An American pope

AS THE SUN set on the Vatican on May 8, the famous declaration was heard: “Habemus papam.” White smoke had, about an hour before, come out of the Sistine Chapel conveying the same message: “We have a pope.” The conclave to name a successor to Pope Francis was over. Robert Prevost is hereafter Pope Leo XIV. It is a watershed moment for the Roman Catholic Church in an age of uncertainty.

The 267th Bishop of Rome is the first to hail from the US. His election goes against the idea that a pope from that country is anathema because of its superpower status.

Yet, while the man chosen to be the new pontiff is an American citizen, he is clearly not the first pope from the Americas: Francis was Argentinian. In this respect, his elevation continues a trend of the church looking away from Europe. It is a boost to 50 million Catholics in the US.

Suggesting continuity are other crucial aspects of the choice.

Created a cardinal by Francis in 2023, this is a figure who was also handpicked by the late pope to be the prefect of the Dicastery of Bishops, a powerful body, and to lead the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

At 69, he is younger than both Francis and Benedict XIII were upon election. The last Leo, Leo XIII, was elected in 1878 at 67 and lived to be 93, with a pontificate of 25 years. He was seen as a social reformer.

Ticking all the right boxes, the new pope, though Chicago-born, is also of French, Italian and Spanish descent. He became a priest in Rome. He has a decades-long connection with Peru and has Peruvian citizenship. As he spoke on the Vatican balcony for the first time, he addressed the crowd in Spanish at one point. The first Augustinian to be pope, he is an adherent of the spirit of community.

“We must seek together how to be a missionary church, a church that builds bridges,” he said.

To build such bridges, however, will be a formidable task within the church itself.

In the US alone, Roman Catholics, many incensed by the idea of minority rights and reproductive freedoms, have played a role in a larger evangelical swing behind Donald Trump. In a sign of the blurring of politics and religion, Joe Biden, a lifelong Catholic, was at one stage denied communion during his one-term presidency.

Francis was outspoken on hot-button issues like migration, but it is not a given how the new American pope will position the papacy. The age of Leo XIV could be a perilous one not only for 1.4 billion Catholics but also for those affected by the church’s influence and power.