(Adnkronos) – After Donald Trump’s unprecedented attack on Leo XIV, followed by the president’s refusal to apologize to the Pontiff because “he said wrong things” about the war with Iran and the deportation of migrants, Republicans fear losing the Catholic vote in the midterm elections, which already appear challenging for the president’s party.
“You really wouldn’t want to make mistakes like this,” admits Joshua Mercer, who, together with the current US ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch, founded CatholicVote, an organization that in 2024 helped Trump win the Catholic vote, obtaining 55% against Kamala Harris’s 43%.
But now the incredible words used by Trump against the Pontiff, followed by the post with an image of himself in the likeness of Jesus that brought together American Christians of all denominations, even his ultra-right loyalists, in denouncing a ‘blasphemy’, are pushing many conservative Catholic figures to send clear warnings to the White House and Republicans.
“Catholics are not blind sheep who merely follow,” says Joh Yep, president of Catholics for Catholics, who has previously hosted prayer galas at Mar-a-Lago. “We truly seek to identify which candidates can best represent our Catholic values, so the president must realize that this issue needs to be addressed,” he then added.
Also because a recent NBC poll shows that Leo XIV is much more popular in the US than Trump: “he is our American Pope, he is not an Italian, South American or Polish guy, we are all proud,” says Denise Murphy McGraw, president of Catholics Vote Common Good, who opposed Trump in 2024.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist, a voice of the US far-right close to the most conservative Catholic circles, stands out from the chorus, believing that they are aligned with Trump in criticizing the Pope on the issue of migrants: “he does well to mobilize his conservative Catholic base in this way, President Trump is politically intelligent to make such a move”.
