With Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney due to have his first meeting with US President Donald Trump today, John Milloy takes a look at Carney’s Catholic faith. 06/05/2025

Despite knowing very little about him, Canadians chose Mark Carney as their new prime minister. Fearful of the bellicose threats coming from the United States about Canada becoming the 51st state, voters turned to the former central banker as a steady hand to deal with President Donald Trump. 

With no previous political experience to point to, much was made during the campaign about Carney’s time as Governor of the Bank of England during Brexit, creating a sense that he might be better known in the UK than in Canada. The fact that the Telegraph’s editors felt some rather flimsy plagiarism allegations about Carney’s Oxford doctoral thesis warranted a front–page story seemed to confirm his UK celebrity status.

One of the insights about Carney that Canadians learned from UK sources was his Catholic faith. Personal profiles of the new Liberal leader often noted that in 2015 The Tablet recognised him as Britain’s most influential lay Catholic.

This caused some to pause. 

Although Canada has had many prominent Roman Catholic politicians, including prime ministers, few have publicly identified closely with their faith. One exception was the former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer who spent much of his time as leader unsuccessfully trying to answer reporters’ questions about how his faith influenced his position on abortion and LGBTQ rights. Scheer’s inability to explain to a journalist whether he thought that being gay was a sin was one of the final nails in his political coffin.

Would Carney also be hounded by the media about his Catholicism?

Two factors suggested that it would not be a focus. The Trump threat coupled with cost–of–living concerns so dominated the campaign that other subjects got short shrift. There is also a lack of religious literacy among Canadian journalists who tend to believe that questions around religion begin and end with abortion and sexuality.

This belief was on full display as Carney launched his campaign on a Sunday morning. A reporter noted that the Liberal leader had earlier attended Mass and on cue asked him: “do you explicitly support a woman’s right to choose?” Confirming that he was “unreservedly” pro–choice seemed to take the wind out of everyone’s sails and the subject of Carney’s faith was mostly put aside by the mainstream media.

In asking the abortion question, the journalist had added a general query about how Carney’s faith might impact his policy deliberations. Surprised by the question, he noted that he doesn’t speak about his “personal faith or spirituality” but that it had helped inform his “sense of responsibility and service”.

Although Carney may not have wanted to speak publicly about his faith, that didn’t mean there weren’t others offering commentary on his Catholicism. Some Catholic commentators criticized his pro–choice stand as hypocritical. Others maintained that Carney travelled in international circles whose activities were antithetical to Catholic teaching, ridiculing him as a “Davos man” – a member of “a wealthy global ‘elite’ who prioritize their own interests over the common good”.

Too bad that some of these commentators didn’t dig a little deeper. They might have discovered that some of Carney’s faith–based views lie hidden in plain sight. In his book Values, for example, Carney makes a strong case for the transformative power of markets but warns that they can be “indifferent to human suffering and can be blind to our greatest needs.”[1]  Having served on the Vatican aligned Council for Inclusive Capitalism, he writes of a surprise appearance by Pope Francis at a lunch attended by international experts called to discuss the market system.  After commenting on the inherent selfishness of the market, the pontiff challenged those there “to turn the market back into humanity”.[2]

Carney’s book embraces that challenge, arguing that instead of being driven by the market, society needs to harness it in the spirit of a broader set of values than simple economic ones. Or, as he puts it, focus “not just on the rate of growth but on its direction and its quality.”[3]

Although not explicitly referenced, Values is infused with Catholic Social Teaching, discussing concepts like: solidarity – our responsibility for each other, including those on the margins; humility; and the “common good” — not “the good of the greatest number” but “the good from which no one is excluded.”[4] Carney’s book (and pre–political career) also focuses on the climate crisis. And although many of his solutions are highly technical in nature, the overall spirit of Laudato si’ is very apparent.

So why is this important? 

Canada, like the UK, is polarised and dominated by a hyper–partisan political culture where the attainment or retention of power often drives decision–making. Although Carney may face a few high–profile decisions with direct ties to his faith, such as whether to expand assisted dying to those with severe mental illness, the often–amoral nature of contemporary politics may challenge his Catholicism the most. 

In trying to negotiate a modus vivendi with Donald Trump or strengthen economic ties with other allies including the UK, will Carney insist that the poor not be forgotten? As public concern about climate change wanes, will he insist that it remains a top priority both domestically and internationally for Canada? As someone who has talked about the value of Christian meditation, will his faith give him the strength to deal with the crises of our time?

Discussing the personal faith of politicians is a tricky business, and it is important to avoid presenting them as morally superior.

Nevertheless, faith is a core part of one’s identity, and Christianity challenges us to disrupt the inherent selfishness of society. As Nick Spencer concludes in his study of politicians and faith, The Mighty and the Almighty: “Christian belief is always, unreasonably, asking for more and holding politicians to standards that precious few can satisfy… we should be grateful that so many are prepared even to try.”[5]

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