Pope Leo XIV has attempted to court Maga money from the US back into the Catholic Church while simultaneously contesting aspects of the political movement’s thinking and actions, former president Mary McAleese has said.
In a critical article reflecting on the new pontiff, Ms McAleese took issue with various aspects of his brief period in office, seizing on same-sex marriage and his attitude toward women in particular.
Her views are set out in an article for the current UK Catholic Tablet magazine to mark the pope’s first 100 days on Friday.
Leo, she wrote, had followed the agenda of his predecessor Francis in support of migrants and the poor, although with reduced volume, “as he tries to court Maga (Make America Great Again) money back into the Church while simultaneously contesting aspects of Maga governmental thinking and acting”.
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One of the main subjects considered by the cardinals before Leo’s election was the parlous state of Vatican finances where, according to accounts for 2024, there was an €83 million shortfall, while its pension fund shortfall was estimated at €631 million.
On May 16th last, in one of his first statements as pope, Leo affirmed Catholic teaching on marriage as founded on the “stable union between a man and a woman,” and church teaching banning abortion.
Ms McAleese said such “uncompromising comments” could have been made by previous conservative popes Benedict, John Paul II, Paul VI or Pius XI.
“That they also appeal to the constituency of US Catholic voters who distrusted Francis and whose financial support Leo is trying to restore, is noteworthy,” she wrote.
[ How a quiet American became popeOpens in new window ]
She was also less than enthusiastic about the new pope’s stance on women in the church, describing him as “as bog-standard patriarchal, patronising and prone to tokenism”.
Meanwhile, his views on Church teaching where LGBTIQ+ issues are concerned were anything but “forward thinking,” she said. Noting that Leo recently appointed Rev Thomas Hennen as Bishop of Baker, Oregon in the US, she said the new bishop supported Courage International.
[ Pope Leo XIV: what does he stand for?Opens in new window ]
It “advocates celibacy and caters for the spiritual needs of LGBTIQ+ Catholics within existing magisterial teaching which regards homosexuality as intrinsically disordered and homosexual acts as evil. This appointment and its accompanying spin is a worrying straw in the wind.”
Overall, she felt the last 100 days showed that “Leo is more Benedict than Francis though in fairness the latter’s reputation as a reformer was well over-egged”.
“We appear at least to have pivoted dramatically from a careless pope to a cautious pope, from a sometimes narky showman to a genial shy man, from an impulsive pope to a measured pope, from a Latin American pope to an American pope.”
The first American pope, Leo XIV’s election on May 8th last took almost everyone by surprise, mainly due to his nationality. It tends to be Catholic Church tradition that conclaves rarely elect a pope from one of the world’s major powers.
As surprising was that he had been a member of the College of Cardinals, which elected him, for less than two years. He was on the Roman Curia, as prefect at the Dicastery for Bishops, for a little more than that, since January 2023.
Following his election, unlike his predecessor, Pope Leo appeared on the balcony at St Peter’s wearing the traditional papal stole and mozzetta. Since when he has decided to reside at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, unlike Francis, and has already been to the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo twice, a place Francis never visited.
Commenting on this, Ms McAleese said “almost entirely gone from Pope Leo’ papacy already are the early self-effacing elements of Francis’ papacy which provoked much favourable comment about his perceived modesty”.
She asked whether Leo will “have the courage and faith to be an agent of change or are we already looking at another filibuster pope like Francis, just different in personality not outcome?”
