THE WASHINGTON POST: Leo XIV, elevated by Francis, becomes first American pope

As the sun set Thursday over St. Peter’s Basilica, a 69-year-old prelate who began his calling as a Chicago altar boy stepped onto the central balcony as the first American pope, stunning Vatican City and the world by breaking the long-standing taboo of electing the son of a global superpower to lead the Catholic Church.

Naming himself Pope Leo XIV, a title that nods to the social teachings of the church, the man born Robert Prevost began what could be a long, new chapter in a divided faith. From the balcony, Leo acknowledged the late Francis, a patron who had elevated him, from a priest who spent two decades as a missionary in Peru to one of the powerful positions in the Vatican, where he oversaw the promotion of the church’s hierarchy.

The election of a first North American pontiff came immediately after the death of the first Latin American pope, and it signalled a certain relinquishing of papal authority from Europe, the continent whose popes had dominated the ancient and modern church, and a region where the faith is now flagging. Accusations that Leo, when serving in Peru and the United States, mishandled or failed to act on sexual abuse could lead to further challenges in countries like Germany, where hundreds of thousands have fled the pews in disgust over the mishandling of such cases by the church.

Also in question is how completely the Global South, where the Catholic Church is growing the fastest and where some countries harbour sceptical views of the United States, will embrace the new pope. But during his time in Peru, Leo became a dual citizen, and some Latin Americans were quick to claim him as an adopted son.

Leo’s positions on many of the hot-button issues separating traditionalists from reformers are less than clear. More than a decade ago, he indicated distaste for the normalisation of homosexuality in pop culture and has shown scepticism on the notion of ordaining women as deacons.

But, from the balcony, he signalled a certain measure of continuity with Francis, who challenged norms, embraced migrants and the poor and sought to build a less top-down church that diluted the power of cardinals and bishops by including the laity in decisions.

Holding back his emotion in his Urbi et Orbi, or speech to Rome and the World, he picked up where Francis left off, with the blessing the late pope gave on Easter Sunday, the day before he died.

“Allow me to follow up on that same blessing: God loves us, God loves you all, and evil will not prevail!” the new pontiff said in fluent Italian. Repeating a theme of Francis, he added, “We must seek together how to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges, dialogue, always open to receive like this square with open arms.”

Leo’s selection shocked some Vatican watchers and delighted others. After decades in Latin America and a more recent move to Italy, Prevost is viewed in Vatican City as an internationalist, a figure less associated with his nationality than his sharp management style - something required by a Holy See suffering a financial crisis. Some saw the global American on the balcony - who in a remarkable moment delivered a message to his former diocese in Peru in Spanish - as an answer to the more parochial American in the White House.

“This was a great geopolitical response from the college of cardinals, which - right at a time when the international stage was seemingly being left to leaders threatening to resort to force, introduces an American pope speaking of peace, bridges, Christ, and at the same time reprises the theme of a synodal church, i.e. more participatory,” said Marco Politi, a longtime Vatican watcher.

“Such an honour for our country,” President Donald Trump told reporters. “To have the pope from the United States of America. That’s a great honour.”

Some conservatives in the US sounded alarm, while others were more optimistic. Sean Davis, editor of the Federalist conservative news site, posted on X that he had been “worried the Catholic cardinals would select a left-wing, Western European pope to use the Roman Catholic Church to counter the rise of national populism in general, and Trump in particular, and to bolster globalist forces against those who believe the purpose of a country is to safeguard its own people.”

Aside from the nationality, “I fear I wasn’t wrong about the rest,” he wrote.

But Ashley McGuire, senior fellow at The Catholic Association, an advocacy group that focuses on promoting Catholic teaching on abortion and other social issues, wrote in a statement that she felt “joy” that a pope had been picked who would “no doubt continue Pope Francis’ emphasis on evangelical outreach to the peripheries.”

An American pope had seemed to most experts to be an absolute dealbreaker. The United States was always seen as having too much power and representation in the eyes of the European-heavy Vatican: Recent popes have criticised capitalism and the individualism of American culture. The US church in the eyes of many global church experts is an outlier because of the way politics and religion have become intertwined and sometimes divided the faith.

A reserved cleric unaccustomed to the limelight shined on cardinals in big cities, Leo may find himself with a learning curve as pope. Experts saw his name selection as a reference to Leo XIII, the 19th-century pontiff known for his intellectualism and embrace of modern thinking. His Augustinian order originated from hermetic friars.

Americans in the crowd watching were elated as Leo appeared in the balcony. A child on the back of a man holding the American flag cried as Leo spoke. Betty D’Eletto, 65, was squealing and hugging herself as she laughed with glee. An American who lived in New York until she was a teen when she moved to Italy, she was ecstatic. “God Bless America! God Bless America!” she yelled into her phone as the crowd thundered around her.

“I was hoping it would be an American! People were like: ‘You’re crazy!’” said Ms D’Eletto, who works at a Vatican City store.

Asked how the world would receive an American pope, she said: “I hope they’ll love him. America gave so much to the world. God bless America.”

The drama unfolded as white smoke, indicating a new pope, billowed from the chimney over the Sistine Chapel at 6.07pm, local time. More than an hour later, French Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, the protodeacon, declared, “Habemus Papam” - we have a pope. In his balcony appearance, Leo wore a bright-red shoulder cover and richly embroidered stole, a contrast from the simple white Francis wore during his debut in 2013.

Despite some predictions of a long conclave, the deliberation, over 24 hours 23 minutes, was roughly on par with the last two conclaves that saw Francis elected in five ballots and Benedict XVI in four.

Only time will tell what kind of pope Leo will be. When Francis was elected, many of the cardinals viewed him as a social conservative and were later stunned to see him emerge as the open-door pontiff who reached out as never before to LGBTQ+ Catholics.

Leo, in 2012, when he served as prior general of his Augustinian order, complained to an assembly in Vatican City that “alternative families comprised of homosexual partners and their adopted children are so benignly and sympathetically portrayed on television programs and in cinema.”

Whether the new pope will move the needle on one of the biggest issues dividing the church - the role of women - remains to be seen. Francis helped women break the stained-glass ceiling in the Vatican bureaucracy but resisted calls to ordain women as deacons.

When Prevost served as a bishop in Peru, his diocese would hold regular assemblies. The goal of those meetings, Prevost said in an October 2023 news conference at the Vatican, was “to find ways to work together and to search together for the kind of church that we are looking for today - reaching out to the poor, to the neediest, to those on the margins, to those who do not frequently come to church, if you will.”

In the same news conference, Prevost talked about the role of women in the church. He said “women can add a great deal to the life of the church on many different levels.” And they’d been earning new positions inside the Holy See, in what he called a “slow process.”

But he said the idea of ordaining women “doesn’t necessarily solve a problem. It might make a new problem.”

The cardinals remain divided over the post-Francis direction - with traditionalists pining for a doctrinal enforcer and sharper clarity following 12 years that saw Francis burst open the door of the faith to “todos, todos, todos” - everyone, everyone, everyone. Reformists, meanwhile, embraced Francis’s inclusive tone but bristled at the slow pace of real reform.

Perhaps the most urgent issue for the new pope is how to keep unity among the now-sprawling faith, made up of varied Catholics with very different priorities.

Francis started a process called “synodality,” or the creation of a less-top-down church where decisions about the future of the faith are made with the vote imputed not just to cardinals and bishops, but also to select lay people. Francis, who often railed against clerical arrogance, saw such inclusion as key to the faith’s future. But opponents saw it as diluting the authority of cardinals, bishops and others vested with Holy Orders. Prevost, in his speech, backed Francis’s push - and he is seen as one of its chief supporters.

“Most of us thought a US cardinal would never become pope, but Prevost got strong support from cardinals from Latin American where he worked for 20 years. He is multilingual and has a reputation as a listener. He will carry forward the legacy of Pope Francis,” said the Revreend Thomas Reese, a US priest and expert on the Vatican.

By choosing the name Leo, the 267th pope is joining a group of 14 popes in history who have taken the name. The last Leo before him, Pope Leo XIII, became pope in 1878 and took the name in memory of Leo XII, whom he said he admired, including for his interest in education and conciliation toward governments. The previous Leos were reformers, including Leo XIII whose encyclical spoke to human dignity and the dignity of labour, said the Reverend Christopher Robinson, part of the Religious Studies faculty of DePaul University.

“The last Leo was the originator of Catholic social teaching, a doctrine that calls for human dignity. That suggests that he will be outspoken on social issues like his predecessor Pope Francis, whom he advised,” said Brett C. Hoover, a professor of Practical and Pastoral Theology at Loyola Marymount University.

“By picking the name Leo XIV, he shows he is committed to the social teaching of the church, which was made foundational by his predecessor,” Reese said.

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