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 immigration policies.
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.
The message reads: “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?’”
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 commentator on US politics 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’.”
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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.”
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.
The Chicago native’s initial blessing, delivered in Latin and Spanish, paid homage to Pope Francis’ tenure and stressed that the Catholic church should welcome “everyone” — similar to the diverse and international crowd that gathered in the square of the Vatican.
His choice of name, Leo XIV, could also 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.
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