they said, ‘He’s from America. I said, ‘That’s great.’”
Vance also congratulated Pope Leo, writing, “I’m sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for his successful work leading the Church. May God bless him!”
The Chicago native’s initial blessing, delivered in Latin and Spanish, paid homage to the late Pope Francis’ tenure and stressed that the Catholic Church should welcome “everyone” — in a nod to the diverse and international crowd that gathered in St. Peter’s Square to greet him.
Prevost’s choice of Leo XIV could be a signal that he wants to continue the legacy of Leo XIII, who was known as the “Pope of the Workers” — and had the third-longest verifiable tenure, lasting from 1878 to 1903, during which he refused to leave the Vatican in protest of the Italian government’s seizure of the former Papal States.
