Pope Bob From Chicago

And: Biden The Dotard; Answering Reader Mail; Bubba Copeland Truth

Well, ain’t that somethin’! We got us a pope named Bob, from Chicago. And he’s got roots, through his mama, in New Orleans! Look:

Our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, has Creole of color roots from New Orleans on his mother's side! What a great connection for our local population! They left New Orleans and went to Chicago between 1910 and 1912. His grandparents were married in 1887 at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart on Annette Street. In 1900, his grandparents owned and lived at 1933 North Prieur Street, a site taken by the Claiborne overpass.

So Leo XIV is also the first black pope! As a fellow black man from Louisiana, I greet Pope Bob’s election with pride. Somewhere, Vic & Nat’ly, New Orleans hometown heroes, are celebratin’.

More seriously, man, I did not see that coming. Did anybody? Somebody from the conclave will leak news of how the cardinal-electors arrived at an American pope, so all we can do is speculate. It used to be (until yesterday) that an American pope was unthinkable. The United States has so much power and influence globally that the idea that the See of Peter would be held by a Yank was thought highly unlikely. So how did this happen? One assumes that despite Leo XIV coming from Chicago and having New Orleans roots, they didn’t find a bunch of dead cardinals somewhere to vote for him. (I’m joking, I’m joking!)

Given that the new pope is thought to be a theological moderate, and that he has previously criticized our Catholic US vice president for his views on migration, my best guess is that the cardinals wanted a candidate who could speak to American Catholics during the Trump presidency, and in what might turn out to be a Vance presidency, to keep them liberal on migration.

Prior to the conclave, John Allen of Crux, one of the best analysts of the Church, profiled Cardinal Prevost, who was once head of the Augustinian order. Excerpts:

As it happens, there is an American this time around with a serious shot: 69-year-old Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who served as head of the Vatican’s ultra-powerful Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis for the past two years. That made him responsible for advising the pope on picking new bishops around the world, which is, inter alia, a great way to make friends in the Catholic hierarchy.

As his fellow prelates have gotten to know the former Augustinian superior, many of them like what they see: A moderate, balanced figure, known for solid judgment and a keen capacity to listen, and someone who doesn’t need to pound his chest to be heard.

More:

In November 2014 Pope Francis appointed Prevost apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru, and a year later he became the diocesan bishop. Historically speaking, the Peruvian bishops have been badly divided between a left wing close to the liberation theology movement and a right wing close to Opus Dei. In that volatile mix, Prevost came to be seen as a moderating influence, reflected in the fact that he served on the conference’s permanent council and as vice-president from 2018 to 2023.

The, well, crux of the matter:

What’s the case for Prevost?

Fundamentally, there are three qualities cardinals look for every time they have to kick the tires on a possible pope: They want a missionary, someone who can put a positive face on the faith; a statesman, someone who can stand on the global stage with the Donald Trumps, Vladimir Putins and Xi Jinpings of the world and hold his own; and a governor, someone who can take control of the Vatican and make the trains run on time, including dealing with its financial crisis.

There’s a solid argument Prevost ticks all three boxes.

He spent much of his career in Peru as a missionary, and parts of the rest of it in seminary and formation work, giving him an appreciation for what it takes to keep the fires of faith lit. His global experience would be an asset in the challenges of statecraft, and his naturally reserved and equanimous personality might well lend itself to the art of diplomacy. Finally, his successful runs in various leadership positions – religious superior, diocesan bishop and Vatican prefect – offer proof of his capacity to govern.

Moreover, Prevost does not play to classic stereotypes of brash American arrogance. Instead, as both the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and the national TV network RAI recently put it, he comes off as il meno americano tra gli americani, “the least American of the Americans.”

Fundamentally, a vote for Prevost would be seen in broad strokes as a vote for continuity with much of the substance of the Pope Francis agenda, but not necessarily the style, as he’s more pragmatic, cautious and discreet than the late pope – all qualities many of his fellow cardinals might well find desirable.

Because Prevost’s theological views are not well known, we can only be cautious. I assume he must be at least somewhat progressive, else Francis would not have elevated him a couple of years ago to the College of Cardinals. That Leo has a solid record as a quiet but competent administrator, and that he speaks good Spanish (also good Italian, as we heard from the balcony at St. Peter’s yesterday) as well as perfect English (important, given that English is more or less the world’s lingua franca today), could mean he is a solid pick for a Church weary of curial misgovernment, and Francis’s erratic management style.

Leo’s politics are far less important than his stance on doctrine. If he turns out to be a theological liberal, or even a squishy moderate, well, that is not what the Catholic Church needs today, to put it mildly. It is interesting that when J.D. Vance defended the Trump administration’s migration policy, he reasoned publicly according to the Augustinian principle of ordo amoris — a right ordering of one’s loves. And now the cardinals have given the Church an Augustinian pope who thinks Vance is dead wrong about migration. Well, in the West at least, migration is now the most important geopolitical issue, and will only grow in importance as native populations decline, the Prevost election is quite a statement from the Vatican.

Hilary White, a Trad, is (correctly) alarmed that the new pope is a fan of Francis’s synodality scheme. And it is discomfiting, to say the least, if it is true that Prevost was the candidate of Austen Ivereigh and Father James Martin. Yet I think Gavin Ashenden is probably right in that a Prevost figure as pope is the best of all realistic possibilities from a College of Cardinals stacked with Francis acolytes:

In this clip, Pope Leo’s older brother recalls that when they were kids, young Bob was so pious that they used to tease him, telling him, “You’re gonna be the pope one day.” That’s funny. Meanwhile, on this first day of the Leonine papacy, the Catholic philosopher Ed Feser speaks for me:

Last word, or image, in which a pope meets a successor. Cool: