The Catholic Church chose Robert Prevost as its new pope in the wake of the recent passing of Pope Francis.

And let’s just say, there was no joy in MAGAville at the news.

In a matter of minutes after the selection was announced, Prevost, who has taken the title Pope Leo XIV, was being virtually crucified by Trump surrogates, Right-wing pundits, Fox News hosts, and rank-and-file America First cultists, who all took to social media en masse in performative histrionics of protest.

But it’s critical to be clear on what is happening here: these Conservatives don’t despise Pope Leo, as they had never heard of him before his election. They don’t hate him, they hate his Jesus.

They are sickened by the “Love your neighbor as yourself” Jesus who has made Prevost a champion of the poor and the sick.
They spit in the face of the “blessed are the peacemakers” Jesus, who compelled him to call for the abolition of the death penalty.
They seethe with anger toward the “care for the least of these” Jesus who moved Prevost to previously confront JD Vance’s ridiculous position that in the New Testament, love is hierarchical based on geography.

As with Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, the Reverend William Barber, and Pope Francis before Leo, when it comes to spiritual leaders, there is simply nothing that triggers MAGA Christians quite like the teachings of Jesus. Their perverted theology of exclusion dictates that they must reject anyone who represents a barrier to the theocratic fever dreams they have for this nation.

Jesus’ kindness, his compassion, his mercy, and his selflessness all fly in the face of the predatory bully pulpit they are constructing at the Capitol. A Jesus who feeds the hungry, binds up the bleeding, calls out predatory power, condemns wealth, and welcomes the stranger all actively confront the religion of compulsion found in Project 2025, which is their true sacred text.

Professional traitor, serial grifter, and loyal Trump henchman Steve Bannon called Leo the “worst pick for MAGA Catholics,” declaring him the “anti-Trump pope.”

If he’s the anti-Trump pope, that means he is a pro-Jesus pope—and that is the last thing this Christian cosplay ensemble needs right now.

There is no place in their congregation of cruelty for an empathy that seeks to walk inside the shoes of another, no room for a soft heart toward those crushed by poverty and sickness, a zero tolerance policy regarding the outsider or the foreigner seeking refuge.

So, Trump’s disciples and sycophants are unleashing all manner of vitriol toward Pope Leo, and that will be the story for a bit, but it isn’t the big story. He could have just as easily been another papal candidate whose life and ministry had been marked by benevolence and decency, and received the same unrelenting flood of outrage.

Or, he could have been a female Methodist minister, a gay New Hampshire pastor, a Black Baptist preacher, or a Jesuit priest, and still been on the receiving end of these supposed Christians’ condemnation. As long as anyone who claims the Christian faith, whether clergy or lay leader or pew-sitter, strives to embody the lavish love of Jesus of Nazareth, they will be the enemy of the Religious Right.

And the craziest thing of all, is that I could share Christ’s teachings in the Gospels: of loving neighbor, of not returning violence for violence, of sharing abundance so that all can be fed, of looking after the vulnerable and the endangered—with Agnostics or Jews or Muslims or Atheists or Buddhists or Wiccans or Hindus or Unitarians, and most of them would likely find some shared ground in those aspirations. They may not be deists or theists, or they may have an entirely different religious tradition as their pathway, and still feel some affinity.

The wild irony is that the only people who fully reject Jesus’ wall-demolishing compassion, his sacrificial love, and his open-handed generosity outright are MAGA Christians. They are the sole demographic on the planet who appear violently allergic to his life and work.

So, as you watch the Right openly weeping, gnashing their teeth, and rending their garments at Pope Leo’s arrival, remember that they don’t hate the messengers half as much as they hate the one who sent them.

He is the one they are working so hard to eradicate.