Letters from Leo Publisher. Catholic. 2020 nominee for Congress in rural TN & DNC Delegate. Obama-Biden White House & campaign alum. Pope Leo tweeted me once.
DC, Tennessee, & Everywhere
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For the first time ever, the most famous American in the world is not the president or a Hollywood icon or tech billionaire—it’s the Pope.
This is more than a Catholic triumph; it’s a cultural watershed for the United States.
In a society that often equates American influence with might or money or celebrity, now our foremost representative on the global stage is a humble man in a white cassock, preaching love, justice, and mercy.
My full story here: lettersfromleo.substack.com/…
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“Liberty, equality and fraternity are not simply words emblazoned on the front of your public buildings.
They refer to universal ethical imperatives that also find in the Gospel message an inexhaustible source of inspiration and fulfillment.” — Pope Leo XIV
Peter Thiel said yesterday that Pope Leo XIV is a “useful idiot” for the Chinese Communist Party because the pope wants safeguards on the development of artificial intelligence.
This is the same Thiel who suggested last year that Leo and Pope Francis were tools of the antichrist.
He is also JD Vance’s biggest financial backer
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“Instead of respecting the law, those in power invoke it when it serves their interests and disregard it when it restrains them, treating even justice itself as though it were a commodity to be bought and sold.” — Pope Leo XIV
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NEW: Peter Thiel called Pope Leo XIV a “useful idiot” for the Chinese Communist Party on Thursday, in an interview with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner.
“The Communist Party of China is not going to listen to the pope,” Thiel said. “There’s a chance people in the U.S. will.”
It is the third time in ten months that JD Vance’s biggest backer, the man Vance credits with reopening the door to his faith, has attacked the American pope over AI.
The vice president has said nothing. thelettersfromleo.com/p/a-us…
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“The pope recently issued this AI encyclical, or I would characterize it as an anti-AI encyclical.
“And again, maybe it was too harsh, but the rhetorical point I have on it is that the Communist Party of China is not going to listen to the pope.
“There’s a chance people in the U.S. will. And so, in effect, the pope’s encyclical was working for the Communist Party.
“I’m not saying he was an agent of the Communists, but he was at least acting as a useful idiot for the CCP.” — Peter Thiel
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Christopher Hale retweeted
Leone rilancia le parole di Giovanni XXIII: giustizia, saggezza ed umanità domandano che venga arrestata la corsa agli armamenti, si riducano simultaneamente e reciprocamente gli armamenti già esistenti; si mettano al bando le armi nucleari; e si pervenga finalmente al disarmo
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Cardinal Tagle, Pope Leo XIV’s delegate, takes on the celebrity priest culture at today’s beatification of Blessed Fulton Sheen:
“Dear priests, blessed are you when you tell the good news of Jesus to all people. St. Paul in the second reading is blessed because he does not preach himself, but rather Jesus Christ as Lord.
“To preach your own wisdom rather than that of Jesus is falsifying the word of God, according to St. Paul. And it is not mission. It is not blessedness.
“Blessed and beautiful are your feet when you announce God’s salvation and peace, according to the prophet Isaiah in the first reading. To journey on land, water, and air while proclaiming destructive words and doing violent acts is not mission. It is not blessedness.
“Blessed are you when the risen Lord works with you and confirms the Gospel you preach through his miraculous signs.
“To be self-sufficient and self-affirming — "congratulations to myself" — that is a bad sign. It is not a miraculous sign. It is not mission. It is not blessedness.
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Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle beatified Archbishop Fulton Sheen yesterday as Pope Leo XIV’s delegate.
After years of attempts to recast Sheen as a modern culture warrior against progressive movements, the cardinal rejected that frame outright: his 23-minute homily never once used the word “communism.”
“For Archbishop Sheen, caring for the poor was not ideological propaganda, but an imperative for the following of Christ,” the cardinal told roughly 50,000 pilgrims and much of the U.S. hierarchy.
Tagle also criticized a celebrity priest culture that has taken hold in the Church. Sheen’s fame is not what made him a saint, the cardinal said. His closeness to Jesus did.
thelettersfromleo.com/p/not-…
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Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle beatified Archbishop Fulton Sheen yesterday as Pope Leo XIV’s delegate.
After years of attempts to recast Sheen as a modern culture warrior against progressive movements, the cardinal rejected that frame outright: his 23-minute homily never once used the word “communism.”
“For Archbishop Sheen, caring for the poor was not ideological propaganda, but an imperative for the following of Christ,” the cardinal told roughly 50,000 pilgrims and much of the U.S. hierarchy.
Tagle also criticized a celebrity priest culture that has taken hold in the Church. Sheen’s fame is not what made him a saint, the cardinal said. His closeness to Jesus did.
thelettersfromleo.com/p/not-…
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Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Pope Leo XIV’s delegate to the beatification of Fulton Sheen, didn’t mention communism once in his homily today.
He did mention Sheen’s care for the poor and marginalized at least fourteen times.
“For Archbishop Sheen, caring for the poor was not ideological propaganda, but an imperative for the following of Christ.”
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Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle beatified Archbishop Fulton Sheen yesterday as Pope Leo XIV’s delegate.
After years of attempts to recast Sheen as a modern culture warrior against progressive movements, the cardinal rejected that frame outright: his 23-minute homily never once used the word “communism.”
“For Archbishop Sheen, caring for the poor was not ideological propaganda, but an imperative for the following of Christ,” the cardinal told roughly 50,000 pilgrims and much of the U.S. hierarchy.
Tagle also criticized a celebrity priest culture that has taken hold in the Church. Sheen’s fame is not what made him a saint, the cardinal said. His closeness to Jesus did.
thelettersfromleo.com/p/not-…
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Fulton Sheen defended the council, the poor, and, at real cost to himself, peace.
He stood against every ideology, from the left and from the right, that threatened the well-being of God’s people.
Nobody who has read him can imagine a Fulton Sheen who would keep quiet about the tyranny of Donald Trump, because silence before power was never who he was. substack.com/home/post/p-217…
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Christopher Hale retweeted
Cardinal Tagle, Pope Leo XIV’s delegate, takes on the celebrity priest culture at today’s beatification of Blessed Fulton Sheen:
“Dear priests, blessed are you when you tell the good news of Jesus to all people. St. Paul in the second reading is blessed because he does not preach himself, but rather Jesus Christ as Lord.
“To preach your own wisdom rather than that of Jesus is falsifying the word of God, according to St. Paul. And it is not mission. It is not blessedness.
“Blessed and beautiful are your feet when you announce God’s salvation and peace, according to the prophet Isaiah in the first reading. To journey on land, water, and air while proclaiming destructive words and doing violent acts is not mission. It is not blessedness.
“Blessed are you when the risen Lord works with you and confirms the Gospel you preach through his miraculous signs.
“To be self-sufficient and self-affirming — "congratulations to myself" — that is a bad sign. It is not a miraculous sign. It is not mission. It is not blessedness.
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Topics Pope Leo XIV has addressed today:
— Freedom of the press amidst White House ban of certain outlets
— Villanova vs. Notre Dame (and who God might be rooting for?)
— Promoting peace and multilateralism.
— Ending the arms race.
— Church’s role in a secular society
— Liberty, Equality, Fraternity as French and Catholic values.
— The right to life from womb to tomb.
— The dangers and possibilities of AI
It’s not yet 10:00 AM on the East Coast.
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A good and worthwhile read.
Putting anachronistic storylines of people of different times devalues the complexities of their specific time and places.
“To call [Fulton] Sheen a “progressive” would remove him from his historical context; it would insert him into another time and place with its own debates.”
My latest for @CrisisMag:
crisismagazine.com/opinion/e…
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