Pope Leo XIV is making national headlines again, this time as the first pope in history to vote in a U.S. general election. That’s likely because he’s the first pope in history eligible to vote in a U.S. election. But the point still stands, Robert Prevost, the Pope’s name on the voter roll in Will County, took the time to cast his ballot and exercised his right as a U.S. citizen to vote.
The bigger question on many people’s minds is who did he vote for? As an Illinois voter, the pope’s choices could not be more distinct. From the top of the ticket to the bottom of the ticket, the positions and records of the candidates on the ballot on the important issues are nearly polar opposite. What policies weighed heaviest in the pope’s heart when he made his choices? We don’t, and likely will never, know.
At the top of the ticket are Juliana Stratton and JB Pritzker. It’s hard to imagine the pope voting for either of these two especially when it comes to the moral issues that one would think would be foremost on the Pope’s mind.
Those two have made Illinois the destination for abortion in the Midwest, assisted suicide legal in Illinois, and they both support the “trans” insanity which not only is anti-science, but also rejects God’s creation.
At the state legislative level, on the Pope’s ballot are Democrats State Rep Anthony DeLuca and State Senator Patrick Joyce. Deluca, with that undeniable Italian Catholic name, voted for assisted suicide and Pritzker’s expansive abortion bill, euphemistically-named, The Reproductive Health Act in 2019. Joyce did not vote for assisted suicide and was not in office when the RHA was passed.
In the most recent test of that issue, Joyce did vote for allowing minors to get birth control on their own. That law literally states, “For the purposes of accessing contraceptive services or supplies under this Act, a minor is deemed to have the same legal capacity to act and has the same powers and obligations as a person of legal age.”
So, it’s obvious where Joyce really stands. He opposes parental rights and will vote with the abortion lobby when he can get away with it.
So. on the biggest moral issues of the day, the Pope should reject the Democrats running on the ballot.
What about immigration? The Left has turned enforcement of our immigration laws into a moral issue when it is fundamentally one of the rule of law and public safety.
At the county level, will the Pope know enough about the energy, data center, local zoning issues to make an informed choice?
The Pope is no different than any other voter in the state, who is not wedded to one party, in that how he decides to vote likely hinges on how much he knows about the records of the politicians and the policies they wish to impose and how that lines up with his belief system.
Voter knowledge is important. Most people, one would still hope, want to look out for their best interests and that includes the best interests of the nation and state.
Here’s the problem, though, many voters don’t have time to weed through the information bombarding their mailbox, social media accounts, and tv viewing. Younger voters are mal-educated from a liberal school system. And, a good portion of voters rely on Democrat largesse for their livelihoods – they will vote how their union tells them or they know their industry relies on tax money to stay in business, so they will vote for the government money to keep flowing. Both the education and healthcare industries are examples of that. Unfortunately, big business wants in on the gravy train too.
Overcoming the misinformation and the propaganda from the Democrat party is a huge task for Republicans in Illinois.
About Gen Z voters – According to a recent New York Times/Sienna poll, Gen Z voters have shifted by 15 points whose party they favor.
Certainly, many in that generation are facing more difficult economic times than they expected to at this stage in their life, but that may have more to do with their expectations and choices than anything else.
It also very likely, though, their opinions have much more to do about how they were educated. The recent edition of Imprimis, a Hillsdale College publication, published the transcript of a recent speech by Kimberly Strassel, a columnist with THE Wall Street Journal. It is titled The Rise of Democratic Socialism. I highly encourage everyone to read it.
As the title indicates, Strassel recounts succinctly the rise of the DSA going back to Bernie Sanders and his first election in 1981 and she notes that as it pertains to our youth, the education system has failed the Republic.
Here are just a few excerpts:
Before we can address the rise of the democratic socialists, we need to clarify what it is that is rising. That’s made harder by an education system that has left generations of Americans poorly equipped to recognize socialism, and by a liberal media and left-wing political establishment that are determined to play down today’s threat.
Socialism has come in many forms through history and has seemingly infinite definitions. But simply put, it’s a system based on collective or government ownership of goods and services, as opposed to private ownership or markets. It’s animated by class warfare, the claim that the “workers” in a society are kept down and exploited by wealthy, powerful forces, and that only the forced seizure and redistribution of capital will produce a more egalitarian and just society.
Its other defining feature? It always fails, usually horrifically. Historians generally agree there have been more than two dozen major national attempts at socialism, all of which ended in tyranny and economic collapse. This dismal history has inspired advocates over the ages to produce new “versions” of socialism, ones they insist will finally produce magic. Karl Marx wrote off the earliest, failed communes as “utopian socialism” and contrasted it with his own “scientific socialism.” The world has also seen “anarcho-socialism,” “market socialism,” “ujamaa socialism,” and “goulash communism.” And untold deaths.
The modern twist is democratic socialism. Its proponents chose that descriptor with care. They know socialism’s authoritarian history, and they know how deeply Americans still hold to the Constitution. Their goal with that adjective is to fool us into believing that this version of socialism really is different, that it is no threat, that it can in fact be achieved through democratic means.
As Strassel notes, words matter. It’s not Socialism, it’s Democratic Socialism, just like it’s not abortion, it’s reproductive healthcare and a right to choose.
Strassel then points out the failure in education:
Why are Americans voting for socialism, and why now? The answer to both questions has to do with education.
For all the DSA’s tripe about “working” Americans, it’s a movement comprised almost entirely of young, white, privileged Americans. Statewide socialist candidates in Michigan and Wisconsin had their highest margins in college towns. A Fox News survey in Michigan found that only 75 percent of black Democratic voters intend to vote for the socialist-aligned U.S. Senate candidate, who is also underperforming among women, independents, and suburban and older voters. Socialism is largely a youth movement.
Economist Friedrich Hayek once quipped: “If socialists understood economics, they wouldn’t be socialists.” And indeed, as business professor Kimberlee Josephson wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal, a poor economy doesn’t explain the fascination of young Americans today with socialism. What explains it is that on today’s campuses—especially those of the “wealthiest and most selective” universities—students are living in (fake) socialist utopias: “climbing walls and lazy rivers,” “lofts with expansive lounges,” “campus coffee bars with national brands.” Kids ride buses without paying fares; they “attend concerts, meet career coaches, reserve study rooms, download software, join student organizations, and participate in countless campus activities without ever reaching for a wallet.” Others are paying the bills, of course; the students just don’t know it. And why should real life be any different?
Too few of our K-12 schools, colleges, and universities teach real history or civics any longer. We fret constantly about our falling math and reading scores, and we should. But a nation that does not teach successive generations about the differences between capitalism, socialism, and fascism, or about the horrifying carnage of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Hoxha, Ceausescu, and Tito, or about the basics of personal finance and business, is a nation defenseless against the pull of fantasy ideologies.
Back to the Pope and who he voted for. I think it is safe to assume that the Pope is a well-informed voter about the issues of the day from the rise of socialism to the destruction of the family and de-humanizing policies of abortion, assisted suicide, and “trans” ideology. I think it is safe to assume that he cares about the moral issues above all else. I’m not convinced he knows at every level on his ballot what the politicians stand for. Certainly, he knows JB Pritzker’s stance and likely Stratton’s, but maybe not the others on his ballot. And if the pope doesn’t know, it’s fair to say many other voters don’t know much about the politicians either.
The Democrats are running ads talking generally about costs of healthcare, groceries, and gas, leaving the general impression that they care about these issues without any explanation as to what they will do. And, of course, without admitting that Democrat policies have made all these items more expensive especially in Illinois.
Take a look at this post on X by Obamacare expert C. Steven Tucker –
Understanding public policy isn’t that straightforward for most voters. It’s confusing. In some cases the media helps, it many cases, the media only tells half of the story and there is a lot of that going on right now.
The Daily Herald is now running stories telling half-truths about mismatched fundraising in campaigns. In one article from today, they report that Pritzker just gave DuPage Democrats $200,000 to “close the funding gap” in some local races, noting that Republican sheriff candidate Sean Noonan and DuPage County Board mmber Jim Zay have more money than their Democrat opponents.
The Daily Herald, shamefully though, did not report that in the very important state legislative races, Democrats and the public unions, in just the last two weeks, poured over $635,938 into Erica Bray-Parker’s race for state rep. Total Spending for her from just those two entities is nearly $1 million for the campaign so far. But the Daily Herald leaves all that information out of that article when they run an article about funding mismatch. There is no bigger mismatch than the spending for these legislative seats.
Bray-Parker is running against Rob Vrankovich, who the Daily Herald endorsed, by the way. Republicans have been able to support him with about $72,000, paying for a staff person and a few mailings. THIS IS THE MISMATCH in funding that should be reported on and it is the same mismatch in nearly every other legislative race.
Follow-up on Cardinal Cupich giving an award to pro-abort funder Michael Sacks. Is Pope Leo XIV aware of the controversy? We at Illinois Right to Life hope so as it received national attention.
A small group of us protested the event outside IBEW Local 134 in Chicago. The four speakers were Mary Kate Zander, Executive Director of ILR, myself, Dr. Carrie Mendoza, and Matthew Yonke with the Pro-Life Action League.
Let’s be clear here – Cardinal Cupich participated in an event just ahead of the election it what was much more a political event than an event to raise money from Mundelein Seminary as it was supposed to be. The Who’s Who of Democrat politicians were there. Rahm Emmanuel, Toni Preckwinkle, Senate President Don Harmon, Speaker Chris Welch, Arne Duncan, Alexi Giannoulis, Bill Daley, Tom Perez – former DNC Chairman, and JB Pritzker, just to name a few notables.
The whole sordid event is a stain on the Cardinal and makes him an accomplice to the policies these Leftists fund and put into law.
Here is part of what I said at the protest:
Not only should Cardinal Cupich be admonished for giving Michael Sacks a award, he should also have to answer for sitting down with the other pro-abort politicians and funders, including labor unions, at the dinner tonight.
What’s ironic too is that the labor unions have allowed their annual Rerum Novarum dinner to be hijacked. Giving a Billionaire and award at a dinner for labor is just something you cannot make up except in Illinois.
This dinner, named after Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical on Labor and Capital written 135 years ago, has traditionally celebrated labor’s contributions to society. It was presented in May 1891 during the industrial revolution when workers faced dangerous working environments, low wages, and little control over any of it.
In 2026, in Illinois, the picture for labor is far different. In fact, laborers who work for the unions have Cadillac health insurance plans, more generous wages and benefits than most private workers, and in many cases jobs for life. And in 2026 in Illinois, it is the labor unions who control politicians. It is their leaders who are happy to sit alongside and work with billionaires like Sacks and Pritzker to elect politicians who will do their bidding.
Since the IBEW Local 134, agreed to dirty the evening by letting the Nostra Aetate award be given to billionaire Sacks at the dinner, then I’m going to let everyone in on an open secret – the IBEW and all their other Union buddies have just as bloody hands as Michael Sacks and JB Pritzker when it comes to abortion and other terrible public policy.
When you fund Planned Parenthood you also fund transgender procedures. Planned Parenthood is in the business of giving hormone treatments to people who want to transition to another sex – an impossibility and something the church strongly opposes – another transgression that Cardinal Cupich conveniently overlooked.
IBEW may not give money directly to Planned Parenthood, but they support the same politicians that support and fund, with taxpayer money, abortion and other evils.
Just to put some data points on that:
Last month, the IBEW gave Democrat Nabeela Syed $72,800 in her race for Illinois Senate.
IBEW Local 134 also donated to Maria Peterson just three days ago. Peterson is challenging pro-life Republican Marty McLaughlin and she is supported by the pro-abort Personal PAC.
IBEW Local 134 just yesterday, according to official state campaign finance records donated to Democrat Mary Beth Canty. She sponsored the Assisted Suicide bill. They probably cut the check from the very building we are standing in front of.
Amy Briel is heavily supported by the unions and the Democrats that Cardinal Cupich is sitting down with right now. She is virulently anti-Catholic. On a podcast she said about Catholics “everything about the Catholic Church is misogynistic, power driven, mercenary capitalism” And She called the Catholic Church a cult.
About evangelicals, Briel said – “in my mind, I hear evangelical and I think, racist, controlling, womanizing, … that’s what I think when I think of evangelical”
The Illinois AFL-CIO gave Briel $15,000 on 10/26/26. House Democrats gave her over $300,000 in the last two weeks. And other labor unions $189,000 last quarter.
All three Syed, Canty and Briel voted for assisted suicide, allowing minors to get birth control without parental knowledge, requiring abortion pills be dispensed at public universities in Illinois,
Literally, Cardinal Cupich is sitting down with the funders – JB Pritzker, Michael Sacks, and the Labor Unions – that fund the politicians and organizations that oppose fundamental, foundational teachings of the Catholic Church.
Be an informed voter and make sure those in your circle are as well.
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be . . whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government;”
~ Thomas Jefferson