JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It has been more than 24 hours since Pope Leo XIV was announced as the new head of the Catholic Church, and since then, his past social media posts and reposts have been circulating widely online.
Some of the posts(reposts) feature the Pope criticizing the Trump administration, while others address topics such as immigration policies.
”He’s the first Cardinal to become Pope with a social media background,” Dr. Julie Ingersoll, a professor of Religious studies at UNF, said. “There’s never been a pope where you could go back and read his Twitter feed and see the kinds of things that he said.”
Dr. Ingersoll said that, as a scholar of religion, she finds it fascinating to glimpse the Pope’s past thoughts. She also noted that the range of reactions online has been equally intriguing.
Some of those reactions could be found in the comment sections of News4JAX’s articles about the Pope.
One person wrote: “He’s a little to political for my taste, but so was the last one kind of drives people out of the church…”
Another wrote: “I hope he will be a conservative mind.” While one woman added: “A perfect servant for all of humanity. A blessing.
“So you started seeing very quickly on social media that there were a lot of people unhappy because Pope Leo, then Pope Leo, had criticized the Trump administration on social media regarding their policies on social justice, poverty, immigration,” Dr. Ingersoll said. “Left in the background is the fact that he’s no progressive.”
According to an article from the Guardian, it quoted the pope from 2012 as saying: “Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel – for example abortion, homosexual lifestyle,
However, a New York Times article posted Thursday quoted a mentee of the pope who described him as a “dignified middle of the road” man. Which is different from Pope Francis, who was more accepting of LGBTQ Catholics.
While Pope Leo XIV might have been more outspoken in past tweets, Dr. Ingersoll said she doesn’t think he will end up swaying voters here in America.
“American Catholics have always been really independent of the Vatican on those kinds of questions,” Dr. Ingersoll said.
