My Interview with Vox: How Pope Leo Is Reinvigorating the Catholic Left

I’m not sure the religious left exists in America — but the second Trump era has made one thing unmistakable: the Catholic left does.

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Dear friends,

I was interviewed by Vox this week about something I’ve been arguing for a long time: a quiet cold war is unfolding inside American Christianity — and Catholics are right in the middle of it.

The piece asks directly: Is MAGA pushing the Catholic Church to the left?

My answer was more complicated than a headline.

Pope Leo XIV is not running a partisan operation. He is not building a Democratic “Team USA.” He is not trying to replace right-wing culture warriors with left-wing ones.

He is doing something far more serious.

He is insisting that bishops be pastors first — close to their people, not absorbed in bureaucracy or media theatrics. And that emphasis is already reshaping the American Church.

Look at New York. Replacing a nationally visible, politically identified archbishop with a pastor known for closeness to parishioners is not ideological theater. It’s a re-centering. The era of Catholicism as a Fox News cable-news brand is fading. The era of Catholicism as lived witness is reasserting itself.

That matters.

As Pope Francis frequently warned, for decades American Catholicism allowed itself to be reduced to a narrow set of culture-war skirmishes. Meanwhile, immigration, war, ecological collapse, and creeping authoritarianism intensified around us.

Leo’s framework is older than our party system: a consistent ethic of life — from the womb to the tomb. In his first year, he has spoken about immigration, war, ecology, and authoritarian drift at a scale that dwarfs the old political talking points. That’s not abandonment of doctrine. It’s a recalibration of urgency.

And let’s be honest: authoritarianism is the defining moral threat of this moment.

I said in the interview what I’ve been saying here for months — Christian nationalism and its MAGA-adjacent politics do not have a stable home for Catholics.

The alliance is transactional. The theological roots of that movement are not Catholic. Eventually, Catholics will have to decide whether they are currying favor with power or defending human dignity.

Vox frames this as the revitalization of a “Catholic left.” If that means Catholics who refuse to let the Church become an annex of MAGA authoritarian politics, we’re all in.

But this is not about building a partisan bloc.

It is about being Catholic first.

Not Democrats who happen to be Catholic. Not Republicans who happen to be Catholic. Catholics — shaped by a global Church, a sacramental imagination, and a tradition that insists every human being bears the image of God.

That identity has public consequences.

It means refusing to obsess over internal Church skirmishes while the country drifts toward cruelty. It means forming ordinary Catholics — parents, workers, immigrants, students — who understand that faith does not end at the church door.

If there was doubt that a Catholic left exists, the second Trump era has erased it.

The question now is whether it will be disciplined, rooted in the Gospel, and courageous enough to confront power directly.

Here’s my promise to you today:

We are in this for the long haul. And by the grace of God, we will win.

To Pope Leo XIV — we will follow your lead.

To our fellow Catholics — we stand shoulder to shoulder with you.

To women and men of goodwill, of every faith and background — we join arms with you.

To our neighbors who are afraid — we will protect you.

To Donald Trump, JD Vance, and every purveyor of cruelty and lies — we will defeat you.

And to our children — as long as God gives us breath, we will work to leave this nation and this world better than we found it.

This is no longer a thought experiment.

In just half a year, Letters from Leo has grown to more than 20,000 members. It is now the fastest-growing Catholic community in the United States — and we are only at the beginning.

If we continue on this trajectory, this publication could reach one million readers by the 2028 election.

Imagine what a community that size — hopeful, serious, morally formed — could mean for a country starving for clarity.

If we do our job well, the days of MAGA extremism monopolizing religious language in America will end. Not because we shout louder. But because we are steadier, more faithful, and more rooted in reality.

But none of that happens automatically.

There are no corporate sponsors here. No billionaire benefactors. Just readers who believe this moment demands something better.

I’m asking for your help to build this movement.

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Thank you for believing that this country of ours — blessed and broken as it is — can still be made more just, more loving, and less cold. Six months is just the beginning.

There is a long road ahead, and none of us can walk it alone.

So let us rise, you and I, and make of this blessed nation something more blessed still.

Thank you for reading. I’ll see you on the road.