Habemus papam—we have a new Pope, and an American one, no less.
American Catholicism has become a battleground. Sedevacantism, the tendency opposed to the Church’s liberal reforms of Vatican II in the 1960s—approval of vernacular mass, less pronounced hierarchicalism, greater engagement of the laity, more emphasis on social justice—has grown in popularity. It is now the foundational pillar of the “Traditional Catholicism” or “TradCath” movement, a deeply-reactionary right-wing strain in the Church, and one that is especially prevalent in the United States, particularly among Protestant converts seeking the rigor and authority of a top-down Christianity, and younger post-ironic hipsters (see: Dasha Nekrasova of the Red Scare podcast).
Since the resignation of Benedict XVI—a man who went so far as to blame clerical-perpetrated sexual abuse of children on too much moral relativism in theology—conservatives within the Church, of which there is a very high concentration in the U.S., have often felt their voice has been marginalized in Church affairs. Lately the tensions in American Catholicism that have boiled under the surface for decades have begun to erupt into public view. The American Catholic Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), for instance, has become known for an altogether passive-aggressive stance toward the implementation of Vatican II, and figures such as Cardinal Raymond Burke have maintained a staunchly “anti-liberal” culture war footing, with Burke even going so far as to publicly antagonize the late Pope Francis and question his authority.
While there are not insignificant TradCath movements in several countries—especially in places like France and Poland, it is particularly in America where the real kindling has been laid. There has been serious concern in recent years that this cultural reaction could manifest in a full-blown Church schism which could even see the secession of some portion of the American Church from the Holy See—a faction sometimes referred to as “MAGA Catholicism.”
Part of the hope with the election of Pope Leo XIV, an American moderate and a progressive synodalist with conservative tendencies on Church doctrine, is clearly the belief that he could use his local influence to help soften the hard edges of American Catholicism while also continuing to advance the pastoralist and Global-South-oriented directions set by Francis, a man he had close ties to. If American Catholics can identify with a Pope who is one of their own, a man with extensive contacts and connections within their world and who is also intimately familiar with the conflicts central to American Catholicism, then perhaps he can repair the divide and bring the Church back together. If this is starting to sound to you like the disastrous centrist ambitions of the Democratic Party then you might be even wiser than the cardinals.
MAGA-aligned movements cannot be pacified with genteel moderation. There is simply nothing that the Catholic Church can do at this point to quell the MAGA Catholics—like their political counterparts, they have simply gone too far into the void of unreason. Steve Bannon, who criticized Francis as being a “Marxist,” has already extended the same criticism to the more moderate Leo, claiming that he is also “anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, and pro-open borders.” MAGA influencers have already gone on the warpath declaring Leo to be even more radical than Francis, accusing him of suffering from the “woke mind virus” because he once retweeted a post about George Floyd. And this new head of an international religious order has even been accused of not being sufficiently “America First.” As if that wasn’t enough, there is now even a concerted effort to phrenologically suggest that the new Pope is trans.
https://twitter.com/SkullandGait/status/1920548550565376159?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1920548550565376159%7Ctwgr%5E6ffa7d501f57bf3f20a55f13717488db18138cce%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcanadiandimension.com%2Farticles%2Fview%2Fmaga-and-the-pope
These are the people the Catholic Church believes, incorrectly, that it can pacify. The MAGA Catholic movement is best left to its fate, as its faithful revel in hating the Holy See and have little or no interest in budging from this position, which aligns squarely with their conspiratorial obsessions and desire to forsake any and all authorities apart from QAnon and Donald Trump. As an extension of the New Right, they are suspicious of all “foreign” or “global” influence, which extends to the sovereign Vatican across the ocean.
The Church could undo Vatican II, excommunicate all Latinos, and issue a Papal Bull declaring it a sin to drink “woke” beer—they cannot be placated. If the Church wants to avoid possible schisms in its future, a more promising path would be to try to bridge the divide with the growing modernist reform movement in Germany. Otherwise, it would be more fruitful for the Church to focus its efforts on maintaining its position in the Global South, where Church influence is at its greatest and capable of achieving its most meaningful impact. This was something that Francis’ papacy was clear on: its careful and pragmatic reshaping of the global episcopate, with the systematic elevation of bishops from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, who now hold significant weight within the College of Cardinals, shifting away from European centres of power.
The future of the Church rests with the Global South, and as these regions face critical challenges amid political instability and climate breakdown, they will require a reform-oriented Church to meet their needs. Instead, the Church is set to enter an American quagmire which could take up more energy and resources than it is worth.
Jack Daniel Christie is a writer and artist of Anishinaabe descent, splitting his time between Toronto and Montréal. His poetry and prose has appeared in Commo, Bad Nudes, and Calliope, to name a few. He was shortlisted for the Irving Layton Award in Fiction, and is the editor-in-chief of the poetry zine press and event series Discordia Review. He has previously written about the TradCath phenomenon on the Discordia blog.