Welp, I had it working yesterday. I must have jacked something up along the way. I’m back to the same results.
<content:encoded>{{ printf "<![CDATA[%s]]>" .Content | safeHTML }}</content:encoded>
That results in:
content:encoded><p class="lead">Test title here!</p></content:encoded>
Removes the <![CDATA[ and first < from .Content