Pope Leo XIV shared articles criticising US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on social media months before his election as America's first pontiff, particularly on issues of migration.
In February, the then-Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost reposted on X a headline and a link to an essay saying Vance was "wrong" to quote Catholic doctrine to support Washington's cancellation of foreign aid.
The Vatican confirmed Thursday the account was genuine and belonged to the Chicago-born Prevost.
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The article took issue with Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019 and argued that Christians should love their family first before prioritising the rest of the world.
"JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others," said the headline reposted on Prevost's account, along with a link to the story by the National Catholic Reporter.
After becoming vice president, Vance justified the cancellation of nearly all US foreign assistance by quoting 12th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas's concept of "ordo amoris", or "order of love".
The late pope Francis, in a letter soon afterward to US bishops, said that "true ordo amoris" involved building "a fraternity open to all, without exception".
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A few days later Prevost posted the headline and link of another article about Vance's doctrinal arguments, which referred to Francis's criticisms of Trump's mass deportations of migrants.
The future pope's last activity on X before his election on Thursday was to repost a comment by another user criticising the Trump administration's mistaken deportation of a migrant to El Salvador.
The post talked about "suffering" and asked, "Is your conscience not disturbed?"
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The US president and vice president made no reference to the new pope's prior comments as they congratulated him on his election.
Vance, who met Francis briefly on Easter Sunday hours before the pontiff died, said: "May God bless him!"
"I'm sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for his successful work leading the Church," he said on X.
Trump, who had posted an AI-generated image of himself in papal clothes a few days earlier, said the election of the first pope from the United States was a "great honor for our country".
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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