Just weeks before becoming Pope, Cardinal Robert Prevost—now Pope Leo XIV—went straight to Twitter to call out Vice President J.D. Vance.
“JD Vance is wrong,” he posted on February 3. “Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
He was responding to a Fox News interview where Vance said Christians should prioritize who they love—starting with family and country, and only then, the rest of the world. Vance called it “ordo amoris,” a teaching from St. Augustine. Pope Leo wasn’t having it. He shared an article from the National Catholic Reporter and made it clear: Vance had twisted theology to justify anti-immigrant policies.
Ten days later, Leo doubled down, posting again with another article titled, “Pope Francis’ letter, JD Vance’s ‘ordo amoris’ and what the Gospel asks of all of us on immigration.”
Even before becoming pope, Leo XIV had been vocal about immigration and racism. After George Floyd’s death in 2020, he tweeted: “We need to hear more from leaders in the Church, to reject racism and seek justice.” In 2017, he stood with Dreamers, retweeting Sister Helen Prejean who said: “I stand with the #Dreamers and all people who are working toward an immigration system that is fair, just, and moral.”
Last month, Leo retweeted a scathing critique of Trump’s immigration record. The post, from Catholic journalist Rocco Palmo, linked to an article by Bishop Evelio Menjivar. It compared Trump’s deportation policies to the 1980 murder of Archbishop Óscar Romero, calling U.S. actions “injustice and infamies.” The same post accused Trump and El Salvador’s leader Nayib Bukele of “laughing” at the suffering of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father wrongly deported and sent to Bukele’s infamous megaprison.
Even as Pope Francis publicly corrected Vance in a letter earlier this year, Leo XIV backed him without hesitation. He quoted articles, shared posts, and kept the heat on Vance’s claim that theology justifies cracking down on immigrants.
And he didn’t hold back from Donald Trump either. As early as 2015, Leo XIV—then Archbishop Prevost—shared a Washington Post piece quoting Cardinal Timothy Dolan: “Why Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is so problematic.” Dolan didn’t name Trump in the article, but the tweet did. Prevost shared it.
Now, with a long digital trail and a powerful new title, Pope Leo XIV has become the first American pope—and the first with a social media past. His posts are already making waves.
