(RNS) — The lukewarmness of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops toward Pope Francis and his agenda was hard to miss. His initiatives on climate and synodality were received unenthusiastically to say the least. His de-prioritization of combatting abortion and LGBTQ+ rights was ignored.

Bishops aligned with him were regularly denied leadership positions in the USCCB in favor of those associated with monied bastions of opposition like the Napa Institute. In parallel, criticism of the Trump administration was muted, while criticism of the Biden administration was loud and clear.

So now there’s a new pope in town. How’s that working out? 

Pope Leo XIV may be less inclined to stick his thumb in the eye of the conservative resistance, but he’s no less committed to Pope Francis’ agenda. He has made clear his support for the climate and synodality initiatives, and last fall he backed the Archdiocese of Chicago’s decision to give its annual lifetime achievement award to retiring Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a supporter of abortion rights. (After criticism of the decision by domestic conservatives, including Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Durbin declined to accept the award.)

On the Trump front, the Vatican recently turned down an invitation to participate in the president’s new Board of Peace even as Leo declined Vice President Vance’s in-person invitation to come to the U.S. to celebrate the country’s anniversary. The pope said he’d be spending July 4 instead on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, a major port of entry for migrants to Europe.

Indeed, nowhere has Leo followed his predecessor’s footsteps more closely than on immigration policy, up to and including criticism of what he called “the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States.” And the American bishops do seem to have taken note.

Of course, the bishops cannot be accused of ignoring the treatment of immigrants during the first Trump administration. And in its annual report a year ago, their Committee on Religious Liberty listed as the first of its areas of critical concern “the targeting of faith-based immigration services.”

At its annual plenary assembly in Baltimore last November, the USCCB passed a “special message” for the first time in a dozen years, in this case to express concern about current immigration enforcement. Sure, the message didn’t call out the president or Immigration and Customs Enforcement by name, and it prayed for “an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement (italics added),” but it did oppose “the indiscriminate mass deportation of people.”

At the same meeting, meanwhile, the bishops proceeded to choose a number of leaders from its old anti-Francis wing. This led Michael Sean Winters of the National Catholic Reporter to “fear the USCCB will spend the next three years hobbling along, tripping over itself, too divided internally to help heal the polarization of society, too often silent in the face of previously unthinkable challenges to our democratic norms.” 

Case in point: In this year’s annual report, the bishops’ Committee on Religious Liberty did not so much as mention faith-based immigrant services, targeted or otherwise.

What we are left with, as usual, is individual bishops taking it upon themselves to speak or act in ways consistent with the pope’s concerns, such as Cardinal Joseph Tobin calling for the defunding of ICE and conducting Masses at a local ICE detention center in Newark on Ash Wednesday.

Or Bishop Brendan J. Cahill of Victoria, Texas, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration, condemning the federal government’s plan to use giant warehouses as detention centers. Or Archbishop Timothy Broglio, immediate past president of the USCCB and head of the Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services, declaring “illegal and immoral” orders to kill survivors of attacks by U.S. forces on boats in the Caribbean. 

As for Pope Leo himself, new reporting reveals that in a closed-door meeting with Spanish bishops last November, he said the greatest danger to their country comes not from economic turmoil or secularism but from ultra-right politicians seeking to “instrumentalize” the church for partisan purposes. Whatever the American resistance to the first American pope thinks, they’ve got to know that he’s on the case and that, at age 70, he’s likely to be around for some time.