The Tradition the News Forgot
On Pope Leo XIV, President Trump, and why Catholics need more than a take
The past week handed Catholics a moment they likely weren’t prepared for. The sitting president of the United States attacked the Holy Roman Pontiff with political campaign rhetoric. Trump called Leo “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” and said he is “a very liberal person” who should “stop catering to the Radical Left.” He claimed Leo only became pope because the Church thought an American pontiff would be “the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump” — and went further: “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.” Asked about it on the tarmac, he was unequivocal: “There’s nothing to apologize for. He’s wrong.”
The media are covering it as a political feud. Most Catholics likely consumed it in this same way. There are key clergy who are speaking out against Trump’s rhetoric in the American Church. One of those voices is my own local ordinary, Bishop John Dolan. He issued a statement which you can read below.
The real story here is not what Trump said. The real story is not what Pope Leo XIV said. The story is that Catholics in the United States largely lack the framework to process it as anything other than politics.
The Catholic Social Teaching of the Church has a 135-year tradition of thinking precisely about the relationship between political authority, the common good, and the Church’s prophetic role. Catholic Social Teaching exists exactly for this moment.
Pope Leo XIV is consciously invoking the legacy of Pope Leo XIII. His choice of name is not political branding, but is making a theological claim about the continuity of teaching and moral clarity. Rerum Novarum (1891) by Pope Leo XIII is one of the keys to unlocking the present age. All of the encyclicals which comprise the social doctrine of the Church flow from Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, authentically guarded by the Magisterium of the Church.
The antidote to our present situation is not a better “take.” It is formation.
If you want to join me in diving into the Catholic Social Teaching of the Church afresh, I invite you to sign up for the three upcoming seminars I am leading. Rerum Novarum was not just about the proper ordering of the work and the worker, it showed us how the Church has something relevant and perennially applicable to say in every age. The Church has something to say to you, to me, to Donald Trump. What is it? The Church is Mother and Teacher; do we let Her speak to us today? These seminars are where that happens.
