Almost immediately after the announcement of the death of Pope Francis yesterday, observers of the Vatican began speculating about who would succeed the late Argentinian pontiff.
The gathering to choose the next pope, known as a conclave, is happening at a time when the U.S. has an administration that is one of the most supportive of traditionalist Catholicism in recent American history. According to a Washington Post exit poll, President Donald Trump won the Catholic vote in America handily, 56% to 41%. That was a 10-point increase from the 2020 election.
The president also has several Catholics among his top advisers, including Vice President JD Vance—who visited the pope on Sunday, the day before he died—and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Trump announced Monday that he and first lady Melania Trump will fly to Rome later this week to attend Francis’ funeral.
During the 2013 conclave that chose Francis, the National Security Agency under then-President Barack Obama allegedly intercepted calls within the Vatican before the election proceedings, according to the Italian magazine Panorama. The NSA denied the claims made by the magazine.
“The National Security Agency does not target the Vatican. Assertions that NSA has targeted the Vatican, published in Italy’s Panorama magazine, are not true,” then-NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines said.
The statement notably did not clarify whether communications from the sovereign nation-state had been caught in a dragnet of surveillance.
The alleged surveillance is not surprising, given leaked emails from 2012 that allegedly showed skeptical views toward Catholics by leaders among the American political Left, including John Podesta, a longtime ally of then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The leaked emails have not been authenticated by Clinton or Podesta, although some of them have been confirmed to be authentic.
According to WikiLeaks, Voices for Progress President Sandy Newman emailed top Clinton family aide John Podesta in 2012, arguing for a Catholic revolution in the vein of the Arab Spring protests. Podesta would go on to chair Clinton’s unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign.
“There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a Middle Ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic church,” Newman wrote to Podesta, according to WikiLeaks.
“Even if the idea isn’t crazy, I don’t qualify to be involved, and I have not thought at all about how one would ‘plant the seeds of the revolution,’ or who would plant them. Just wondering,” Newman allegedly went on to say.
According to WikiLeaks, Podesta replied, “We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this … Likewise Catholics United.”
In recent years, Democratic politicians have campaigned on removing legal protections for religious charities. During the 2021 Virginia governor’s race, Democrat candidate Terry McAuliffe promised to repeal Virginia’s conscience clause, which would have compelled Catholic and other faith-based foster and adoption agencies to close rather than violate their religious beliefs about the need for children to have a mother and father in an adoption or fostering situation.
The frayed relationship between Catholic leaders and some Democrat politicians continued into the 2024 presidential election with Democratic Party candidate Vice President Kamala Harris declining to attend the historically bipartisan Al Smith dinner, which brings Catholic and non-Catholic leaders together in philanthropy to New York City. She was the first candidate to skip the dinner since Walter Mondale in 1984.
Prominent Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both D-N.Y., did have nice things to say about Francis in press releases.
“I join the world in mourning the sad news of Pope Francis’ passing. Pope Francis’ message of hope inspired people around the world—people of all faiths. His compassion and love for the less fortunate was felt in every corner. His papacy will be remembered as a beacon of light and hope against the darkness. My prayers are with the billions of people today who are mourning his loss,” Schumer said in a statement.
