With pope's death, Trump loses top moral critic

The death of Pope Francis silences arguably the most powerful moral voice on the world stage critical of Donald Trump, with the pontiff taking the lead against the U.S. president's mass deportations of migrants. Catholics form the largest single religious denomination in the United States and Trump won them by up to 20 points in 2024, according to different surveys, a shift in support that helped him carry the election. But Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida, said Francis also "softened the Church's stance on the so-called culture-war issues" such as LGBTQ rights -- the polar opposite of Trump's galvanizing approach.