Pope Leo XIV’s Climate Action Sparks MAGA Outrage
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, ignited controversy with a symbolic act for climate action—blessing a massive block of melting glacier ice from Greenland during the 10th-anniversary event for Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si.
The ceremony, which featured a stage with a melting glacier and tropical ferns, was held near Rome and attended by global environmental and Indigenous leaders, including Arnold Schwarzenegger. Pope Leo XIV used the occasion to issue a forceful rebuke to climate change deniers, urging world leaders to “act with courage, not delay.”
A Veiled Dig at Donald Trump
Though he didn’t name him, the Pope’s words were a clear response to Donald Trump’s recent claims at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) calling global warming a “con job.” Pope Leo XIV strongly condemned skeptics who “ridicule those who speak of global warming,” citing his predecessor, Pope Francis, in saying some leaders choose to “deride the evident signs of climate change” and even “blame the poor for the very thing that affects them most.”
The MAGA Meltdown
The ice ritual and the Pope’s message provoked an angry backlash on social media, leading to a “MAGA meltdown.” Self-identified Conservatives and MAGA activists on X criticized the Pope for engaging in “pagan earth worship” and associating with “globalist” and “communist weirdos.” The criticism included remarks from Matt Walsh, who said the leader of the Catholic Church “shouldn’t be anywhere near this nonsense.”
Pope Leo XIV reinforced the Church’s commitment to ecological stewardship, stating that true Christian discipleship requires “participating in his outlook on creation and his care for all that is fragile and wounded.” He has fully embraced this environmental legacy, even blessing a Vatican plan to install a vast solar farm that would make Vatican City the world’s first carbon-neutral state.
What part of the Pope’s actions or the resulting social media reaction do you find most interesting?
