A Gentle Thunderclap and a Brewing Storm

From the Pope’s quiet rebuke to Trump’s proud militia, why June may be the month America remembers who we are, or forgets entirely

Good morning! “A gentle thunderclap.” The first American pope wasted no time setting a moral tone that puts the Trump administration’s cruelty squarely in his pastoral sights. Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago, used his first public address not to celebrate his ascension but to quietly rebuke the “erosion of mercy” in his home co…