What the Wall Street Journal didn’t print

On March 21, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy profile of the Pope as its “Saturday Essay.” The subtitle—“Pope Leo XIV pushes back against President Trump. Can the pontiff from Chicago make a difference in an era of power politics?”—gave the game away from the git-go: the Pope is to be understood as the over-against of the president, with Leo’s statements and actions filtered through that primarily political analytic prism.

Which misses a lot. To put it mildly.

Imagine a “Saturday Essay” on the Dalai Lama, framing him as the over-against of Xi Jinping: would that get you inside the mind and heart of the leader of an ancient, complex religious tradition? Of course not. Imagine a “Saturday Essay” on Rabbi Meir Soloveichik as the antithesis of New York mayor Zohran Mamdani: would that reveal the essential truths about America’s leading exponent of Modern Orthodoxy? Of course not. So why frame Pope Leo XIV as the un-Trump?

Donald Trump has sucked the air out of virtually the entire media universe since 2015. Is there anything that isn’t to be parsed or explained by reference to him? This obsession distorts reality. It certainly distorts the reality of Pope Leo, who has insisted that his mission is to preach Christ and invite others into friendship with him.

I had a couple of lengthy and, I thought, productive e-mail exchanges with one of the authors of that “Saturday Essay” before its publication, the reporter saying that he wanted a “conservative American perspective” on several Catholic issues. After telling the writer that he should know that I’m considered a dangerous Modernist by some Traditionalists, I happily answered his questions.

I reprise those exchanges here, as nary a syllable of what follows got into the Journal—and I fancy that my answers shed some light on the Pope on the cusp of his first anniversary on the Chair of Peter:

Q. Has Leo, as his supporters in Rome say, succeeded in reducing the tensions and polarization between progressive and conservative Catholics? Has he found a balanced position that’s rooted in doctrine and spirituality, not politics and ideology? Or do you see limits to this idea of harmony restored? Is Leo fundamentally a progressive with some traditionalist trappings? 

A. Pope Leo XIV is very much his own man, and very much a man committed to the fullness of Catholic truth. So it makes no sense to try to slot him into the hoary categories of “progressive” and “conservative,” although various parties with their own agendas incessantly do so. Normality has certainly returned to the patterns of governance in the Vatican, and that is a very good thing.

Q. Immigration: The U.S. bishops, with Leo’s support and encouragement, have become one of the most critical voices about the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Rightly so? Has he veered too much into politics? 

A. Leo and the bishops have made moral arguments, not political arguments, in an evolving situation in which the Administration is constantly moving the goal posts. Perhaps when the Administration settles on a stable immigration policy with achievable goals, a real conversation about real-world alternatives — and the moral implications of each — can be engaged.

Q. Foreign policy: Is Leo right to insist on dialogue and mediation, multilateralism and international law, and to denounce a “zeal for war”? His comments about war being back in vogue don’t explicitly name the Trump administration, but most people interpret him that way. Is it correct, and is it useful, for the Vatican to bet on a post-WW2 international order that is falling apart?

A. I hope that, as his pontificate unfolds, Pope Leo will institute a bottom-up review of Vatican thinking about the dynamics of 21st-century world politics and how the Holy See best responds to them as a moral witness and teacher.

Q. What direction do you think such a bottom-up review could or should take? I have not yet heard Leo talk much about just war theory — a possible direction, given his background?

A. Just war theory can only be discussed intelligently within a broader discussion of the Catholic concept of peace as what St. Augustine called the “tranquility of order”—the peace composed of security, justice, and freedom. As a son of St. Augustine, Pope Leo should be in a strong position to initiate that broader discussion, and then help “fit” a renewal of the just war tradition of moral reflection (which addresses the complex question of how the proportionate and discriminate use of armed force can help restore or establish that peace) into the conversation.