Christopher Hale Is Hurting The Pope, the Catholic Church, and His Soul

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves." Matthew 7:15

“I don’t plan to get involved in partisan politics. That’s not what the church is about.” - Pope Leo XIV

“Just as God raised up a pope from behind the Iron Curtain to help defeat communism, God has raised up a pope from the Americas to defeat MAGA authoritarianism.” - Christopher Hale, in a fundraising pitch for his newsletter, “Letters from Leo.”

That, in a nutshell, is Christopher Hale.

You’ve probably seen him on X by now. He’s the former (unsuccessful) Democratic congressional candidate doing his best to turn Pope Leo XIV into a weapon against the right–and into paid subscribers for his newsletter. He’s the man who declares–at a time where the two frontrunners for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination are both devout Catholics–that “Anti-Catholicism is the heart of MAGA identity.” Or, as he’s repeatedly tweeted: “MAGA hates Catholics.”

He’s quickly becoming liberal media outlets’ favorite Catholic voice. He’s appeared on CNN, been quoted in the Washington Post and MSNow, and appeared on the far-left PodSaveAmerica–just in the last month. He also authored an op-ed for NewsWeek, where he described himself as a “Political philosopher,” though it’s unclear what the basis for calling himself a philosopher is. He’s starting to get active on TikTok, too, where he recently posted a TikTok video alleging that FBI Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend is “cheating on” him–because a security officer held her hand in the aftermath of the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

The clearest tell of Hale’s nakedly partisan motives is the contrast in how he talks about Catholic Democrats versus Catholic Republicans. The Holy Father, despite the impression the media (and Hale) might give you, criticizes both sides of the political aisle. But the author of “Letters From Leo”? He fights with priests in defense of “the pro-choice politician” (his words) Sen. Dick Durbin.

When Hale talks about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a baptised Catholic who is now an unabashed opponent of the Church’s teachings on abortion, the sanctity of marriage, the truth about sex and gender and religious freedom, he is adoring. “I love how you express our shared Catholic faith, Alexandria,” says Hale, responding to a tweet in which AOC expressed nothing at all about the Catholic faith. “@AOC would run circles around you on the Bible, Allie Beth,” Hale jabs in a tweet to protestant commentator Allie Beth Stuckey.

When Hale talks about Nancy Pelosi, he is so effusive that a Taylor Swift obsessive–Swifties, as they’re known–would cringe. “I love Speaker Pelosi.” “We don’t say it enough — Nancy Pelosi has been one of the best speakers of the House in American history.” “Nancy Pelosi has once again delivered for the American people.” “Nancy Pelosi gets a lot of hell for being pro-choice and being Catholic. Let me say from personal experience, the woman is full of faith.”

But when he speaks of Secretary of State Marco Rubio? Now he’s the Grand Inquisitor. He falsely describes Rubio, a convert, as still a Mormon. (As The Spectator’s Damian Thompson, the former editor-in-chief of The Catholic Herald, put it: “the claim that Rubio is currently a Mormon is a blatant falsehood and the failure to correct it is inexcusable.”)

“I would like a reporter to ask Marco Rubio how many times he’s fulfilled his Sunday Mass obligation in the eighteen Sundays since Christmas,” tweeted Hale, who in 2018 said he was “struggling to go to mass anymore” and to this day makes a public habit of taking the Lord’s name in vain on X.

“Senator Rubio quotes the Bible daily, but it’s clear he’s never read it,” reads another Hale tweet. And another: “Rubio doesn’t read the Bible lol”

Observing Hale’s reckless rhetoric about his political opponents calls to mind the classic C.S. Lewis lesson: “Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils.” I’ll leave it to the reader to conclude which of those two camps Hale falls into.

I’ll give Hale this. Attempting to negatively polarize Catholics into joining the Democratic Party–the party of child sex changes, the party of legally persecuting the Little Sisters of the Poor, the party of third-trimester abortions, the party where two-thirds of voters rarely or never attend church–is nothing short of ambitious. For a Democratic operative, it’s probably pretty smart. But for a Catholic? It’s putrid.

Yet there’s something darker, still, about Hale’s efforts. By portraying the Holy Father as an ally of the Democratic Party, Hale is clearly, obviously, trying to bait Republicans–particularly protestants–into attacking the pope. That’s a good strategy for boosting your subscriber base–the more someone takes the bait, the more fodder for your Substack. But it’s a horrific strategy for trying to achieve the salvation of souls by bringing them into–instead of seeking to radicalize them against–the Catholic Church.

In his PodSaveAmerica interview, Hale talked about winning converts rather than punishing heretics—but he was talking about the Democratic Party converting Catholics, rather than vice versa. Hale begs for a crumb of the Democratic Party, while rejecting more than half a loaf from the Republican Party—perhaps because his interests are tied to the Democrats and he has no past, present or future in Republican politics. When he ran for Congress in 2020, Hale called to “Abolish qualified immunity” and “Defund police forces that violate Tennesseans’ civil rights.”

In 2024, he led the oxymoronic “Catholics for Harris” movement. Harris, lest we forget, is the woman who grilled a judicial nominee over his membership in the Knights of Columbus charitable fraternity–known for sinister activities like pancake breakfasts, toy drives for sick kids, and handing out turkeys to needy families on Thanksgiving. (“Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?” she asked. In other words: Did you know the Knights of Columbus are Catholic?) She’s the woman who would require the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for abortions. She’s the woman who champions the Equality Act, which would not only force men into women’s bathrooms, sports leagues and locker rooms, but explicitly bars the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a defense. (Then again, that last point sounds a bit like Hale’s own rhetoric: He has said that requiring Catholic school teachers to uphold Catholic teaching on gay and transgender issues is “invisible violence” that can be “just as deadly” as hate crimes.)

Hale’s only path to relevance is through the Democratic Party. And he’s only helpful to the Democratic Party if he can use Catholicism as a weapon.

It would be one thing to say that conservative Catholics should be vigilant against letting their Republican loyalties supersede their religious beliefs and obedience to the Holy Father–that would be both fair and true. Bishop Robert Barron, himself a member of Trump’s Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty, criticized the president’s pope-bashing as “entirely inappropriate and disrespectful” and said “the President owes the Pope an apology.” The flock owes loyalty and humility toward its shepherd.

But it’s something different altogether to try to drive sheep into the jaws of wolves while presenting yourself as the voice of the shepherd.

Peter Hasson is an editor at the Washington Free Beacon. He previously worked as a senior politics editor at Fox News Digital. He is the author of The Manipulators and is a dad of three.