Pope Leo XIV greets people at the beginning of his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican
February 11, 2026. Photo: CNS/Lola Gomez. The election of Pope Leo XIV could place the Catholic Church on a “collision course” with US political movements, a leading theologian has warned.
Prof. Massimo Faggioli, professor of ecclesiology at the Loyola Institute in Trinity College Dublin and a prominent scholar of global Catholicism, told The Irish Catholic that the unprecedented election of a pope born in the United States comes at a volatile moment, with “two different American Catholicisms” now emerging.
“One of them is embodied by the Pope,” he said, “but the other one sees in Trump a sort of political messiah… I don’t think they care much for what the Pope is saying.”
Following a recent lecture at Trinity, Prof. Faggioli said this creates a more dangerous tension between the Vatican and American politics, describing Trumpism as having ideas “exactly the opposite of what the Vatican stands for”.
He also warned that traditional diplomacy has weakened.
“The Vatican doesn’t like to play politics as a reality show,” he said, pointing to an “absence of a real exchange” between Church leaders and the current US administration.
Prof. Faggioli suggested that questions of war and peace may come to define Pope Leo’s pontificate, as conflicts are increasingly framed in religious terms.
“This drags the Church more into this,” he said, warning the Pope risks being “pinned down” on global conflicts. Adding: “We still don’t know what it means to have a pope from the United States at this moment.”