When Pope Francis died, the morning after Easter, prominent right-wing Catholics leapt at the chance to lobby for a more conservative, even Trumpian, leader of the Church. Far-right pundit Jack Posobiec broadcast a call for traditionalist Catholics to “hop a flight to Rome right now, go into St. Peter’s Square, and start taking up space,” reminding cardinals voting in the conclave that would elect the new pope that “now is the time for the traditional ascendance, because we are in a traditional awakening here in the Western Church.” Steve Bannon, who had castigated Francis for years, similarly vowed to organize an online “show of force of traditionalists” ahead of the conclave.
In Rome, Catholic-right journalists distributed a report to cardinals, profiling leading papal candidates from a palpably conservative perspective, while US Catholic-right philanthropists courted Church leaders at upscale gatherings, with one “VIP” saying their network “could raise a billion to help the Church. So long as we have the right pope.”
But on May 8, when the new pope the conclave had chosen—Pope Leo XIV, formerly Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost, and the first US-born pope in two millennia of Church history—appeared on the Vatican balcony instead, the Catholic right’s fervor shifted to despair and alarm. “I can’t believe the cardinals did this,” said popular traditionalist Catholic podcaster Taylor Marshall, author of a 2019 book arguing that the election of the late Pope Francis was part of a century-old plot to undermine the Church, as more than 100,000 viewers tuned into his live stream; Leo was “definitely on the Pope Francis trajectory,” he continued, and, given his comparative youth, his papacy could be a long one. Marshall’s audience chimed in with their own lamentations: that the Vatican had bucked conventional wisdom in picking an American pope so he could “go head-to-head” with Donald Trump or fight to restore funding for Catholic relief work the Trump administration had cut. That the “pope Trump stunt”—Trump declaring himself his own first pick for pontiff and subsequently posting an AI-generated image of himself in full papal regalia, sitting on a golden throne—had backfired, hurting conservatives’ chances.
Almost immediately, conservatives began poring over a since-deleted X account that appeared to belong to Prevost, reporting back with dismay that he’d shared posts expressing prayers for George Floyd, criticism of Trump’s nativist rhetoric, and support for Dreamers, environmental advocacy, and gun-safety laws. In recent months, he’d shared an article from the progressive National Catholic Reporter titled, “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others”—in response to Vance’s invocation of ancient Catholic theology to justify Trump’s mass deportation campaign—and an op-ed remonstrating Catholics who were indifferent to migrants’ suffering.
They dug deeper and found that Prevost may have been involved in the removal of Bishop Joseph Strickland from his Texas diocese in 2023, following years of attacks on Pope Francis. And they registered with dismay how, in his first public address as pope, Leo not only praised his predecessor but also called for a “synodal church,” continuing Francis’s vision of lay Catholics and church leaders working together to address important issues. Even one of Leo’s brothers, speaking to media shortly after the announcement, said the new pope likely wouldn’t represent “much of a break in the tradition of Pope Francis.”
As consensus grew that the conclave had found in Leo a continuity pope, prominent Catholic-right groups and figures voiced their outrage. The right-wing Lepanto Institute, a research organization that states it was created to “present the facts” about “dissident and apostate Catholics in politics and other prominent arenas,” responded to Leo’s election by posting, “Prevost!!! Dear God help us!!!” and subsequently declaring Leo a “James Martin pick,” in reference to prominent Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin, an advocate for LGBTQ inclusion in the Church. Fr. James Altman, who gained notoriety in 2020 for a viral video warning that Catholic Democrats would have to repent “or face the fires of hell,” wrote, “The vast majority of the hierarchy have betrayed and abandoned us once again.” Catholic-right outlet LifeSiteNews mournfully concluded, “The man who oversaw the takedown of Bishop Strickland and the rise of [Francis ally Cardinal Robert] McElroy has been handed the keys of Peter. The storm is here.”
While a handful of Catholic-right voices counseled patience—Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant urged followers to consider how a centrist pope might keep the traditionalist Catholic movement united, avoiding the factionalization that could follow the election of a more conservative pope—other commentators, in and out of the Church, proclaimed Leo’s election an intentional rebuke of the MAGA movement. Far-right social media personality Mike Cernovich called Leo a “shitlib”; Trump ally Laura Loomer went with “woke Marxist pope.”
In his live stream from Rome shortly after Leo was announced, Posobiec said, “The choice of an American pope is clearly a reaction to President Trump.” Marshall suggested Leo’s election was an intentional effort to force US traditionalist Catholics into a choice. “We as Catholics are going to be pitted against an American pope and the American president. And I feel the liberals, the bishops, the priests are going to be pushing us: which one are you for? Do you support your president or do you support your pope?” Bannon reportedly declared Leo the “worst pick for MAGA Catholics” and an “anti-Trump pope” selected “by the globalists that run the Curia,” subsequently telling a Financial Times audience, to laughter, that the conclave “was more rigged than the 2020 election,” and would soon cause a schism.
And then, almost overnight, the narrative seemed to change.
On Friday, Marshall’s video responding to Leo’s election was no longer public on YouTube. (In an earlier video, Marshall had also declared Prevost potentially “the worst case scenario.”) He posted a new recording that began with the words, “I submit myself to his holiness Pope Leo XIV.” After prayer, he said, his initial shock had given way to a sense of encouragement, and he reminded listeners of historical cases where popes elected as liberal reformers had unexpectedly become staunch conservatives. Noting that Leo’s papacy might last 20 years, he said Leo “needs to know that traditional Catholics are praying for him, that we wish him the best.”
