On my way back from Mass a few weeks ago, I walked past Alex Padilla, the uber left-wing California senator, coming out of St. Joseph’s on Capitol Hill. The incident was just the latest reminder for me that the Catholic Church is increasingly function as the new mainline church in American politics where left, right, and center gather to receive Christ. St. Joseph’s is located about a block away from the conservative Heritage Foundation, and a friend of mine has spotted the leader of the centrist Make America Healthy Again movement Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the parish as well.
The development of the Catholic Church as a haven for all members of the political divide is a fulfillment of what Tocqueville said about American Catholics who, “constitute the most republican and the most democratic class of citizens which exists in the United States.”
Since Tocqueville’s time, Catholics have percolated throughout important Washington institutions. A majority of the Justices on the Supreme Court from both Democrat and Republican appointments are Catholics. They include Amy Coney Barrett, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, and Chief Justice John Roberts. Neil Gorsuch was raised Catholic and attended Catholic school, but as of 2017, attended an Episcopalian Church. Catholics also help run major think tanks in DC. Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation is probably the most prominent example.
When I arrived in DC, I had no idea about how preeminent Catholic para institutions had become in the nation’s capital. When you stroll around the Capitol building it’s not uncommon to see priests in white robes walking about. That’s because the Dominican House of Studies is just a few metro stops away across from the National Basilica and the Catholic University of America.
It’s true that the mainline is not completely dead. Tucker Carlson remains an Episcopalian. President Donald Trump was raised a Presbyterian although now he identifies as a nondenominational Christian. Former DOGE head Elon Musk was baptized and brought up as an Anglican. Mark Tooley, the Jesuit-educated president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy is still fighting the good fight about the future of the mainline. Condoleezza Rice, who now heads the Hoover Institution, is the daughter of a Presbyterian minister.
And the mainline has also partially renewed its strength from converts. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health became a Presbyterian in high school. Joshua Katz, another AEI scholar, also is a late in life convert to what was once called the Church of England (in the American colonies).
However, the election of Pope Leo XIV this year is probably the single greatest indicator that Catholics are taking over the bipartisan, cultural function once inhabited by the mainline. I was also struck by a recent picture of the pope meeting with Ben Shapiro, perhaps the most famous Orthodox Jew in the world.
The conservative political commentator said he gave the pontiff, a fellow Chicago White Sox fan, a signed baseball from the team’s 2005 World Series, and thanked him for standing for Biblical values. This is a pope that gives an address to people in the White Sox stadium and dons a Villanova baseball cap. Villanova remains one of the few major American universities presided over by a Catholic priest (the vast majority of Jesuit universities are now run by lay presidents).
Time will tell if the new pope inspires American Catholics in a way never seen before. Pope Benedict XVI’s writings are still a guidepost for the newest generations of priests. Ultimately, Leo’s pontificate is a capstone to the long maturation of the Catholic faith in America. The most important Catholic is now an American, so naturally being American is becoming Catholic.