Megyn Kelly defends Pope Leo XIV's past anti-Trump tweets
'There's not going to be a pope who's not pro-mass migration. It's Catholicism,' the former Fox News anchor said during Friday's episode of 'The Megyn Kelly Show.'
'They're very pro-migrant, you know, wash the feet of the poor and the hungry and those who need us, and, you know, we're a bunch of bleeding hearts at bottom.'
She then added: 'Unless if you're trans or gay, in which case, no, sorry.'
Kelly went on to praise the the first American-born pope for his 'anti-trans' stance and his possible turn away from Pope Francis' progressive policies.
'Pope Francis, God rest him, was very progressive and, like, kind of turned the church in a progressive direction and did some battle with America and our president for a while, when it was Donald Trump, not when it really was Joe Biden, and we didn't much like that,' Kelly said.
'So it's great to see an American pope, and I actually am open-minded to this pope, notwithstanding those tweets,' she added.
The newly-elected Pope Leo XIV, formerly known as Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost from Chicago, posted and re-posted several tweets critical of the Trump administration over the past few months.
Like many other Catholics, the 69-year-old took issue with a comment Vice President JD Vance made earlier this year about the theological concept of ordo amoris, Latin of order of love.
Vance told Fox News 'that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world.'
In February, Prevost reposted an article from Pope Francis, who corrected Vance's interpretation of ordo amoris to be 'a fraternity open to all, without exception.'
He also boosted an article from the National Catholic Reporter titled, 'JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others.'
As a cardinal, he also reposted an article in the Catholic Standard criticizing Trump's meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele earlier this year, when the two seemingly laughed off the mistaken deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
The article asked, 'Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?'
'I really think even a conservative-leaning pope could have sent out those tweets because, I'm sorry, the Catholic Church is very pro-immigration. It's not my favorite thing, but it's the truth,' Kelly said.
Kelly claimed the new pope 'voted in Republican primaries in Illinois and he is anti-transing of children and trans ideology,' citing 'a bunch of reporting.'
The Chicago native has voted regularly in both Republican and Democratic primary elections, picking Republican ballots in more recent votes, according to state and local records in Illinois.
He has made few comments on the LGTBQ+ community, though in 2017 he appeared to critique transgender communities when he spoke out against 'gender ideology' as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru.
Then-Cardinal Prevost, who holds US and Peruvian citizenship, told local media at the time that this ideology 'seeks to eliminate biological differences between men and women.'
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