“Habemus Papam!”
Those very simple words seem to ring out joy. Though I didn’t expect to hear that the incumbent would be American.
Political America has turned the world on its head. Trump’s vision isn’t a vision – more of a premature glimpse at the bowels of hell.
Trumpism is founded on division, discord, distrust. Those around him are lickspittles and lackeys with the moral backbone of invertebrates.
Watching insincere, money-grabbing TV evangelists praying over Trump and invoking God as on his side isn’t just hypocrisy but heresy too.
Viewing certain US cardinals on American digital channels is revealing. They have the unflattering swagger of braggadocio TV game show hosts. If there’s piety there, it’s well hidden.
One cardinal interviewed after the White House posted the disrespectful mock-up of Trump as Pope couldn’t even bring himself to condemn it.
Even papal experts didn’t foresee an American Pope. The speed with which the conclave reached a consensus would suggest that they knew what to look for in the 267th successor to Peter. Either that or the Holy Spirit was on overdrive.
The new Pope is Robert Frances Prevost, cardinal, priest, missionary and Augustinian.
His Irish Augustinian classmate, Fr Iggy O’Donovan, said the new pope will, like Francis, “use the moral authority of the papacy to counter the moral political bankruptcy” across the world.
His chosen name is Leo XIV – which many interpret as a positive. If the record of the last Pope Leo is anything to go by, Catholics everywhere will believe its an inspired choice.
Leo XIII opened homeless shelters as well soup kitchens for the destitute. He encouraged and got donations for the 19th century institutions known as Monte di Pieta. These were a mix between a pawnbroker’s and credit union, providing loans to the poor at reasonable rates.
He’s best remembered for his papal encyclical ‘Rerum Novarum’.
Here was a pope trying to grapple with the great social and economic changes in an industrialised world with its huge disparities in wealth, inequalities and rights.
He was concerned about workers’ conditions and just wages. It’s regarded as a Catholic social charter which actually encouraged the growth of trade unions.
MAGA supporters won’t be happy if the new pope is equally concerned about social issues, justice and human dignity.
Pope LeoXIV has signalled via X that he’s very unhappy with the treatment of migrants by the Trump administration. He also called out high-profile Catholic convert JD Vance.
We have yet to hear his views on Ukraine and Gaza. Francis’s humility and humanitarianism has set the bar high.
Pope Leo told Rome he wants to be a builder of bridges and dialogue. These are positive signs.
The decision to wear the red and gold pellegrina was in stark contrast to the simplicity of his predecessor.
In the novel The Shoes of the Fisherman, there’s a conversation between the newly-elected Ukrainian Pope and an elderly cardinal.
The Pope asks whether his papal journey will be lonely. The cardinal replies: “Like it or not, you are condemned to a solitary pilgrimage from the day of your election until the day of your death. This is a Calvary, Holiness, and you have just begun your climb.”
Let’s hope this Chicago White Sox-supporting Pope isn’t isolated or corralled by tradition or the Curia.
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