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Even before this week’s ICE raids, Donald Trump has made it very clear that Chicago is in his crosshairs. This has cast a spotlight on Illinois politicians like Gov. JB Pritzker (D) and other leaders hailing from the Windy City.

Perhaps the most prominent of them weighed in on a wide range of issues over the past few days. And, while he did not mention Trump or the GOP directly, he implicitly criticized the US government, Republicans, and hypocritical Christians.

“Someone who says, ‘I am against abortion,’ but says, ‘I am in favor of the death penalty,’ is not really pro-life,” he said. “Someone who says that, ‘I am against abortion but I am in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life. So they’re very complex issues.”

But this Chicago native didn’t just comment on immigration, he also had some things to say about Trump’s and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s address to US military leaders, which he found “concerning,” condemned greed, and urged conservatism in the face of climate change and pollution.

So, did this earn him any criticism from the White House, or perhaps a nickname from Trump, such as “Lefty Leo”?

No.

In fact, it stands to reason that the administration wants to draw as little attention as possible to him.

Why?

Because this Chicagoan is His Holiness Leo XIV, the Bishop of Rome, and leader of more than 1 billion Catholics worldwide and 62 million in the US, including Vice President JD Vance, six out of nine Supreme Court justices, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Because he is the pope.

In theory, his word should carry a lot of weight with all of them.

In practice, MAGA Catholics (and other “Christians” who support Trump) are now praying to another idol… and the teachings of the Bible are a mere afterthought.

This can best be illustrated by the responses to a couple of the pope’s recent social media posts.

Here is Leo XIV weighing in on humans abusing their planet:

“In a world where the most vulnerable are the first to suffer the devastating effects of climate change, deforestation, and pollution, care for creation becomes an expression of our faith and humanity,” he wrote a little over a week ago.

And here is the top response to the pope from an X user who describes himself as a “follower of Christ:”

“Ridiculous,” they wrote. “Climate change is a hoax that’s only pushed by liberals who don’t understand the Bible.”

This isn’t an aberration.

There are plenty of cases when people who describe themselves as Christians are challenging the pope.

“Today, more than ever, we must return to the heart, the center of feeling and emotion, the locus of freedom,” Leo XIV wrote on Wednesday. “Though it includes reason, the heart transcends and transforms it. Only by returning to the heart can we undergo a true ecological conversion that transforms our personal and communal style of life.”

That sounds like woke hogwash to “Austin,” whose bio just states “Jesus Is Christ,” and who penned the top reply to the pope’s post.

“I reject this whole heartedly. What you fail to see Mr Pope, the Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can understand it? What you said sounds catchy and “profound”, but we don’t return to the heart,” he wrote. “We command our heart to be in full submission to the Word of God and to be obedient to the will of God. Only then do we experience true freedom and a faith not based on feelings, as you suggest.”

When challenged on whether he knew more about the Bible than a random social media user, he later added: “I don’t care how prestigious his office is or how much of the Bible he claims to know, this statement shows a moral failure, his spiritual blindness, and his desperate need for Jesus.”

While the White House is likely not pleased by the pope weighing in on domestic issues, it is more muted in its criticism.

“I would reject there was inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants in the United States under this administration,” said Karoline Leavitt, a supposedly devout Catholic, in response to Leo XIV’s comments on immigration.

She’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one with the head of her church.

It stands to reason that neither Leavitt nor Vance nor Rubio are eager to field a lot of questions about things the pope says.

Because, while he holds less sway over the regular MAGA crowd, he will have a lot of influence over devout Hispanics, who make up more than one-third of US Catholics.

As for Trump, every time the pope says something critical of the president, his minders are probably worried that he will pick a fight with the pontiff.