'JD Vance is wrong': New Pope Leo XIV has criticized Trump administration online

Carson Swick, The Baltimore Sun on May 8, 2025

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Pope Leo XIV, who was known as Cardinal Robert Prevost before becoming the first American selected to lead the Catholic Church on Thursday, has reposted online content critical of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on immigration and religious issues.

A Chicago native and Villanova University graduate, Leo XIV speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese, and can read both Latin and German. He joined X — then known as Twitter — in 2011, and has sporadically posted and reposted content in several languages on the account @drprevost.

On Feb. 3, Prevost shared a link to a National Catholic Reporter article titled: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” The article took issue with Vance’s interpretation of “ordo amoris,” a Catholic concept that roughly translates to the “order of love” or “order of charity.”

“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,” Vance had said during a Jan. 29 Fox News interview, which was also criticized by Leo XIV’s predecessor, the late Pope Francis.

On April 14, Prevost’s most recent repost linked to Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo’s article denouncing the Trump administration’s “illicit deportation of a U.S. resident” — a reference to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen wrongly deported to from Maryland in March despite being granted “withholding of removal” status and legal working papers by an American judge. The post quoted Salvadoran Bishop Evelio Menjivar: “Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?”

In 2017, Prevost also reposted tweets denouncing the first Trump administration’s policies toward refugees from Syria and other Muslim-majority countries. Pope Leo XIV has also shared messages in support of gun control measures and opposing abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia and so-called “gender ideology” in public schools.

For their part, Trump, Vance and other American leaders have congratulated the new pope.

Of Leo XIV, Trump wrote it was “such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope” and says he looks forward to meeting him. Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, wrote: “I’m sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for his successful work leading the Church.”

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