Bepi Pezzulli, a British barrister and vice chair of the Reform Party, has some observations about Leo XIV and Israel that, for those worried that he might be a repeat of Pope Francis, offers hope. You can find more of Pezzulli’s analysis here: “Leo XIV: A papacy anchored in Israel’s embrace?,” by Bepi Pezzulli, Times of Israel, May 13, 2025:
…The political instincts of Leo XIV defy the taxonomy beloved by pundits. He is not a banner-waving conservative, but neither is he a proxy for the Soros-funded clerical avant-garde. His experience in Latin America made him wary of both economic oligarchy and class warfare slogans. He has spoken of inequality as a moral concern, not a campaign slogan. He supported Francis’s environmentalism only insofar as it remained moral, not technocratic.
Prevost sees the modern state as both necessary and dangerous—a position closer to Hobbes than Rousseau. He believes in order. He respects subsidiarity. He doubts that bureaucracies can save us. In today’s Rome, this qualifies as heresy.
Trump: Enemy, Ally, or Interlocutor?
He has never commented on President Donald Trump directly, and he likely never will. But his Vatican record is revealing. When some U.S. bishops tried to aggressively discipline pro-Trump clergy or push blanket condemnations of “Christian nationalism,” Prevost counseled caution. Not because he supports the former president, but because he understands what Trumpism represents: a political insurgency born of cultural dislocation.
In a Church hemorrhaging the working class, Prevost knows better than to treat populists as lepers. He doesn’t moralize about MAGA hats. He listens. In an ecclesial environment increasingly dominated by NGO-speak and bourgeois sensitivities, that makes him both countercultural and, paradoxically, pastoral.
Zionism and the Jews: A Return to Dialogue
If Francis’s Vatican flirted with fashionable anti-Zionism—hosting Mahmoud Abbas, parroting UN talking points—Leo XIV is a corrective. Prevost has visited Israel repeatedly. He has expressed admiration for the resilience of Jewish life and has cultivated ties with Jewish leaders in Peru, the United States, and Europe. He does not sentimentalize the Palestinian cause, nor reduce the Middle East to a victim-oppressor binary.
According to sources in Rome, Prevost views Israel as “a moral project within history”—a phrase that startled the Latin desk at the Secretariat of State. He has called Netanyahu “a necessary man in dangerous times,” which, in Vaticanese, borders on radical candor. There will be no warm embraces for Hamas delegates under this papacy.
On May 12, three days after his election, Pope Leo XIV has chosen to reaffirm his commitment to Catholic-Jewish relations as his first official act. In a letter to major Jewish organizations, he pledged to continue and deepen the Church’s dialogue with the Jewish people, invoking the spirit and principles of Nostra Aetate, the landmark declaration of the Second Vatican Council, which repudiated antisemitism, rejected the charge of collective Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus, and called for mutual respect and understanding between Catholics and Jews….
Israel as a ‘moral project within history”? Netanyahu “a necessary man in dangerous times”? Sounds good to me. What about you?
SKA says
Psalm 146:3 “Put not your trust in princes, sons of mean, in whom there is no salvation.” Trump and Leo XIV may each be good men but the Deep State and the Deep Church will seek to outlive them and cancel any good either can bring.
somehistory says
Still wondering about Africa, where it isn’t the Jews, as much as Christians being slaughtered by mozlums.
Does he have something to say?
gravenimage says
Not that I have seen, Somhistory.
Walter Sieruk says
Let’s not naive but be wise and learn from the history of the papacy with its many popes.. It’s best not to trust Pope Leo XIV too much.
Gerald A. Honigman says
An Open Letter To Ireland’s Archbishop Eamon Martin. When Theodore Herzl, Father of modern political Zionism, approached
Source: The Insight International
https://search.app/RZAUgj61LjJMhoYJ7
Please read the article in the above link since Pope Francis’s attitude towards both Israel and Jews was closely aligned with the Archbishop of Ireland’s thinking.
I would love to see the spirit of Pope John XXIII rekindled in this new Catholic leader.
Wellington says
John XXIII did a most foolish thing, to wit, he called an unnecessary ecumenical council (Vatican II) and which did enormous harm to the Roman Catholic Church. It destroyed the beauty of the Latin Mass, ushered in liberation theology, put forth the false contention that all major religions have valid revelation elements (N.B., Islam doesn’t), et al.
John XXIII is responsible and guilty for trying to fix something that wasn’t broken, Francis I was not so much a cause of rot but a symptom of rot and that rot is Vatican II (1962-1965) and the fault for this lies with John XXIII, personally a good man but a foolish man who opened up a Pandora’s Box.
gravenimage says
Pope Leo XIV and Israel: Reasons to Hope
………………………………………..
I hope so–but I won’t be holdng my breath…
Wellington says
I too, gravenimage, have a wait and see attitude. I did read an article that contended that many of Francis’ own appointments as Cardinals became disenchanted with Francis for going so far left (the blessing of gay couples seems to have been a particularly objected to initiative by Francis) and they conspired, in a way that only a Roman Catholic Conclave can conspire, with conservatives to elect neither a conservative nor a progressive and Leo was the result. We’ll see.
James Lincoln says
Yes, Wellington.
I’m also still on the fence about Pope Leo XIV.
Time will tell…
Mary says
You papists need to repent of your idolatry of Catholicism. 😐🤨