A Few Thoughts About Pope Leo XIV - The American Born Pontiff

When I learned of the election of the American born Robert Francis Prevost, now forever to be known as Pope Leo XIV, to the papacy I could not help but wonder if the College of Cardinals was making a gesture to President Trump.

They might have well been, but the gesture appears to be not so friendly toward Trump. Like Pope Francis before him, the new pontiff has championed immigrants whatever their legal status having spent much of his clerical career in Peru and gaining a citizenship there a decade ago.

The former Cardinal Prevost criticized VP Vance directly after he made comments earlier this year about his interpretation of the Catholic doctrine of ordo amoris:

There's this old school—and I think it's a very Christian concept, by the way—that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens and your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.

The future Pope took to X share a National Catholic Reporter article featuring the headline, "JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others."

During Trump's first term, he shared article signaling his opposition to the Muslim ban and family separation.

If Trump and Vance are displeased, they haven't said so thus far. Trump, who spread an image of himself in papal garb, called the election of an American born Pope "such an honor". Vance congratulated him on similar grounds. I suspect their future comments toward the Pope, American or not, will not be so kind.

While I don't expect the new Pope to champion Israeli military operations in Gaza, I hope he can avoid the use the word of "genocide" as well as adorning a baby Jesus with a kaffiyeh. 

Of course, I am not a Catholic and barring any egregious acts or statements, I plan to leave it to those of Catholic faith to judge the Pope. 

For now, I wish Pope Leo XIV luck in leaving the Catholic Church a better place than he found it and making a positive influence on the world outside his faith.