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Supporters of parental rights in schools demonstrate outside the Supreme Court on April 22, 2025, as justices hear oral arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor. It raises First Amendment questions about who decides what young children should learn about sensitive matters such as gender identity and sexuality.
As protesters gathered on the front steps of the Supreme Court, the justices inside heard arguments in a Maryland case that could determine whether parents, due to their religious beliefs, have the right to pull their children out of classes that teach about gender and sexuality.
Pope Leo XIV greets the faithful during an audience with representatives of the media in Nervi Hall at the Vatican Featuring: Pope Leo XIV Where: London, United Kingdom When: 12 May 2025 Credit: Phil Lewis/WENN
Leo’s papacy comes at a time of tension between the Vatican and the Trump administration. A few months before he died, Pope Francis issued a letter to the church’s American bishops condemning the president’s approach to immigration and took direct aim at Vice President JD Vance’s attempts to use his Catholic faith to justify the administration’s deportation policies. Pope Leo XIV, then a cardinal, publicly agreed with Pope Francis and posted on social media that “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
Here’s what Pope Leo XIV has said over the years on a number of issues.
Isabel Brown, Isabel Brown, a Gen Z influencer who blends Catholic faith with conservative politics, is seen on set of "Candace" on April 19, 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Jason Davis/Getty Images)
Until recently, the young women at the forefront of conservative politics were largely evangelical Protestants. They looked like the kind of young women you might see showing their OOTDs on RushTok, marrying a certain Southern-bred feminine aesthetic with a defense of President Donald Trump. These young women aren’t fading into the background during the start of the second Trump administration, but they now have company. Young Catholic women have emerged as instrumental messengers of the MAGA message.
Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States, appears on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, May 8, 2025. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Rev. Mark Francis, a friend of Prevost since the 1970s, told Reuters the cardinal was a firm supporter of his predecessor's papacy, and especially of the late pontiff's commitment to social justice issues.
"He was always friendly and warm and remained a voice of common sense and practical concerns for the Church's outreach to the poor," said Francis, who attended seminary with Prevost and later knew him when they both lived in Rome in the 2000s.
Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States appears on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, May 8, 2025. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane
Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected in a surprise choice to be the new leader of the Catholic Church on Thursday, taking the name Leo XIV, becoming the first U.S. pontiff.
President Donald Trump, joined by lawmakers and religious leaders, signs an executive order establishing the Commission on Religious Freedom during a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 1, 2025. The National Day of Prayer is a congressionally recognized observance that encourages people of all faiths to participate in a day of prayer and reflection. (Photo by Probal Rashid/NurPhoto)NO USE FRANCE
During the first White House National Day of Prayer of his second term, President Donald J. Trump said he is making America “rich, healthy, and religious again.”
Trump’s approval ratings have dropped sharply since he returned to the White House and stand at 42% after his first 100 days in office, according to a poll by NPR. Still, Trump claimed that the spirit of the country shifted positively since Nov. 5, the day he was elected. Trump said his administration was “bringing religion back” to the United States of America.
Newly elected Pope Francis appears at the window of his future private apartment to bless the faithful, gathered below in St. Peter's Square, during the Sunday Angelus prayer at the Vatican March 17, 2013. REUTERS/Tony Gentile
Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was the first in a long line of 266 popes to be from South America and the first born outside of Europe since the 8th century. The pope, also the first to be a member of the Jesuit Order, was beloved by many progressive Catholics and lauded for his priorities of uplifting marginalized communities, protecting immigrants and advocating for environmental justice. According to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey, about 75% of U.S. Catholics viewed Pope Francis favorably.
But he was also a polarizing figure. He struggled to manage the ongoing sexual abuse crisis that plagued his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. Pope Francis met with survivors and attempted to pass reforms within the Church, but victims continue to come forward.
Pope Francis walks with his pastoral staff as he leads the Epiphany mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Jan. 6, 2014. REUTERS/Max Rossi
In his 12 years as pontiff, Pope Francis forged a legacy of compassion, humanity, and joy. The pope’s concern for social justice was on the mind of many mourning his death. From climate change to global poverty, war and violence, LGBTQ+ people and women’s roles in the church, Francis was remembered not just for his teachings or leadership on hot-button topics, but also the Argentine’s pastoral approach to the people caught up in them.
Palestinians walk past a damaged church after the death of Pope Francis was announced by the Vatican, in Gaza City April 21, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Francis called the church hours after the war in Gaza began in October 2023, Antone said, the start of what the Vatican News Service would describe as a nightly routine throughout the war. He would make sure to speak not only to the priest but to everyone else in the room, Antone said.
Pope Francis speaks to Marseille’s archbishop Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, at a mass at the Velodrome Stadium, as a part of his journey on the occasion of the Mediterranean Meetings in Marseille, France, Sept. 23, 2023. Vatican Media/Handout via REUTERS
An old Italian saying warns against putting faith, or money, in any presumed front-runner ahead of the conclave, the closed-door gathering of cardinals that picks the pontiff. It cautions: “He who enters a conclave as a pope, leaves it as a cardinal.”
But here are some cardinals who are being talked about as “papabili” to succeed Pope Francis, whose death at the age of 88 was announced by the Vatican on Monday.
Pope Francis waves as he arrives to lead the weekly audience in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican, October 21, 2015. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi
Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has died, the Vatican said on Monday, ending an often turbulent reign marked by division and tension as he sought to overhaul the hidebound institution.
UNITED STATES - JANUARY 23: A congressional staffer sets up a posted on stage for Rep. Brian Babin’s news conference on the Birthright Citizenship Act in the U.S. .Capitol on Thursday, January 23, 2025. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA)
From the first day of his administration, President Donald Trump has sought to end birthright citizenship, meaning that being born on U.S. soil would no longer be sufficient for establishing permanent legal status in the country.
So far, three different judges have blocked the executive order Trump issued on Jan. 20, which the administration has appealed to the Supreme Court. Legal scholars have pointed to over a century of jurisprudence to indicate that birthright citizenship is too well established to effectively challenge. Despite the history, the Trump administration’s attempts have ignited small-scale debates about birthright citizenship, a debate faith leaders say has too often failed to consider the ethical and moral implications of revoking it.
The badge of ICE Field Office Director, Enforcement and Removal Operations, David Marin and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Fugitive Operations team search for a Mexican national at a home in Hawthorne, Calif., March 1, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Sara arrived in the United States as a 7-year-old refugee when her family fled religious persecution in Bangladesh. Eleven years later, Sara now calls Montgomery County, Md., home. But if the Trump administration has its way, she would be immediately deported because of her undocumented status.
Emily Scherer for The 19th; Getty Images. Republished with permission.
Camins Bretts, who is 61 and lives in Seattle, has crossed the Canada-United States border many times for work, family and romantic partners. But because he’s a transgender man, at least half a dozen of those trips ended in him being detained by U.S. border officials.
Meta, the company that owns Facebook, pirated millions of books to build the dataset that would train its AI model. Graphic by Ryan McQuade/Sojourners
Meta's new "Llama 3" AI model was trained on the stolen text of poetry, sociology, fiction, theology, and more from countless writers, including a few who have written for Sojourners. Now, those writers are speaking out.
A child plays at an advocacy wall after receiving a dose of antiretroviral ARV drugs used to prevent HIV from replicating, at the Nyumbani Children’s Home, which cares for more than 100 children with HIV, whose parents died of the disease, while providing them with housing, foster care, and PEPFAR supplies of antiretroviral drugs that accelerate progress toward achieving HIV/AIDS pandemic control, in Karen district of Nairobi, Kenya Feb. 12, 2025. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya
Steve Hoyt didn’t go to the Amecet children’s home in Soroti, Uganda, looking for a child to adopt. The missionary, engineer, and father of two went to the home for orphaned and abandoned children run by the Christian organization Youth With A Mission, to check on a child as a favor for an employee. While he was there, he noticed a baby — he guessed she was about 18 months old — languishing despite the care of the nurses.
Photograph of Pauli Murray. Murray sent this photo to Eleanor Roosevelt in December 1955. Photo by the FDR Presidential Library & Museum and used with permission.
Faith leaders, historians, and advocates are speaking out after the National Park Service removed its webpage dedicated to Rev. Pauli Murray, a pivotal figure in civil rights history who broke barriers as both a legal scholar and the first perceived Black woman ordained as an Episcopal priest.
Juan, a 38 year old migrant from Venezuela, looks past a heavily fortified razor wire fence after waking up from his makeshift shelter along the bank of the Rio Grande river in El Paso, Texas, on March 24, 2024. REUTERS/Adrees Latif
On March 11, the Department of Homeland Security sent the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande a letter insinuating illegal activities at a diocesan shelter, including human trafficking.
Union Theological Seminary on Dec. 30, 2010. Photo by David Merrett via Flickr and used with permission.
On March 8, the Trump administration escalated its attack on free speech and protests by detaining a lawful resident for his role in Columbia University’s campus protests for Palestinian rights, saying that it was the “first arrest of many to come.” Sojourners spoke to seminaries, divinity schools, and Christian colleges and universities to try and understand how schools are defending international students amid the crackdown.
The as yet unnamed baby born to Ruth Carter and partner John Traverse from Warrington, Cheshire, England, who are the first in the world to give birth to a baby using EEVA IVF technology, the baby girl, as yet unnamed, weighing 5lb 15oz was born today at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital.
As a homebirth midwife struggling with infertility, Abby Hall Luca intimately knows the gaps in fertility and maternity care. For 12 years she guided couples through the journey of growing their families while not being able to grow her own.