Pope Leo's critique of Trump ends honeymoon with conservative Catholics

By Joshua McElwee

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Leo initially impressed conservative Catholics after his election in May as he embraced traditions shunned by his predecessor Pope Francis and steered clear of hot button social issues that divided the 1.4 billion-member Church.

But his honeymoon with conservatives appears over after he unexpectedly took aim at U.S. President Donald Trump's hard-line immigration policies, questioning whether they were in line with the Church's pro-life teachings.

"Someone who says I am against abortion but I am in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don't know if that's pro-life," Leo, the first U.S. pope, told reporters on Tuesday.

Some critics, who had praised the pope for his early reserve, expressed shock that Leo criticized the current champion of global conservatives. 

Former Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland, a fierce Francis critic who was relieved from duty by the late pope but has praised Leo, criticized the new pope on social media for causing "much confusion … regarding the sanctity of human life and the moral clarity of the Church's teaching."

"So tired of papal interviews. He should return to his previous silence," opined the Rorate Caeli blog, which had previously criticised Francis and praised Leo.

The Trump administration, which was sharply critical of Francis but has rarely commented about Leo, also pushed back.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she rejected the characterisation of inhumane treatment of immigrants.

POPE LIKELY UNDETERRED BY CRITICISM

Vatican officials and papal associates said Leo cares especially deeply about the treatment of immigrants and is unlikely to be deterred by criticism. 

But it could detract from his mission, expressed during his inaugural papal mass, to work for unity across a global Church that has become more divided and polarized in recent decades.

While the naturally cautious Leo will look to avoid repeated clashes with conservatives that could harden opposition to his agenda, he will not renounce his own set of values. 

"Is he going to ruffle the feathers of American conservatives at some points? Yes," said Elise Allen, author of a biography of Leo for Penguin Peru and the only journalist to interview the pope since his election. 

"They shouldn't be surprised that he does that," she told Reuters.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, a senior adviser to both Francis and Leo, said the new pope was following an instruction given by St. Paul, a 1st century leader of Christianity: "Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season."

"(Leo) encourages and challenges each local Church and each Christian, faced with complex and urgent issues, to live the Gospel," the cardinal told Reuters. 

Leo was a relative unknown on the global stage before his election in May. He spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru, where Allen said he developed a desire to care for immigrants and speak up for social causes.

"He understands the priority of the abortion issue, but he's not going to be somebody that says that's far more important than immigration," she said.

Francis drew conservative Catholic ire throughout his 12-year papacy. He spurned much of the pomp of papacy, repeatedly clamped down on the traditional Latin Mass, and allowed priests to bless same-sex couples on a case-by-case basis.

LEO DISTINCT FROM FRANCIS

Leo earned conservative praise immediately in the hours after his election by wearing a traditional red papal garment called a mozzetta, which Francis never wore, in his first public appearance.

Leo has since held separate private meetings with U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke and Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, two prominent Francis critics who lost Vatican jobs under the late pope. Burke once famously compared the Church under Francis to "a ship without a rudder".

Leo also let Burke celebrate a Latin Mass in St. Peter's Basilica later this month, something Francis had refused.

The new pope also attracted some conservative criticism early in September for giving a high-profile private audience to a prominent U.S. priest who ministers to LGBT Catholics.

David Gibson, a U.S. academic who follows the papacy, said conservative Catholics had grasped at Leo's attempts to foster unity as if he were endorsing their entire agenda.

"Leo was never going to do that," Gibson, director of Fordham University's Center on Religion and Culture, told Reuters. "The two popes are different men, but both men of tradition and of the centre."

(Reporting by Joshua McElwee; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)