DAVID COOK / OPINION EDITOR

When the  first American Pope was elected, many expected it  to  bring  U.S.  Catholics  closer to Rome. Some  assumed  it  would  spark  a  renewed  sense  of   unity  or  at  least   strengthen  the  cultural connection between American identity and the Vatican.  Instead,  the   reaction    went  in  the  opposite  direction.

Most pope-related headlines in the U.S. now revolve around him urging America to rethink something fundamental — immigration policy, treatment of refugees, political polarization or economic inequality. His  comments  are  usually framed as a call for moral reflection, instead of viewing these issues as political. 

And yet, Americans largely ignore him. The disconnect raises a simple question: if the Pope is one of us, why don’t Americans listen?

America’s current political climate has brought a deep issue to light: Americans no longer know how to hear moral authority. Political identity now outweighs religious identity, institutional trust has collapsed and we treat every moral issue as partisan. This destructive environment has created a world where even the first American pope ever cannot connect with the American people without appearing to take a political stance.

 Some politicians, like JD Vance, share his faith but not necessarily his priorities, while others, like Donald Trump, are completely outside the Catholic tradition. Figures like Donald Trump, who aren’t Catholic at all, have no religious obligation or reason  to   care   what  the  Pope  says. 

As a result, you end up with a political   landscape   where   neither Catholics nor non-Catholics feel especially connected to the Pope, which makes it harder for his message to stick. Even though his commentary touches issues that affect far more than just Catholic voters, that mixed landscape helps explain why his message struggles to gain traction and people instinctively fall into America’s political trap of partisanship. 

Some may argue that Americans ignore the pope’s calls because the U.S. is a  secular nation, so why should non-Catholics, or even Catholics, feel compelled to listen to the Pope? The Pope shouldn’t guide U.S. policy, and Americans do not owe him any political obedience. However, many people, both Catholics and not, ignore his critiques in a country where political identity often carries more than religious identity. 

A possible answer as to why Americans tend to ignore Pope Leo XIV, the current American Pope, comes from Bishop Robert Barron, a prominent American Catholic Bishop. According to Barron, in discussion about the possibility of an American pope during Pope Francis’ papacy, the late Cardinal Francis George of Chicago  once  said,  “Until  America goes into political decline, there won’t be an American pope.” 

George believed that as long as the U.S. dominated global politics and economics, other countries would resist giving it religious power as well. Choosing an American pope during peak U.S. influence, he argued, would make it seem as if America were running the world religiously.

The election of an American Pope wasn’t a celebration of American strength — it was a sign that the world no longer sees the U.S. as overwhelmingly dominant. And that decline matters for a simple reason: when a country is unsure of its politics, it becomes much less open to outside moral authority. People are more defensive, more politically consumed and far more likely to interpret any external critique as an attack rather than guidance. So, a nation confident in its identity might listen. A nation worried about itself usually doesn’t.

That atmosphere makes it almost impossible for Pope Leo to break through. The U.S. is in a period in which  political  identity carries more weight  than religious identity, and in which institutional trust has collapsed everywhere.  In  that environment, the Pope’s message lands  in a  country  that  feels  talked  at  rather   than    spoken   with. 

Some of the resistance also stems from declining trust in the Vatican. There are valid criticisms of the Church, like the history of child abuse or the male hierarchy leading to the exploitation of nuns. While these are real concerns, this is not what causes the majority of Americans to tune out the Pope’s calls for a deep moral reflection of treatment of immigrants. The distrust stems from assuming every  papal  statement  is political, when the Church insists it speaks from a moral framework that predates modern politics entirely. Catholicism is conservative in the literal sense: it preserves tradition. It resists rapid  shifts, not  because  it’s trying  to score political points, but because it views its teachings as rooted in something unchanging. 

The Church has also shown ability to adapt to societal changes, like when Pope Francis condemned laws criminalizing homosexuality. 100 years ago, a pope making comments like that was inconceivable. In a culture where everything feels partisan, stability can look like stubbornness and adaptability can look like abandoning tradition. 

Together, these perceptions create a strange tension for Americans, as the Pope doesn’t fit into either political agenda. The Pope isn’t supposed to be a Republican or a Democrat. He is tasked with applying Catholic Social Teachings to the broader world. However, people in the U.S. treat any moral stance as political, which forces him into boxes he was never meant to occupy.

The Pope critiques parts of both U.S. political parties and intentionally avoids fitting into  either  one.  In  America,  neutrality is  often  interpreted  as  reluctance  to   commit,  rather  than as an attempt to remain above partisanship. Because he doesn’t affirm either side’s worldview, neither side feels represented by him, which seems to be enough for people to tune him out.

But even beyond the political moment, there’s a deeper communication gap. When the Pope addresses immigration, climate change or global inequality, he frames them as moral concerns affecting human dignity. Americans tend to hear them  as  political  positions. These issues have become so polarized in U.S. culture that almost any mention of them feels like taking a side. So even when the Pope isn’t trying to be political, he gets treated like he is.

The Pope isn’t supposed to be easy to listen to. Challenging people is written into the job description. When a Pope repeatedly calls attention to issues like immigration or inequality, it’s usually because the Church believes something is seriously wrong. His job is to point  out  the  moral  blind  spots that many people have chosen to ignore, and he has done just that on  issues   of   economic   inequality, immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border and the extreme political  polarization in America. 

The first American Pope wasn’t chosen to mirror our politics, but to challenge the way we  see  ourselves and those around us. If you feel uncomfortable when  Pope  Leo   XIV   makes   a  call to  Americans for a deep reflection of, for example, our immigration tactics, then he is probably talking to you. The Pope isn’t meant to flatter or fit into our partisan political system. He is meant to push it, to challenge it and in many of his calls to Americans, to encourage us to question decisions by the suits in Washington. At the very least, his words should push us to examine not just our policies, but the values we bring to discussion around them. 

Pope Leo XIV walks through the Vatican after being elected the 266th pope in history. Photo courtesy of @pontifex/Instagram