Pope Leo is still early in his tenure as the first American Pope, but some of his recent comments have left conservative Catholics on edge. When asked to address criticisms of Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, a pro-choice advocate, receiving recognition from a Catholic organization, the Pope offered a middling response, where he failed to condemn Durbin’s pro-choice stance, which stands in contrast to the Catholic church. “I understand the difficulty and the tensions,” he said of the criticisms. “But I think as I myself have spoken in the past, it’s important to look at many issues that are related to the teachings of the Church. Someone who says I’m against abortion but says I’m in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life, so someone who says that I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of [illegal] immigrants who are in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life. So, they’re very complex issues. I don’t know if anyone has all the truth on them.”

The Pope’s comments irked conservatives, who took umbrage with the Pope conflating a pro-life stance and a pro-death penalty stance. “Really terrible answer from Pope Leo,” said conservative commentator Matt Walsh, who is Catholic. “God Himself prescribes the death penalty in the Bible. Is the Pope saying that God is ‘not pro-life’? And who exactly is advocating for ‘inhumane treatment of immigrants’? What sort of inhumane treatment is he referring to? Deportations? Also, how can he say that ‘nobody has all the truth’ on any of these issues? We know the truth on abortion. It isn’t complicated.” Elise Allen, author of a biography of Leo for Penguin Peru, shared that Pope Leo has a heart for social causes, particularly immigration. “”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 told Reuters.

However, Alejandro Bermúdez, founder of the Catholic News Agency, has cautioned against too much alarmism from conservative Catholics. “I have seen colleagues from progressive Catholicism kind of giving victory laps for what the Pope said,” he admitted. “I think partisans here are desperate to grab him as a baseball bat to hit the other side, because that’s the church that was left behind by Pope Francis. Conservatives should not be freaking out by these things, because the way the pope is acting is long term.” John Yep, president of Catholics for Catholics, offered similar advice, though with less optimism. “The majority of us are, you know, we’re watching, but we’re also not too quick to judge here in the sense of it’s still early on.” He added, however, that “it does seem in short that Pope Leo is continuing the line of Pope Francis by making, you know, immigration rights a preeminent issue of sorts.”