Jesse Romero, a Catholic podcaster based in Phoenix, Arizona, says the time has come for a “Trump-like pope” who will restore traditional Christian values in the wake of Pope Francis’s death.
“Anyone who’s soft on abortion, who has Marxist tendencies, who’s pro-homosexual — we’ve got to get rid of them,” the conservative influencer and author said. “There are bishops who have marched on Pride parades . . . they’ve got to be fired.”
Romero is one of a growing cohort of conservative Catholics in the US who hope that Francis’s death will mark a decisive shift away from the reformism he personified, towards a more doctrinaire, traditionalist approach to the faith.
“They will definitely be hoping to see a rejection of the Francis pontificate at the next conclave,” said David Deane, who teaches Christian doctrine at the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax, Canada. “A lot of them were fundamentally opposed to Francis.”
The mood in the hardline camp was summed up by Roger Stone, a Catholic and longtime ally of President Donald Trump, who denounced on X the posthumous paeans to Francis on US network TV as “nauseating”.
“His papacy was never legitimate and his teachings regularly violated both the Bible and church dogma,” he wrote. “I rather think it’s warm where he is right now.”
Stone’s post reflects an animosity towards Francis among US traditionalists that emerged early in his papacy and has only grown stronger. The mood has spread throughout the clergy and energised conservatives who have been empowered since Trump returned to the White House.
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