Kayla Bartsch

Journalist and writer whose work has appeared in National Review, The Washington Free Beacon, The Dispatch, and the National Catholic Register. A Catholic convert and former William F. Buckley Jr. Fellow in Political Journalism at National Review, she writes on culture, religion, education, and public life.

An American Pope Makes Catholic Teaching a U.S. Political Force

Paul Elie and Christine Emba argue that Pope Leo XIV has made longstanding Catholic teaching newly consequential in U.S. politics not by changing it, but by making it harder to ignore. As an American pope confronting an American administration, Leo has become a legible moral countervoice on war, migration, technological power, and human dignity, while his restrained style leaves unresolved the Church’s own disputes over authority, gender, and tradition.

The Aspen InstituteSep 16, 202615 min read