NCC Liberty Medal 2026 Robert Prevost aka Leo XIV

Pope Leo XIV is due to receive the National Constitution Center’s 2026 Liberty Medal this July 4th. I am no fan of Pope Leo for a lot of reasons although I had great hope for his pontificate immediately following his election. While it’s true that he dressed and said Mass like a traditional pope, his appointments and political statements to the press over time revealed that he was Pope Francis 2.0 and that his total goal was to follow Francis’s agenda, that being the creation of new synodal “listening” Church, ready to water down teachings and possibly doctrine to “get with” contemporary culture and to be loved by the world. Catholics who wanted someone like Pope Benedict to succeed Francis — a traditionalist who appreciated the value of ancient rites who would not strive to become a popular icon celebrated by the likes of Rolling Stone magazine — were disappointed, since Leo’s election all but guaranteed that the Catholic Church in ten years’ time will be unrecognizable from the historic Catholic Church of the ages.

Like Francis, Pope Leo is popular among non-Catholics and secular liberal atheists and agnostics. He praises open borders, is vague and wishy-washy on issues related to sexual morality, talks about overturning serious Catholic doctrine when “attitudes change,” and sees all migrants as saints-in-the-making just because they are vagabond-travelers, even those who rape and commit crimes in the countries they invaded. The first American pope who doesn’t even identify as American but Peruvian, baited President Trump relentlessly with prickly comments about immigration until the president, sick of the chronic poking, fired back. Leo loves to talk. His wide grin is a massive political theater. Like Francis, his most contentious statements often come from impromptu airplane interviews. But it makes sense that the National Constitution Center, founded in 1988 when President Ronald Reagan established the Constitution Heritage Act, would award Pope Leo its 2026 Liberty Medal. For years I’ve kept a close watch on the NCC, looking for signs of an obvious political bias there, especially when Jeffrey Rosen was in command – Rosen had a talent for hiding his personal politics during public NCC interviews and seminars – although a profound political bias seems to be true of most of the people who attended NCC lectures and presentations. The vast majority of them seem to be liberal with a disdain for Trump and the overturning of Roe. They are also very left on trans issues, migrant invasions, et cetera. For me, looking for conservative NCC members was a little like looking at a haystack through the eye of a needle. I finally gave up. If there are conservatives at NCC events they are sheepish downlow types who only feel safe whispering their views in-between light fare bites: “Shh, don’t tell my wife, but I voted for Trump.” I’d attend these NCC soirees with a friend but midway through a glass of cold white wine the new people we found ourselves chatting with would reveal their leftist credentials. It was disheartening. Why is Philadelphia always like this? It got so bad I feared the NCC would soon be making land acknowledgment statements before every event. And yet if you Google the NCC and ask about political bias you’ll get guaranteed pledges and promises of political neutrality. Here’s one “non-partisan” entry from the NCC website: “The National Constitution Center is a private, nonprofit organization, the Center serves as America’s leading platform for constitutional education and debate, fulfilling our congressional charter “to disseminate information about the U.S. Constitution on a nonpartisan basis.”

And yet the popular and conservative Catholic podcaster, Anthony Stein, stated on-air that he had to block the NCC from sending press releases to his email because the institution is too left-wing. He mentioned this in connection with Pope Leo being named the 2026 Liberty Medal recipient, while shaking his head in disbelief. The awarding of the medal to Leo is obviously the result of the pope’s beliefs on immigration and migrants, his audacity in stepping out of his lane in attacking President Trump, and his tendency to regard Catholicism as just another religious denomination, equal to other faiths, which has never really been a Catholic belief until popes Francis and Leo came on the scene. These two popes, in case you haven’t guessed are religious revolutionaries. Of course, Leo’s pronouncements about peace and feeding the hungry, as Hallmark card-sounding as they are, also played a part in his being awarded the Liberty Medal. All popes want peace, however, and a pope would never advocate its opposite, unless of course Islamist militants stormed the walls of the Vatican. Given the open attitude of Rome these days, it’s just possible that the modern Church – the synodal Church – would throw down a prayer rug for the invaders.

The conservative meme, “Pope Leo is just another Democrat from Chicago,” fits in perfectly here, and this is why this Villanova grad with the wide grin did a very leftist-authoritarian thing when he recently laicized a Spanish priest for daring to suggest that Pope Francis was a heretical pseudo-pope. Leftism cannot help but be authoritarian. This is also why Pope Leo may excommunicate the SSPX — the largest society of traditionalist Catholics in the world — on July 1st, when four SSPX bishops are due to be consecrated against the wishes of the Vatican. I should note that past NCC Liberty Medal winners included Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush, the Dalai Lama of Tibet (very chic), George H.W. Bush and William J. Clinton (after the blue dress and stud philandering), and Hillary Rodham Clinton. This gives you a sense of the NCC. Need we go on?