Dem
47
GOP
53
The College of Cardinals gave it a shot on Wednesday, and were unable to choose a new pope. Then, after spending the night in the Vatican's guest quarters, they managed to get the job done on Thursday. Perhaps that says something about the quality of the accommodations—we'll have to check the Yelp reviews. As they did with Francis, the cardinals chose a dark horse, Robert Prevost, as the next Vicar of Christ. He promptly picked Leo XIV as his regnal name, making him the first Leo in over a century (the last one ended his papacy in 1903).
Leo certainly has an interesting résumé. Born and raised in Chicago, he took his Bachelor of Science degree (in mathematics) at Villanova, his Master of Divinity degree at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and his Doctorate of Canon Law at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome. The latter is really going to need to change its name to the Pontiff-ical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, if it wants to take advantage of the marketing opportunity it's just been handed. He served as a math teacher for a short period before being ordained as a priest in 1982. Not long thereafter, he traveled to Peru, and formally joined the Augustinian mission there. Rising through the ranks of that order, he was named Bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2015. Undoubtedly, his work as an Augustinian and in Peru were both selling points. The cardinals tend to like to rotate the papacy among the various orders (Francis, for example, was a Jesuit). And having an American who made his career in Peru covers two continents with a lot of Catholics, and suggests that Leo will have a fairly broad view of world affairs.
In 2023, after nearly four decades in Peru, Leo was created cardinal by Francis, and relocated to the Vatican. There, he assumed several important administrative posts, most obviously overseeing the appointment of new bishops as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. This was presumably also a selling point; a pope who is a bad administrator is a poor choice for the 21st century. As is typical for modern popes, Leo is a polyglot, and speaks—in addition to his native English—Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese. He can also read Latin and German. Regrettably, the world continues to wait for a pope who is fluent in Klingon.
Theologically, Leo is regarded as a liberal. Not quite as liberal as Francis, mind you, but definitely on the liberal end of the spectrum. His papal motto will be the very inclusive "In Him, who is one, we are one." In his introductory address, he proclaimed: "Help us as well—help one another—to build bridges through dialogue, through encounter, uniting everyone to be one single people always in peace." Leo is particularly known for his work with, and concern over, those who live in poverty.
Stylistically, Leo has generally been more restrained, and more careful in his verbiage, than Francis was. That said, the new pope has most certainly been critical of the current presidential administration. Recently, he had some thoughts about love, and how J.D. Vance's understanding of that concept is off the mark. There is also an eX-Twitter account bearing Leo's (former) name that has many tweets critical of Donald Trump and of Vance, and in particular excoriating the administration's immigration policies. Various news outlets that contacted the Vatican to check if the account actually does (or did) belong to Leo received no comment. We would tend to interpret that as "We don't want to lie and say it's not his, but we don't particularly want to affirm that he said those things." In other words, we strongly suspect the account is legit.
It is extremely difficult to avoid the conclusion that the choice of an American-born pope—something generally seen as inconceivable before yesterday, since the U.S. already has more than its fair share of global power—is a response to Trumpism/authoritarianism. We doubt that pushing back against Trumpism was the only concern the cardinals had. However, they had to pick someone, and if they had several candidates with the appropriate credentials, it seems very plausible to us that poking Trump in the eye could be the tiebreaker.
Certainly, that is how some prominent American Catholics see things. Steve Bannon, who is both Catholic and Trumpy, correctly guessed last week that Prevost would be the choice, and lamented it, since Prevost was the "most progressive" candidate and would be "terrible for MAGA Catholics." After the pick became official yesterday, MAGA types were all over eX-Twitter and other social media platforms, slamming Leo as a Marxist, woke, a DEI pope, etc. At what point do those words cease to have any meaning at all? Although we will concede that, as we understand it, the cardinals did not consider a single Jew, Buddhist or Muslim. So, there was a type of affirmative action there, we suppose.
Meanwhile, the most prominent liberal Catholic family in America has to be the Kennedys, right? (Sorry, Bidens.) Well yesterday, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend welcomed the choice. "He's a pope for peace. He said, All of us are equal. All of us are special under God. We're all children of God. So he's saying to each person, I love you. God loves you." It seems pretty clear that, just like every single other thing, Americans are seeing this through the Republicans vs. Democrats lens. Or, really, the MAGA vs. non-MAGA lens.
Trump, for his part, responded gracefully. On his 1/1,000th-the-reach-of-the-Catholic-Church social media website, he posted this:
It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope. What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our Country. I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!
We think that the only thing you really learn from this is that there are a lot of Catholic Republicans, and Trump cannot risk offending them. Surely, someone must have told Trump about Leo's critical comments, and surely Trump must be furious. We suspect that, sometime in the next week, he will tell his underlings to cancel all federal grants made to the College of Cardinals, ostensibly because they haven't done enough to stop the antisemitic protests on campus.
Perhaps the best indication of what an unexpected choice this was comes from the betting markets. Right up until the white smoke emerged from that chimney, Prevost was getting +5000, which is 50-to-1. Before that, the odds were as high as 100-to-1. One bettor made $63,650.65 on a $1,059.52 bet, while another made $52,641 on a $526 bet. At least four others made more than $20,000. Interesting times. (Z)