Pope Leo XIV
The papal conclave has chosen Cardinal Robert Prevost to be the new pope. He has chosen the name Leo XIV. He shows two distinctive traits. He's the first American pope in the entire history of the Catholic Church. And he is socially and theologically moderate or centrist, in that he seems to be in the middle ground between the liberal or progressive Catholics and the conservative or traditionalist Catholics.
This raises the question of whether the Holy Spirit wanted a moderate American Catholic to be the 267th pope in the apostolic succession that began with St. Peter receiving the keys of heaven from Jesus. Or did the cardinals (at least two-thirds of them) decide without any guidance from the Holy Spirit that this would be a prudent political choice that would prevent a schism in the Church?
Prevost was born in Chicago on September 14, 1955. That means that he is now 69 years old. That in itself is remarkable because that means that he is relatively young by papal standards, and it's imaginable that he could be pope for 20 years or more. Often the cardinals in a papal conclave are hesitant to choose a younger man for pope because they don't want the Church to be dominated for too long by one pope. So in choosing Prevost, the cardinals (or the Holy Spirit?) might have decided that the Church needed to be under this kind of pope for a long time.
Although an American, Prevost has lived most of his life serving the Church in Peru and Rome. In 2023, Pope Francis made Prevost a cardinal and then appointed him as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, which made him the head of the office that vets bishop nominations from around the world. This is one of the most important positions in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, which put him in contact with Church leaders around the world. Surely, Francis (or the Holy Spirit?) knew that this would make him a likely candidate for becoming the new pope.
That Pope Francis promoted Prevost suggests that he was not a critic of Francis's liberal or progressive Catholicism. But at the same time, Prevost has not publicly taken radically liberal positions that would have identified him as challenging the traditional or orthodox position in the Church.
New popes often suggest their intellectual and spiritual propensities as pope by their choice of their new name. By naming himself Leo XIV, Prevost evokes the memory of Pope Leo XIII, who was pope from 1878 to 1903. When I think of Leo XIII, I remember two famous features of his papacy. First, there's his 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum, which is one of the foundational texts of Catholic social teaching. By the 1890s, there was intense conflict stirred by the debate between socialism and capitalism. Rerum novarum attempted to mediate that conflict by affirming the rights of workers to fair wages, safe working conditions, and trade unions, while also criticizing both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism. Against socialism, Leo XIII endorsed the rights of private property as affirmed by Saint Thomas Aquinas as part of natural law.
This appeal to Thomas Aquinas is the second part of Leo XIII's papacy that I remember so well. In his encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879), Leo XIII recommended Thomas Aquinas's writings as the official foundation for the Christian philosophy and theology of the Catholic Church. He sponsored the Editio Leonina edition of Thomas's writings. And he promoted the study of Thomas's texts in Catholic schools and seminaries. This makes Leo XIII a hero for traditionalist Catholics today who revere Thomas as the greatest theologian and philosopher of Catholic orthodoxy.
If Prevost is appealing to this kind of thinking coming from Leo XIII, then the traditionalist Catholics should be pleased that the Holy Spirit has chosen Prevost as the new pope.
That should mean a lessening of the threat of schism in the Church coming from the traditionalists. One early confirmation of this comes from the video at Catholic Family News--a hard-right Catholic conservative publication--with Brian McCall and Murray Rundus (on location in Rome), who speak about this new pope as a "compromise candidate," who was acceptable to both liberals and conservatives. The important point they make is that this satisfied the conservatives because Prevost will not be a Francis II, but rather a Leo XIV.
To me what is most significant in the conversation between McCall and Rundus is that over this hour-long video they never mention the Holy Spirit as having anything to do in this selection of the new pope. Instead, they analyze everything as an exercise in church politics. They say that the conservatives "struck a deal" with the liberals to choose Prevost as a "compromise candidate."
This indicates that even the most conservative or traditionalist Catholics don't really believe that the Holy Spirit intervenes in the selection of popes. If that is true, doesn't that deny the pretended claim of the Church to have the authority of Revelation behind the succession of popes going back to Peter?
The Catholic Family News Video on Leo XIV
By the way, this new pope is unusual in another way. He is the first pope who is eligible to be President of the United States. The U.S. Constitution says that to be eligible for the presidency, a person must be a natural-born citizen who is at least 35 years old and has been resident of the U.S. for at least 14 years. Pope Leo XIV satisfies all those qualifications. Since the Constitution also says there is "no religious rest" for any office of the U.S., the Pope's Catholicism is no disqualification. In fact, during the ratification of the Constitution, many people complained that the "no religious test clause" would allow government offices to be filled by atheists, deists, Muslims, and even--God forbid--Catholics!
I have written about the American Catholic Integralists who want America to have a government that enforces Catholic orthodoxy. Perhaps they should now argue for Pope Leo XIV to become president.
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