Familiar Playbook: MAGA, nativism, and the disposable Catholic
Trump 2024 flag on a Honolulu pickup truck. Photo: Gerald Farinas.
The election of Pope Leo XIV—a social justice-oriented pontiff with deep ties to Latin America—sent a clear message: the Catholic Church will not be hijacked by right-wing American forces.
Despite efforts by MAGA-aligned factions to influence the conclave with financial gifts and appeals to conservative identity politics,[¹] the College of Cardinals chose a leader aligned with the inclusive vision of Pope Francis.
This result has enraged segments of the American political right and exposed a disturbing dynamic: the MAGA movement’s embrace of conservative Catholicism is tactical, not theological.
Let’s be clear: MAGA is a nativist movement. Nativism refers to a political ideology that favors native-born or established inhabitants over immigrants, often manifesting in xenophobia, ethnonationalism, and protectionist policies.[²]
In the United States, nativism has historically promoted a mythologized image of a White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant (WASP) culture, positioning it as the cultural ideal at the expense of Catholics, Jews, people of color, and immigrants.[³]
MAGA’s temporary alliance with conservative Catholic groups—like CatholicVote and the Napa Institute—has helped the movement build credibility with Latino and working-class voters.
These groups have offered moral and political support for far-right policies, including restrictions on immigration, dismantling social welfare programs, and advancing Christian nationalist ideology.[⁴]
But make no mistake: once these Catholic allies are no longer useful, MAGA will discard them.
The movement’s ultimate religious identity is not Catholic—it is White Evangelical Protestantism cloaked in American exceptionalism.
Straight from the dictators’ master plan
We’ve seen this strategy before. Authoritarian regimes throughout history have co-opted religious institutions for political legitimacy.
In Nazi Germany, the regime sought Christian support in its early years, only to later suppress dissenting clergy and subordinate the Church to state power.[⁵]
In contemporary Russia, Vladimir Putin has weaponized the Russian Orthodox Church to justify military aggression and silence internal critics.[⁶]
MAGA is following this same playbook: use religion to gain power, then suppress any aspect of faith that dares to speak prophetically against injustice.
The integrity of American Christianity is on the line
As a Protestant, I am outraged—not only because of how Catholic institutions are being used and discarded, but because this trajectory threatens the moral and theological integrity of Christianity in America.
Christian nationalism is a heresy that fuses religious identity with state power.
It reduces the Gospel of Christ to a tribal code for insiders.
It marginalizes immigrants, people of color, and religious minorities.
It replaces the cross with a flag, and the kingdom of God with a political movement.
The election of Pope Leo XIV is a rebuke to this corruption.
He represents a tradition of faith that has stood with the poor, accompanied migrants, and fought authoritarianism across centuries and continents.
His election reminds us that the global church cannot and will not be co-opted by American political machinery.
We Protestants must not be complicit in this charade.
We must stand with our Catholic siblings, particularly those in migrant and Latin American communities, who are often the targets of nativist rhetoric and policies.
We must name Christian nationalism for what it is: a dangerous ideology that leads to exclusion, violence, and repression.
Choose the way of Jesus
And we must choose, again and again, the way of Jesus—who welcomed the stranger, healed the sick, overturned the tables of injustice, and refused the devil’s offer of political power.
The MAGA-Catholic alliance was always a marriage of convenience.
Now that the movement sees the Vatican heading in a different direction, expect it to fall back on its foundational identity: White Evangelical nationalism.
And history tells us what happens next—unless we resist.
Footnotes
[1] The Daily Beast. “MAGA Tries to Sway Pope Vote with 100 Bottles of Wine and Billion-Dollar Promises.” The Daily Beast, April 2025. https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-tries-to-sway-pope-vote-with-100-bottles-of-wine-and-billion-dollar-promises
[2] Britannica. “Nativism: Politics.” Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/nativism-politics
[3] Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925. Rutgers University Press, 2002.
[4] The Guardian. “How MAGA Catholics Lost the Vatican.” The Guardian, April 28, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/28/maga-catholics-vatican-pope-conclave
[5] Barnett, Victoria. For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler. Oxford University Press, 1998.
[6] New York Times. “How the Russian Orthodox Church Became Putin’s Weapon.” New York Times, May 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/10/world/europe/russian-orthodox-church-putin.html
