On The Intellectualist’s History of the Present, Christopher Hale, publisher of Letters from Leo, joins Brian Daitzman, editor-in-chief of The Intellectualist and host of History of the Present, to explain why Pope Leo XIV is cutting through American politics in a way Trump can’t easily attack: with moral authority, mercy, and a language beyond cruelty.
Christopher Hale believes Pope Leo XIV is breaking through in American public life because many Americans — including many who are not Catholic — are searching for a moral language that politics no longer provides.
On History of the Present, Hale, the publisher of Letters from Leo, joined Brian Daitzman, founder of The Intellectualist and host of History of the Present, for a wide-ranging conversation about Catholic social teaching, Trumpism, mercy, wealth, power, the Democratic Party, and the spiritual hunger beneath American politics.
Hale comes to the conversation from an unusual vantage point. He has spent years at the intersection of Catholic life, Democratic politics, public service, and moral argument. He ran as the Democratic nominee for Tennessee’s 4th Congressional District in 2020, and his work now focuses on the moral and political meaning of the first pope born in the United States.
Letters from Leo, Hale said, was not the product of a careful plan. It grew out of his time in Rome covering the death of Pope Francis and the election of Pope Leo XIV for major publications. From there, he noticed something striking: American audiences, including many secular readers, were intensely interested in the new pope.
“I will say that the vast majority of my readers are secular,” Hale said. To him, that says something important about Pope Leo’s public role. His message is not only reaching practicing Catholics. It is reaching Americans looking for a moral vocabulary beyond partisan combat.
