Progressive TV anchor Rachel Maddow has credited Popes Francis and Leo XIV for leading her back to the Catholic Church.
That’s the account in a Letters from Leo post describing a surprise moment Friday night at a Chicago event where Maddow, openly gay and one of cable TV’s most recognizable voices on the left, told an audience she has returned to the faith after decades away.
According to the report, Maddow’s comments came during a Q&A when an audience member asked about Pope Leo, a Chicago native elected after the death of Pope Francis, and his posture toward immigration.
The account described Maddow as acknowledging that, after “having not considered myself [Catholic] for some time,” she now considers herself “back in the faith.”
The post also linked her return to what she sees as the church’s renewed public witness, including activism around immigration enforcement in the Chicago area.
In Maddow’s telling, the transition from Francis to Leo felt “providential,” with both religious leaders publicly emphasizing care for migrants.
Leo, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, was chosen to be Pope in May 2025 and quickly drew worldwide attention as the first U.S.-born Pope.
The post said Maddow joked that the succession was “like it was just grown in a lab” to “radicalize American Catholics” against cruelty — a line that underscores that even progressive celebrities recognize the unique moral authority of the papacy when it refuses to bend to political fashion.
Maddow has long been framed as a secular icon of the modern left.
A 2017 Maddow profile in The New Yorker, though, noted that she grew up in a “believing Catholic home,” described herself as having a “religious temperament,” and said that early formation “stuck with” her — even as she built a career critiquing Republicans and the conservative movement.
Maddow is not alone in the broader “return” narrative now circulating in media and online.
Recent coverage has also highlighted ABC’s Gio Benitez describing a renewed embrace of Catholicism after years away, crediting an atmosphere he sees as more welcoming, TooFab reported last month.
Maddow’s surprise admission is a reminder that the oldest institution in the West still has the power to call people home.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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