“60 Minutes” teed up a trio of progressive American cardinals to discuss how Pope Leo XIV and the church have emerged as a voice of opposition to the war with Iran and President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in a segment that aired last week.
The CBS News segment prompted critics to wonder why the program hadn’t peppered cardinals with questions about issues such as abortion or other areas that Democrats and the church don’t align on.
“Liberal TV networks find organized religion useful only so much as it helps sell the liberal view. They want to add the moral authority of organized religion to their viewpoint,” Media Research Center executive editor Tim Graham told Fox News Digital.
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“When the Catholic Church is vigorously opposing abortion or transgenderism, then they are either mocked or ignored – but mostly ignored,” Graham continued. “In the case of ‘60 Minutes,’ they could clearly see that their trio of American cardinals had been publicly advocating against Trump’s policies on immigration.”
The CBS News program featured Norah O’Donnell sitting down with Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington, D.C., and Cardinal Joseph Tobin, archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, who the “60 Minutes” correspondent said were inspired to weigh in on political issues by Pope Leo.
The trio didn’t hold back, and Cupich objected to videos posted by the White House at the onset of the war with Iran.
“It is sickening to splice together movie cuts with actual bombing, and targeting of people for the purposes of entertainment is sickening. This is not who we are. We’re better than this,” Cupich said.
During the episode, the cardinals criticized other Trump administration priorities, including the methods of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
McElroy admitted immigration was “getting out of control” during the Biden administration. He said he believes in strong borders but objected to Trump’s approach.
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“This is a roundup of people throughout the country. People who have been living good, strong lives, been here a long time, raised their children here, many of their children born here, and are citizens. That’s what our objection is,” McElroy said.
McElroy also declared that under the Catholic faith, the fighting in Iran is “not a just war.”
When discussing immigration, Tobin said agents act in a way to “terrify people.” O’Donnell noted that Trump ran on immigration and won the Catholic vote over Vice President Kamala Harris, but the cardinals pushed back.
“I would like to know what Catholics feel about this indiscriminate mass deportation. I think that… the American people are saying, ‘We really didn’t vote for this,’” Cupich said.
McElroy added, “What we’re seeing as pastors is an enormous, profound level of human suffering and that’s what motivates us.”
Cupich has been a public critic of mass deportations, is known for LGBTQ+ inclusivity and delivered the invocation at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, while McElroy and Tobin have been critics of Trump and are known to prioritize liberal policies and attempting to modernize the church.
Father Gerald Murray and author Robert Royal joined Raymond Arroyo on “The Prayerful Posse” to discuss whether the situation was meant to spark a conflict between Trump and Pope Leo.
“The three of them are billed as so-called influential, but none of them hold offices in the U.S. bishops’ conference, and they have never been elected,” Royal said.
He compared the group to “The Squad” in U.S. politics, calling them “a very definite and pretty left-wing group of just three.”
Arroyo suggested the media framed the conflict to bait the White House into a dispute with the Vatican, which he labeled “pope-a-doping.”
“They were trying to get Trump to overreact, and he did,” Arroyo said.
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After the “60 Minutes” episode aired, Trump and the pope publicly criticized each other.
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
Others had issues with the segment and former Trump White House press secretary Sean Spicer snarked on X, “Interesting how @60Minutes never asked Catholic leaders about [Joe] Biden’s pro-abortion policies.”
Other conservatives had similar thoughts:
Graham, a devoted Catholic himself, noted that “60 Minutes” could have easily added Bishop Robert Barron to the conversation to balance things out.
“But he’s on Trump’s religious liberty commission, so he’s an unpalatable choice. Leftist journalists call him a ‘MAGA Bishop.’ That’s like calling the bishops CBS interviewed as the ‘Biden Bishops,’” Graham said. “It’s far too imprecise, when Catholic leaders are very unified on most issues of religion and morality.”
“60 Minutes” did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump later doubled down with another social media post about the pope on Tuesday, urging people to “tell Pope Leo” about the Iranian regime’s killings of protesters earlier this year.
Speaking with reporters, Pope Leo said he does not fear the Trump administration or view himself as political. Despite the escalating perceived tension, the pope said Saturday that it was “not in my interest at all” to debate the president and emphasized that he would continue preaching a message centered on peace, justice and brotherhood.
“Much of what has been written since then has been commentary on commentary trying to interpret what has been said,” the pope said.
Fox News Digital’s Madison Colombo and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
