Christopher Hale

He is an American through and through, and we love him.

We love him because he's our Holy Father, but we also love him because he's one of us.

He's our brother, he's our fellow American.

So I think the sentiment tonight is shared across the Catholic Church.

Even, I think most importantly, politically, I think this is devastating to MAGA Catholics.

There has been, the Iran war has been a fissure within the Catholic community, the MAGA Catholic community, because a lot of MAGA Catholics are anti-war, as the church is as well.

And, you know, I just think that bleeding is going to go further and further out.

Donald Trump is going to take a significant hit on his popularity ratings, not just across the Catholic community, but across the nation.

I think we will see a significant turning point even going down further than he is right now.

Well, I will say this, I think that one of the things that you see that's remarkable in the polling about Pope Leo XIV and his predecessor, Pope Francis, both popular among Catholics, but sometimes even more popular among non-Catholics.

The historic notion of the Pope is he's the Pope of the entire world, not just the Catholic Church.

And so this is an extraordinary popular man throughout the entire country.

Because of those symbols that go beyond religion that you talked about, people know compassion and goodness.

And they see in Leo, as a Christian I'll say this, I see in Leo, and he reminds me of Jesus, the stories I heard about Jesus growing up, of compassion for the poor, for the outcast, for the stranger, for the sick.

But any person of any faith or no faith at all can see that the goodness that radiates out of him

And then the foil in Donald Trump, where there is no goodness out of this man.

I think to use a Christian phrase, it seems demonic.

To use a secular phrase, it seems crazy.

And so I think tonight has brought that to the forefront.

And I'll end with this.