Pope Leo XIV

Sunday

Damian Thompson

Is there any route back for the Society of St. Pius X?

As any Catholic master of ceremonies will tell you, it takes only the tiniest sartorial mishap to lend a Python-esque flavor to moments of the utmost solemnity. On July 1 the rebel traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) created four new bishops in defiance of Pope Leo XIV during a five-hour open-air Latin Mass in a Swiss alpine meadow. The consecrating prelates wore dark-red velvet chasubles over scarlet-and-gold dalmatics with matching gloves. They descended from their thrones bearing sacred chrism. Afterward the new bishops stood in a row, miters perched on their heads for the first time. Liberal bishops wear stumpy headgear.

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Tuesday

Nick Spencer

How does the Catholic J.D. Vance justify Trumpian policies?

‘Read Hillbilly Elegy,’ a friend messaged me a decade ago. ‘The author really gets it.’ So I did, and indeed he did. The young and then obscure J.D. Vance showed, through his family travails in Appalachia, how both Republicans and Democrats had in their different ways screwed blue collar, just-about-working-class families like his. The book went platinum and launched his public career. Three things saved the young Vance from the fate that awaited people like him: a fiercely defensive and religious grandmother (‘Mamaw’), enlisting in the US Marines, and evangelical Christianity. He fell away from this last, however, as he discovered that his fundamentalist faith may have had community love in spades but was very short on good answers to big questions.

Thursday

Michael Gove

The Pope’s AI intervention shames our politicians

I was born into a sternly Presbyterian culture. Politically, I’m more Orange than Donald Trump’s skin tone. But today I am on my knees giving thanks to the Pope. He has produced the most powerful political document of the year, taking on the greatest challenge of our times. His first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, deals with the changes which will be wrought to all our lives by artificial intelligence in the months and years ahead. AI will transform our economies and societies massively and irrevocably; it will change what it means to be human; it may even mark the end of humanity itself. If it takes the Pope to alert us to this revolution then perhaps the Reformation wasn’t such a good idea after all.

AI

Thursday

Chilton Williamson, Jr.

The clash between Trump and Pope Leo shouldn’t shock Catholics

I have always believed that no Catholic with a sound understanding of his faith, which represents the ultimate in realistic thinking and a realistic view of the world, should be shocked by anything. For this reason, the recent contretemps between the President of the United States and Pope Leo XIV left me completely unaffected. Donald Trump is not a Catholic and the Pope in Rome serves in persona Christi, the 367th temporal embodiment of the Lord before the Second Coming. I believe further that a great many devout Catholics devote too much attention to whoever it is who happens to be serving as the Vicar of Christ at any given moment and that it is theologically wrong to treat him as an international celebrity, as it has been the custom of Catholics to do in the postwar era.

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George Weigel

Pope Leo knows what his job is

Pope Leo XIV had a relatively quiet first 11 months on the Chair of St. Peter. Then Mt. Trump erupted in April, with the voluble and volatile POTUS accusing the Chicago-born pontiff of everything from squishiness on crime to squishiness on Iranian nukes. The most absurd presidential claim was that, were it not for Trump, Robert Francis Prevost would not be Pope. The truth of the matter is that, had Cardinal Prevost been primarily thought of as an American papabile a year ago, he would never have been elected, Latin American opposition to a gringo Pope being one of the immutable human dynamics of a papal conclave. Twenty years of missionary work in Peru, and broad experience of the world church (thanks to two terms as prior general of the Order of St.

Damian Thompson

Leo XIV’s papacy is off to a surprisingly promising start

From our UK edition

Rome In the days before the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV, traditionalist Catholics were so worried about interference from evil spirits that, according to reliable sources, they arranged for a priest to conduct what’s known as a ‘minor exorcism’ outside the walls of the Vatican. Such ceremonies, which typically involve the sprinkling of holy water mixed with blessed salt, aren’t such a big deal as the major exorcisms of a demon from a person; they are blessings intended to remove Satan’s influence from places where it may occur. But the fact that some clergy in Rome thought the Sistine Chapel might be one of those places reveals the depth of the wounds inflicted on the Church during the turbulent reign of Pope Francis.

Peter Jones

Pope Leo XIV – lion or a pussycat?

From our UK edition

Will Pope Leo turn out to be a lion or a pussycat? That depends on what he has to confront, but one hopes he will do better than Pope Siricius (384-399), let alone Kirill, current Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. When the Roman emperor Constantine published a letter in 313 allowing freedom of worship to pagan and Christian alike, it opened the door to Christian leaders taking over the function of the old Roman elite. This at once presented a problem: if there really was one true God, whose will only bishops could interpret, was the emperor lord over the church or the church lord over the emperor? In 390 Butheric, a close friend of the emperor Theodosius, arrested a star charioteer for homosexual rape. A riot ensued and Butheric was murdered.

Friday

Freddy Gray

All roads lead to Rome for Rubio

"What to get someone who has everything, I thought," said Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday, as he handed Pope Leo a funny little crystal-football present. "Wow, OK," replied Leo, stiffly. It was a useful reminder that Rubio is not always a smooth operator. For all the articles suggesting he has now overtaken Vice President J.D. Vance as favorite to be the 2028 Republican nominee, for all the media gushing over the "Secretary of Everything" in the White House briefing room, Lil’ Marco can still be something of a robotic plonker on the big stage. Lil’ Marco can still be something of a robotic plonker on the big stage It was Rubio, after all, who was the first cabinet official to suggest in public that Israel had strong-armed America into attacking Iran.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Trump attacks the Pope, Trump praises the King and Melania goes public

From our UK edition

Home Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the former secretary general of Nato, said: ‘We are under attack. We are not safe... Britain’s national security and safety is in peril.’ The government ran out of time to pass legislation to give the Chagos Islands to Mauritius before the end of the current session of parliament. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, visited Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar. He said in the Guardian that renewable energy would give Britain resilience in an unstable world. The IMF forecast that the Iran war would hit Britain’s economy the hardest, among G7 countries, reducing its estimate for growth this year to 0.8 per cent, from the 1.3 per cent predicted in January.

Monday

Stephen Daisley

The best response to Trump is to pray for him

Imagine that Martin Luther had scrawled his 95 Theses on the back of a Denny’s menu and nailed it to the doors of the nearest church and you get the picture of Donald Trump’s polemic against Pope Leo XIV. The faithful should be careful not to overreact to the President’s provocation, which is objectively hilarious The President’s TruthSocial rant against the Holy Father is highly offensive, of course. Show some respect for the Vicar of Christ. That’s not to mention the follow-up post in which he shared an AI-generated image of himself mocked up as Jesus Christ healing the sick. Given the condition of his second term in office, Trump might focus on trying to raise the dead. Although a man of peace, the Pope has several options for retaliation.

Thursday

Margaret Mitchell

The Pentagon’s holy war with Rome

America is having its Golden Age, Iran is about to get blasted into the Stone Age... and Elbridge Colby wants to go back to the Late Middle Ages? According to a Free Press report by Mattia Ferraresi, the Under Secretary of War for Policy summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s then-ambassador to the US, to a meeting in which the Avignon Papacy was invoked. (For those of you who didn’t go to Catholic school: in the 1300s the king of France had Pope Boniface VIII captured and beaten after the pope excommunicated him; a few years later the papacy moved to Avignon amid continued threats from the French crown and instability in Rome.

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Tuesday

Damian Thompson

How Pope Leo XIV is quietly reshaping the Vatican

On the afternoon of Easter Sunday last year, Pope Francis was driven through St Peter’s Square in an open-topped Popemobile. A few weeks earlier he had nearly died from pneumonia, so pilgrims were thrilled to watch him blessing babies. They told journalists that it was a miracle to see the 88-year-old Argentinian in such good shape. At 9.45 the next morning the Vatican announced that Francis had just died from a stroke. And so began the preparations for a conclave that elected the second pope from the Americas. Cardinal Robert Prevost – ‘Bob’ to his friends – was a Chicago-born dual citizen of the United States and Peru. Until 2023 he’d been bishop of the Peruvian diocese of Chiclayo.

Friday

Cockburn

Why does Trump love Zohran so much?

Mayor Zohran Mamdani met Trump in the Oval Office yesterday to pitch a huge New York City housing initiative – and secure the release of a Columbia University student from ICE custody. Mamdani’s communications director said that Trump was “very enthusiastic” about the plan to build 12,000 new affordable homes in Sunnyside, Queens, by using over $21 billion in federal grants. What’s more, the student, who happens to be a photogenic young woman, was freed. Results all around. Zohran and his team gave Trump a prop newspaper with the headline “TRUMP TO CITY: LET’S BUILD,” a play on the 1975 New York Daily News cover – “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.” The headlines made a clear case for how much the people would love Trump if he went ahead with Mamdani’s plans.

zohran trump

Tuesday

Owen Matthews

What Ukraine really needs from Europe

If bear hugs were army divisions and brave words cash euros, Volodymyr Zelensky would have ended his tour of European capitals this week the best-armed and best-funded leader in the world. "We stand with Ukraine," vowed British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer after hosting a summit for Zelensky and top European allies at Downing Street on Monday. "We support you in the conflict and support you in the negotiations to make sure that this is a just and lasting settlement." Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared that "nobody should doubt our support for Ukraine" and added that "the destiny of this country is the destiny of Europe." France’s President Emmanuel Macron promised that Europe has "a lot of cards in our hands.

Friday

James Walton

The cardinals spill the beans on the conclave 

From our UK edition

Secrets of the Conclave seemed rather optimistically titled, given that everybody at this year’s papal election had made a solemn vow before God not to divulge any. But, while we duly heard nothing about backstage politicking – apart from regular assurances that none took place – this respectful and quietly charming documentary did succeed in humanising the strange process of picking a new pope, and even in supplying a few gentle revelations. It transpires, for example, that Catholic cardinals suffer from the same anxiety about phonelessness as the rest of us, with the requirement to hand in their mobiles before entering the Sistine Chapel initially causing feelings of slight panic.

Friday

Tom Slater

Tom Slater, Justin Marozzi, Iben Thranholm, Angus Colwell & Philip Womack

From our UK edition

28 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Tom Slater says that Britain is having its own gilet jaunes moment; Justin Marozzi reads his historian’s notebook; Iben Thranholm explains how Denmark’s ‘spiritual rearmament’ is a lesson for the West; Angus Colwell praises BBC Alba; and, Philip Womack provides his notes on flatmates. Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Friday

Damian Thompson

How has John Henry Newman inspired Pope Leo XIV?

From our UK edition

31 min listen

St John Henry Newman (1801-90) is perhaps the most influential theologian in the history of English Christianity. Yet, as Damian Thompson discusses with Fr Rod Strange – one of the world’s leading authorities on Newman – he was a divisive figure, though perhaps not in the way one might imagine. One of the founders of the Oxford Movement, Newman was widely acknowledged as the most gifted intellectual in the Church of England. In 1845 he converted to Rome and was eventually made a cardinal. Thus he had a unique viewpoint on Church doctrine and dogma. But what is Newman’s significance today? Although he is universally celebrated, conservative and liberal Christians, and especially Catholics, are still fighting over his legacy.

Thursday

Damian Thompson

Can Pope Leo end the liturgy wars?

From our UK edition

Last weekend, under windswept banners depicting the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, nearly 20,000 young pilgrims marched through fields and forests between the cathedrals of Paris and Chartres. All of them carried rosaries and chanted in Latin, sometimes breathlessly: it’s a punishing 60-mile trek through mud and rocks. Each ‘chapter’ of the column was accompanied by priests. Like the lay pilgrims – drawn from 30 countries but dominated by French teenagers in scouting uniform – they wore backpacks and trainers, but also full-length cassocks or habits. They were traditionalists and so were the young people: despite their informality, they were utterly committed to intricate Latin worship.

Friday

Brandon Goldman

Why Gen Z is converting to Catholicism

Both of my parents are Jewish, as were theirs, going as far back as anybody remembers – probably to Abraham. As with many secular, Jewish-American families, God was practically non-existent in our house, though we still observed holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Passover. There came a point, however, when I had to ask why we partook in any of these traditions if God, who commanded their observance, wasn’t real. I figured that the Greeks had Zeus, the Romans had Jupiter, the Norse had Odin, and now we have God. This one will pass, too.In college, I studied progressive politics and devoured the writings of Marx and Engels, forming a firm foundation for my socialist beliefs.

Gen Z

Friday

Margaret Mitchell

Donald Trump’s papal style

The election of the first American pope, Leo XIV, comes at a strange time when a Catholic establishment is running the show in his home country: vice president J.D. Vance, of course, as well as health secretary RFK Jr., border czar Tom Homan, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, secretary of state Marco Rubio, to name the most prominent few. Melania is allegedly one as well. They are American exceptionalists who want to Make America Great Again and, in the process, Make Catholicism Great Again too. MAGA and Catholicism seem like strange bedfellows at first glance. Donald Trump has been divorced twice and married thrice. The rich may have a difficult time entering the kingdom of God, but they’ve had no trouble finding roles within Trump’s administration, which hosts 13 billionaires.

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