There was a time when the world thought that Pope Leo XIV would be a quiet, diplomatic sort of pontiff. A moderate who wouldn’t ruffle too many feathers. Why the world thought this, I’m still not entirely sure. The Chicago-born pope was basically fast-tracked by his predecessor, Pope Francis, to a position of authority in the years preceding his election, and the conclave that raised him to the Throne of Saint Peter was composed mostly of cardinals appointed by Francis. The fact that he had previously espoused traditionally Catholic positions on abortion and homosexuality was apparently enough to convince the public that Leo was a quiet moderate, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, which suggested that he was destined to continue the path Francis had set the Church on.
Well, if anyone still thinks that Leo is a quiet pope, they clearly haven’t been paying attention. Leo wasn’t chosen as a dignified, middle-of-the-road choice. He was not chosen in spite of being an American. The past year, and especially the past week, has proved that, if anything, Leo was chosen because he is American, progressive Catholic, and the right man for the job in this current moment. Don’t believe me? Just look at what he’s been saying.
On April 7, he said (without naming names) that President Trump’s rhetoric about destroying Iranian civilization was “truly unacceptable.” During his first Palm Sunday and Easter, he repeatedly denounced the war in Iran. He said similar things about the United States’ actions in Venezuela. His comments about immigrants have been, if anything, even more direct.
More than his words, look at what he is doing. Refusing an invitation to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States and instead announcing plans to spend the day with immigrants in Italy is not subtle. Shuffling the bishops in the United States, with the result that they went from one of the most conservative contingents in the world to one of the more progressive, with a seemingly never-ending slew of announcements to make about the sanctity of innocent lives, the evil of war and the importance of protecting immigrants, is not subtle. Look at where he visits. During his first trip, he went to Turkey and Lebanon. In April, he will be visiting Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. He has yet to visit the White House. Personally, I doubt he will while President Trump remains in office.
You see, while the press might have been slow on the uptake, no matter how hard Leo hit them over the head with a rhetorical frying pan, Trump figured out what sort of man Leo was early on. Why else would Trump have members of his administration threaten the then-Apostolic Nuncio, Cardinal Pierre, with memories of the Avignon papal schism, publicly lie about it after it came out in the press, get called out by the press and the Vatican, insult Leo in response, get publicly humiliated in return, and then post a baffling AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ? And that’s just what’s happened in the past week.
So yeah, Leo was never a moderate. It’s just taken him publicly embarking on the war-path, or more accurately, the peace-path, to get the world to wake up to it. There’s actually a pretty good trick for figuring out whether a Catholic in a position of authority is a progressive or not, and that’s by checking to see if William McGurn, who writes for the Wall Street Journal, is writing incoherent hate articles about them. He did it with Francis, and he’s doing it with Leo now, so there you have it. Pope Leo is officially a progressive, and thank God for that.
