[Editor’s note: I was recently interviewed by Arne Conrad for the German Catholic outlet DOMRADIO.DE about faith and politics in the United States. His article is translated below. —ML]
In November 2025, the Catholic bishops of the United States went public with an unusual special message. They spoke out against the indiscriminate mass deportations carried out by President Donald Trump’s administration. The backlash came quickly, and from within their own ranks. Some laypeople felt betrayed by their bishops, says American Catholic writer Mike Lewis, editor-in-chief of the website Where Peter Is.
Lewis describes “intense pushback from certain commentators,” and says it was not entirely surprising. In the last presidential election, 55 percent of Catholics voted for Trump. Whether they did so because of, despite, or independently of his immigration policy, however, cannot be determined from that figure.
Younger Clergy More Conservative and Republican
For Nathan Pinkoski, this is a symptom of a deeper divide. He is a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, a think tank that describes itself as a conservative America First organization and was founded by Trump’s former budget director, Russ Vought. In September, Pinkoski wrote in the Washington Post that the US Church was moving in two different directions.
Church leaders speak with one voice on immigration, he argues. The faithful in the pews, by contrast, have become more conservative and more Republican. Younger clergy are also further to the right than their older counterparts. Pinkoski sums it up bluntly: under Pope Leo XIV, the bishops are moving to the left, while the “base,” and especially the young priests, are moving to the right.
But does this picture hold up under closer scrutiny? The answers differ when it comes to bishops, voters, and young priests. Mike Lewis offers several explanations for these trends. Lewis is editor-in-chief of the Catholic website Where Peter Is, which strongly supports the papacy and fidelity to the Church’s Magisterium. He also previously worked in the communications department of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
The bishops’ advocacy for migrants is nothing new. As early as 2017, the chairman of the bishops’ conference’s migration committee opposed Trump’s border wall. In 2019, the USCCB president and the committee chairman did so jointly. In 2023, the migration committee opposed the Secure the Border Act.
All of this happened well before the election of Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV. “Immigration is one of the very few issues on which the US bishops have been consistent,” says Lewis.
He sees the reason for this in the country’s history. After the Revolutionary War, perhaps 1 percent of Americans were Catholic; today the figure is around 20 percent. The Church grew with each successive wave of immigration: first with the Irish and Italians, then with immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe, and today with Latin Americans. His conclusion: “We are an immigrant Church to the core.”
What has changed under Leo is the tone and the approach. The special message issued in November 2025 was the first of its kind since 2013. This year, the bishops also submitted a brief to the Supreme Court concerning the question of whether children born in the United States automatically acquire citizenship.
What Francis Was Unable to Achieve
Lewis also sees the pope’s influence behind these developments. Leo understands both the American system and Latin America, and he speaks English from within an American cultural background. In this way, he has helped the bishops “speak with even more unity and clarity than in the past.” Pope Francis was unable to achieve this with the more conservative American bishops.
Legally, however, the bishops’ influence remains limited. A brief submitted to the Supreme Court is not binding on the justices. At the end of June, the Court decided Trump v. Barbara: the majority upheld birthright citizenship, while three justices dissented.
Climate Change and Care for Creation Remain Low Priorities
Even so, Lewis sees no general shift to the left. In his assessment, the majority of bishops still belong to the group that resisted the reforms of Francis. Care for creation and climate change, for example, are “a very low priority” for them.
Lewis sees change coming more gradually through episcopal appointments. Since around 2015, more bishops have been appointed who emphasize a pastoral approach and mercy. Leo knows this process well. From 2023 until his election, he headed the Vatican office responsible for preparing episcopal appointments. The result is a stronger and more unified commitment to migrants, but still nothing approaching a comprehensive change of direction.
The Voters
Among the faithful, the picture is different. According to a post-election study by the Pew Research Center, 49 percent of Catholics voted for Trump in 2020. Four years later, that figure had risen to 55 percent.
Lewis sees two groups primarily responsible for the increase: white Catholics and Hispanic men. The data confirm a shift in both groups. In 2008, 41 percent of white Catholic voters leaned Republican; by 2019, that figure had risen to 57 percent. Among Hispanic Catholics, the proportion of registered voters identifying with the Democratic Party fell from 68 percent in 2018/19 to 60 percent.
Lewis offers an explanation for the shift among Hispanic voters that has to do with background and social status. Many come from working-class backgrounds, and Trump’s message appeals directly to that demographic. There is another factor: those who are eligible to vote are US citizens. Lewis speculates that some may look down on undocumented immigrants. He does not believe, however, that this attitude represents the majority.
No Shift to the Right Across the Board
But even this does not represent a shift to the right across the board. On two major social issues, Catholics have moved in the opposite direction. In 2014, 48 percent believed abortion should be legal in all or most cases; by 2023/24, that figure had risen to 59 percent. Support for same-sex marriage rose from 57 percent in 2014 to 70 percent in the most recent figures.
How can these trends be reconciled? Lewis points to an observation that has become almost a rule of thumb among American political scientists: there is no distinct Catholic voting bloc. On average, Catholics reflect the views of the broader American population.
“The whole country has shifted toward Trump. That is where Catholics have gone as well,” says Lewis.
The Priests
The generational divide is most pronounced among priests. For the National Study of Catholic Priests, Gallup surveyed more than 1,100 American priests in early summer 2025 on behalf of the Catholic University of America.
Among priests ordained since 2010, 51 percent describe themselves as politically conservative, while only about one in ten identify as liberal. Among priests ordained before 1975, the picture is almost reversed: 61 percent describe themselves as liberal.
Does this mean individual priests are moving to the right?
“I think it’s a generational change,” says Lewis.
In other words, the priesthood is changing not primarily because individual priests are changing their minds, but because older, more liberal generations are leaving and younger, more conservative generations are taking their place.
Conservative, however, does not automatically mean pro-Trump. Among priests ordained since 2000, 74 percent consider helping migrants and refugees a priority.
Nathan Pinkoski identifies another factor in his Washington Post opinion piece: since 1999, more than one in four newly ordained priests has been foreign-born. Lewis agrees that these priests tend to be more conservative. Politically or culturally, however, they carry little weight within the movement. He considers them a different phenomenon from younger American-born priests and seminarians.
The Reasons
But why are more Catholics voting Republican? And why are younger priests becoming more conservative?
Lewis identifies several reasons. These are his own explanations; the studies themselves do not test them.
He identifies the two-party system as the first reason. Catholic social teaching fits neither party. On issues such as poverty, health care, education, the environment, and immigration, it is closer to the Democrats. On issues such as abortion, euthanasia, and same-sex marriage, it is closer to the Republicans.
Rather than making their political parties more Catholic, many Catholics allow their political parties to shape their beliefs.
Lewis puts it this way: “Political ideologies are forming Catholics.”
The second reason is abortion. A story from Lewis’s family illustrates how different things once were. In 1960, a nun asked his mother’s class whose parents would vote for John F. Kennedy. All but two children raised their hands. The teacher promised those two children ice cream if they could persuade their parents to change their minds. Kennedy was a Democrat.
Then came 1973. In Roe v. Wade, the US Supreme Court established nationwide constitutional protection for abortion within certain limits. Restrictive state abortion laws were struck down. The decision came from the judiciary rather than the legislature.
The ruling effectively froze the debate in place, says Lewis. From then on, the pro-life movement concentrated on overturning the decision. It finally succeeded in 2022. Only one of the two major parties supported that objective. Abortion also consistently ranks near the top of the bishops’ voter guidance. According to Lewis, regular churchgoers have therefore tended to support Republicans since the era of Ronald Reagan, if not earlier.
When it comes to younger priests, Lewis points to Catholic media. Major organizations such as the EWTN television network and the apologetics organization Catholic Answers, along with bloggers and YouTubers, have moved toward traditionalism and right-wing politics since the rise of the internet.
“The more extreme they are, the more clicks they get.”
Young, unmarried men are among the most active participants online. Outside the Church, too, young men are being radicalized and moving far to the right.
“I think this is the Catholic version of that.”
For a long time, church leaders and theologians ignored these fringe movements because they did not want to give them additional attention. Meanwhile, the Catholic left did not do a good job of passing on the faith to the next generation.
Whether this connection holds up cannot be determined from the study of priests, however, because it did not examine media consumption.
Behind all of this, Lewis sees a fundamental American attitude. In his interview with DOMRADIO.DE, he cites a saying that America is “20 or 25 percent Catholic, but 100 percent Calvinist.” The country’s individualism, he argues, has also shaped American Catholicism.
The Outlook
Will the divide continue to grow, as Nathan Pinkoski predicts?
Lewis is more cautious in his assessment.
“I don’t really foresee a formal schism,” he says.
When the bishops take a clear stand in support of migrants, many Catholics openly oppose them. But Lewis sees this primarily as a political conflict rather than an ecclesial one. Americans tend to interpret everything through political categories.
The overall picture is therefore mixed.
The bishops have not moved to the left across the board. On immigration, they remain where they have stood for decades; they are simply speaking more forcefully and with greater unity in response to President Trump.
Catholic voters have shifted to the right politically, yet on issues such as abortion, their views have become more liberal than they were ten years ago. Younger priests are more conservative because the generation now entering the priesthood is itself more conservative.
Lewis therefore looks for the source of the divide between bishops and the faithful not primarily within the Church, but in American society.
The congressional elections on November 3 will offer another indication of the country’s current political direction.
The Catholic Church in the United States
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest single religious denomination in the United States, as Protestants are divided among numerous denominations.
Just under a quarter of Americans are Catholic, with the largest concentrations of Catholics in the Northeast and Southwest.
Precise figures are difficult to establish because changing religious denominations is relatively common in the United States.
This article was originally published in German by DOMRADIO.DE on October 5, 2026, under the title “Warum das Gerede einer politisch gespaltenen US-Kirche übertrieben ist.” It is translated, lightly edited, and published here with permission. The English headline is WPI’s.
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