The Week: An American Pope

• The Catholic Church has come full circle, from a pope born under Caesar Augustus to one born under Mayor Daley.

• The 267th pope of the Catholic Church is a Chicago-born Augustinian, though he is, practically speaking, an adopted son of Peru where he has spent much of his life as a missionary priest and has had dual citizenship. Because of his closeness to Pope Francis, it is easy to speculate that in choosing the name of Leo, our new Holy Father may be pointing to his predecessor Pope Leo XIII, who elaborated the church’s social teaching in encyclicals like Rerum Novarum. The last Pope Leo was also known for his promotion of Marian devotion and confronting modernist heresy. In a homily shortly before his election, the new pope said: “God’s mercy calls us to protect every life, especially those society overlooks—the child yet to be born and the elderly nearing their journey’s end—because each bears Christ’s face.” We are needful of exactly this kind of bold leadership against the culture of death. But we confess some apprehensions as well. Robert Francis Prevost promoted Francis’s project of “synodality,” which risks dividing the church into different camps. Prevost has also been dogged by questions about his handling of priestly abuse cases. We hope that as the media pursues these stories to their end, his innocence and good judgment are revealed for the whole world. The pontificate of Francis has been doctrinally, liturgically, and tonally disruptive. May Leo XIV brings peace within the church even as he calls for peace outside of it. With Leo XIV beginning his reign at the relatively spritely age of 69, it occasions a serious question: With a pontificate of potentially 20 years or more ahead of him, will Pope Leo XIV stiffly resist or gently accommodate the generational turnover and geographic shift that is turning the Catholic Church in a more traditional direction?

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Pope Leo XIV

• The Catholic Church has come full circle, from a pope born under Caesar Augustus to one born under Mayor Daley.

• The 267th pope of the Catholic Church is a Chicago-born Augustinian, though he is, practically speaking, an adopted son of Peru where he has spent much of his life as a missionary priest and has had dual citizenship. Because of his closeness to Pope Francis, it is easy to speculate that in choosing the name of Leo, our new Holy Father may be pointing to his predecessor Pope Leo XIII, who elaborated the church’s social teaching in encyclicals like Rerum Novarum. The last Pope Leo was also known for his promotion of Marian devotion and confronting modernist heresy. In a homily shortly before his election, the new pope said: “God’s mercy calls us to protect every life, especially those society overlooks—the child yet to be born and the elderly nearing their journey’s end—because each bears Christ’s face.” We are needful of exactly this kind of bold leadership against the culture of death. But we confess some apprehensions as well. Robert Francis Prevost promoted Francis’s project of “synodality,” which risks dividing the church into different camps. Prevost has also been dogged by questions about his handling of priestly abuse cases. We hope that as the media pursues these stories to their end, his innocence and good judgment are revealed for the whole world. The pontificate of Francis has been doctrinally, liturgically, and tonally disruptive. May Leo XIV brings peace within the church even as he calls for peace outside of it. With Leo XIV beginning his reign at the relatively spritely age of 69, it occasions a serious question: With a pontificate of potentially 20 years or more ahead of him, will Pope Leo XIV stiffly resist or gently accommodate the generational turnover and geographic shift that is turning the Catholic Church in a more traditional direction?