Among the responses to the unveiling of the first American pope this month, there was one that really stood out. It came from Laura Loomer, a prominent rightwing activist, conspiracy theorist and unofficial woke right’ adviser to Donald Trump, in the form of a three-word reply to a 10-year-old post on Pope Leo XIV’s now-deleted personal X account: “WOKE MARXIST POPE”.

Loomer was far from the only one to immediately denounce Leo — a man who has voted in Republican primaries, who in 2012 described “a homosexual lifestyle” as “at odds with the gospel” and who in 2016 said that “the promotion of gender ideology is confusing because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist” — as too woke to be the pope. Ryan Selkis, former CEO of crypto research company Messari and fellow Trump fanatic, posted a whole thread on the “new woke pope”, digging up old posts and reposts such as one on carbon emissions (“climate alarmist”!) and another that prayed for George Floyd and his family (“suicidal empathy”!).

Financial Times