At the intersection of faith and public discourse, Father James Martin is one of America’s most prominent voices navigating an increasingly polarized religious and political landscape. As editor-at-large for America Magazine, a bestselling author and Vatican consultant, the Jesuit priest has dedicated his ministry to explaining Catholic teachings to contemporary American audiences while advocating for a more compassionate, gospel-centered approach to divisive issues.
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His influence extends beyond traditional Catholic circles through social media engagement, late-night television appearances and his podcast “The Spiritual Life,” making him a unique bridge between institutional Catholicism and broader public conversation.
In recent weeks, Father Martin has occupied a particularly challenging position as a leading voice for American Catholicism grappling with deep political divisions that mirror broader societal polarization. In this conversation with Jane Clayson Johnson, Father Martin talks about how he’s learned to defend his faith without playing partisan politics. He also shared his journey to become a Catholic priest, his relationship with the first American-born pope and why God doesn’t take sides in war or political conflicts.
Their conversation, edited for length and clarity, took place before Father Martin took a stand against President Donald Trump’s and Vice President JD Vance’s criticism of Pope Leo XIV over the Roman Catholic leader’s statements against America’s war with Iran.
Jane Clayson Johnson: How do you see the role of faith in public life today?
Father Martin: Faith always has a role in the public square, though I really do think that religious leaders should shy away from things like endorsing candidates and calling out candidates by name. I think it’s more important for people to preach the Gospels. It’s really important to bring in faith-related topics, but I also think it’s important to stay away from partisanship. So, it’s a little bit of a tightrope.
Clayson Johnson: Pope Leo has become more vocal in his criticism of the U.S. administration, specifically President Trump, regarding the war in Iran. What’s your response?
Father Martin: Well, I agree with him. Obviously, Pope Leo is talking about the gospel and it’s really important to remember that Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” We’re called to be peacemakers. And also it’s important to remember Pope Leo rarely mentions politicians’ names. He only mentioned that because people asked him directly. Usually he’s just talking about working for peace and reconciliation. So I think he’s doing exactly what a Christian leader should do, which is to call for peace. Like Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
Clayson Johnson: What is the significance of an American pope criticizing an American president?
Father Martin: Unlike under Pope Francis or Pope Benedict or Pope John Paul, people can’t say he doesn’t understand America. So it’s really important to say that this is someone who understands the American scene, who understands American politics but, again, who’s trying to be a faith leader, not a political leader.
Clayson Johnson: After President Trump threatened to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilization,” Pope Leo issued another rebuke, saying the threat was “truly unacceptable.” It’s not uncommon for a pope to speak broadly and talk about peace and call for peace, but these are very specific rebukes.
Father Martin: Well, these are really strange times. I mean, to call for eradicating an entire civilization? That calls for a response. So if you’re going to say, “I’m going to wipe out an entire civilization” or “an entire country” or “an entire nation,” in terms of the threat, it demands a response. It also reminds us that the Catholic Church is consistently on the side of life. These are pro-life issues. So if you’re going to say we’re going to kill people, the Catholic Church is going to be against that. So I think it’s perfectly appropriate.
Clayson Johnson: Do you think faith leaders generally should be more vocal on political issues relevant to their faith positions?
Father Martin: That’s a good question. They should be vocal, but I don’t think they should be partisan. So it’s one thing to say we need to care for the poor, we need to care for people who are on the margins, we need to help the sick, we need to help the elderly, we need to help people who are starving. That’s one thing. To say you should vote for this candidate or that candidate, you should vote for this party or that party, that’s another thing. So I think that they should be faith leaders, not political leaders. And that’s a difficult tightrope to walk.
Clayson Johnson: But do you wish we’d hear more from faith leaders as the pope is doing, speaking out?
Father Martin: I wish we would hear more from faith leaders who are really talking about faith. And I sometimes think that Christian leaders are talking more about politics than they’re talking about Jesus, and I think Jesus is his own defense. I mean, all you have to do is say Jesus asks us to care for the poor and welcome the stranger, or Jesus asks us to be loving and merciful and compassionate, or Jesus asks us to be peacemakers, and that’s enough, right? I guess I wish that they focused more on Jesus and on the Gospels, or on the, depending on the denomination, the Old and the New Testaments, than talking about specific political issues.
Clayson Johnson: Pope Leo has been critical of President Trump’s immigration policy. Recently, House Speaker Mike Johnson cited passages in Romans saying welcoming the stranger is an individual admonition while civil authorities are called to maintain order and enforce immigration laws. What is your response to that?
Father Martin: That passage from Romans is not absolute. That passage from Romans is not the be-all and end-all. I mean, the be-all and end-all is what Jesus said and Jesus is pretty clear: Welcome the stranger. Now that’s uncomfortable for a lot of people, and Jesus doesn’t say welcome the stranger only if they have the right papers. Jesus says welcome the stranger.
When you’re sort of pulling out scripture passages like that, you really need to look at the whole thrust of the Old and the New Testaments. And you cannot escape the fact that the overall thrust of the Old and the New Testament is to welcome the stranger. It’s very clear in Exodus, God says it over and over to the people of Israel: You shall not oppress the alien or refugee, for you were aliens yourselves once in the land of Egypt and in terms of the Exodus. Jesus says when you welcome the stranger, you welcome me; when you don’t welcome the stranger, you don’t welcome me.
Now, that’s uncomfortable for people and it stresses people out and it brings all sorts of excuses, but that’s it. I mean, you might as well say that Jesus asks us not to take care of the poor. In terms of saying it’s only about individuals, that passage in which Jesus says we need to care for the stranger is called the judgment of nations. It says nations will be judged. I mean, you can’t get any clearer than that. It doesn’t say just individuals — which we will be judged — but it says nations will be judged. That’s not me or Pope Leo, that’s Jesus.
And there are also unjust laws. I mean, civic laws are not absolute. If that were the case — I’m not drawing parallels — but if that were the case, then Germans should have followed the civic authorities in Nazi Germany because of that passage from Romans.
Clayson Johnson: Some of the most visible Catholic figures in America today are serving in the Trump administration, from Vice President Vance to Secretary of State Marco Rubio to press secretary Karoline Leavitt. What is the responsibility of Catholics in positions of political power when their policies may be in tension with church teaching?
Father Martin: I’ve never worked in politics, but I would say it’s being a good and moral person. It’s trying to, as far as possible, live out those Christian values in the political sphere. Of course, there’s give-and-take in politics, right? Politics is the art of compromise, as they say. It’s remembering that God’s not just on one person’s side or one political party’s side or even one nation’s side. If God’s on anyone’s side, as the psalm says, God is on the side of the brokenhearted. But when we say that God’s on our side, I think we get on a slippery slope.
Clayson Johnson: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called on Americans to pray for victory in the battle in Iran and safety for American troops, “in the name of Jesus Christ.” The pope soon after warned against invoking the name of Jesus for battle, saying that Jesus does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war but rejects them.
Father Martin: Well, Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” So, you can’t be any clearer than that. Jesus from the cross forgives his executioners, and after the resurrection, returns and forgives people. It’s not about revenge or who’s right or who’s wrong. But more broadly, I do think God blesses American troops, but God also blesses people in Iran.
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So the idea that God would be only blessing our side is really a misunderstanding of Christian theology and Christian spirituality. Because if you say God is only blessing our side, does that mean God wants Iranians to die? That innocent men, women and children are dying? That makes no sense. But that’s the implication when you pray in that way. It’s one thing to say, “May God protect our troops.” It’s another thing to say, “God is on our side,” and that God wills the death and destruction of the other side. Again, Jesus’ words over and over again to the disciples are, “Peace be with you,” not, “War be with you.”
Clayson Johnson: During the first Trump administration, you were very vocal on social media about things that you disagreed with. Have your views shifted on what and how you speak out?
Father Martin: Yes. I’m much more careful about not using people’s names, not using politicians’ names, not talking about Republicans and Democrats. I just think it’s better. It’s better to focus on the gospel and on Jesus. I probably don’t do it as well as I should. The few times that I’ll speak out on social media is when it wades into religious territory. So when people are talking about God wants this, God wants that or Jesus wants this or Jesus blesses that, I feel I’m on safer ground. I also try never to do ad hominem, to say this person’s a bad Catholic or a bad Christian. I don’t think that’s helpful. So I have changed in that I focus much more on just what Jesus says.
Clayson Johnson: You have a really interesting life story. You come from a working-class background, you grew up in a family of what you call “lukewarm Catholics.” I’m curious how your upbringing shaped your faith.
Father Martin: My parents were Catholic, but as I say, “lukewarm Catholics,” not super religious. We went to church most Sundays. Not every Sunday. They were good and moral people. It really took me a while, though, to get a sense of God’s call in my life, and that really wasn’t until my late 20s. And what happened was, I was working in the business world and just thought, “This is not for me.” I mean, business is a real vocation for a lot of people, probably a lot of your listeners and viewers, but it just wasn’t for me, and I really had to ask myself, what was God calling me to, and where were my desires leading me? And that eventually led to the Catholic priesthood.
Clayson Johnson: It wasn’t just that it wasn’t for you. In your memoir “Work in Progress: Confessions of a Busboy, Dishwasher, Caddy, Usher, Factory Worker, Bank Teller, Corporate Tool, and Priest,” you say it was “soul-destroying.” What was so bad about it?
Father Martin: For me, the overwork, the sort of 24/7 lifestyle, as well as mean managers that I ran into and a lack of compassion for people, really struck me as inhuman. And it wasn’t the person that I wanted to be. I tell in the book a story about a guy who was going to be fired, and I was working in human relations at the time, and I went to his boss, and I said, “You can’t fire this guy, we just gave him an incentive award, he has a family,” and there was no sort of record of bad performance. And he said, “I don’t care.” And so as a last-ditch measure, I said, “Well, have some compassion.” And I won’t use the word he used, but he said, “(expletive) compassion.” He said that without irony — and I thought, “Boy, if I’m working in an organization that can say that about compassion, I think I’m in the wrong place.”
Clayson Johnson: You recently met with Pope Leo. What should Americans know about him?
Father Martin: The most important thing is that he’s a great guy. He’s just a very good person. I got to know him at the synod, which was a meeting of Catholic representatives and Catholic leaders over the last couple years, October 2023 and October 2024. And I happened to be at his table for two weeks, from nine-to-five. So you get to know somebody, a table of about 12 people. And I found him to be very, very intelligent, quite reserved, pretty quiet, not exactly shy, but reserved, very thoughtful. And a cardinal I know used a great word for him yesterday, which was: He’s not just tolerant. He’s not just a good listener for people from different viewpoints. He’s curious. Isn’t that a great word? He’s curious about people and about where they come from and their points of view. So, I think we have a great guy. And to have an American is pretty special.
Clayson Johnson: You have said that the church in America is both healthy and divided to this point, and that the division mirrors our politics. What concerns you the most about that?
Father Martin: Just that, this great division in the Catholic Church, where people tend to think — in some places — more like Republicans and Democrats than Catholics. And this kind of demonization, I would say, especially online. This person’s a bad Catholic, this person’s a good Catholic, you’re not doing this, you’re not doing that. Less so in parishes, but it really does seep into people’s discourse, and I think the church is supposed to be one. Jesus prayed that they all may be one. Pope Leo is very much interested in unity. But I think the most difficult thing is to see people talked about as bad Catholics, because we have no idea what’s going on inside their souls. Now we can look at their actions and say, “I don’t agree with that.” Or, “I don’t agree with what they’re saying.” But this rush to demonization, this rush to condemnation, this rush to judgment, is, again, what Jesus asks us not to do. He says, “Judge not.” And boy, that is a hard passage for a lot of people to really imbibe.
Clayson Johnson: Well, not just in the Catholic Church, but in many faith traditions.
Father Martin: Yeah, it’s such a human reaction. Sometimes I just tweet out, “Judge not,” and the comments are incredible. “Well, what about this? What about that?” And, people say, “Well, what about the actions?” Yeah, we do judge the actions and say, “I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think that’s wrong.” But we don’t judge the person. That’s up to God. And there is such a human desire to judge, condemn and also expel. It’s really kind of shocking. I have to say, I think social media has exacerbated that. Because people aren’t meeting people face-to-face, they just have a caricature of someone’s Twitter profile.
Clayson Johnson: What is the best way to understand the people you disagree with? How do you talk about issues like immigration and poverty in a way that does not immediately push people into political camps?
Father Martin: A really important question. The first thing is to always give them the benefit of the doubt, right? So to say that this person is probably coming from a good heart, right? And wants to understand and might be confused or fearful, and we really need to take that person as a good person. The second is to really listen to what the person is saying, and I have these experiences a lot. And the third thing is never to attack the person and to try to put forth your own view.
I sometimes find, rather than getting into debates, it’s better to say, “Well, let me tell you the story of someone I know who was a refugee or a migrant.” And I actually worked with refugees about 20 years ago in East Africa, and sometimes I say, “Let me just tell you a story about a refugee. I don’t want to convince you, but I just want to share this story with you.”
And then to be OK with disagreements with friends or even family and to still love them. So it’s looking at things in charity. And also being open to critique that you may not have all the facts or you may not know everything. You’re not God. So it’s giving people the benefit of the doubt, really listening, treating them with dignity, being OK with having some disagreements and being OK with being corrected. To say, “Oh, I didn’t know that.” Or, “That’s interesting.” I think that’s really rare these days.
Clayson Johnson: You’ve said that young people today seem to be rediscovering faith, rediscovering a spiritual hunger, and that we’re in a sort of post-secular moment. How is it that you’re seeing that?
Father Martin: Yeah, I see it in reports about upticks, particularly in the Catholic Church, of people who are joining the church over Easter, which is the traditional time for people to join the Catholic Church. But I’m also hearing it anecdotally. A lot of my Jesuit brothers who work in campus ministry at colleges and universities are saying, “My gosh, Masses are packed and we’re getting all these baptisms.” So it’s happening. And it’s pretty exciting. I think two things are happening: One, secularity has been found wanting. Two, people are looking for community, certainly after Covid and lots of societal upheavals, people looking for community. They’re looking for an identity. But, really at the heart, they’re looking for God. They’re looking for a sense of God’s presence in their life. So it’s kind of taken the Catholic Church by surprise a little bit, but it’s a nice problem to have.
Clayson Johnson: So what is your final message for listeners about faith and politics and public discourse today?
Father Martin: I would say, respect the other person, give them the benefit of the doubt, try to listen, put forth your position with love, and always continue to, as Jesus said, “Love your enemies.”
This story appears in the June 2026 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.
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