Can Leo, a pan-American pope, boost the Catholic Church's popularity?

Washington Post

17-05-2025

VATICAN CITY — In just 10 days, he's brought Chicago-bred English to the hallowed Holy See, given a jolt to White Sox merchandising and hosted a global tennis icon. But as the first American pontiff readies for his sacred inauguration Sunday in St. Peter's Square, the burning question for the globe's largest Christian faith is whether Pope Leo XIV can also fill the pews.
There are early signs that Leo is capitalizing on the moment and gaining traction within a divided church: His first Sunday blessing drew 150,000 attendees. At 69, and after a meteoric rise under Pope Francis that saw Leo go from bishop to cardinal to pope within two years, he has brought what observers describe as a more youthful, American brand of energy to an ancient office held for decades by far older men.
For now, Leo is enjoying something of a honeymoon. But it is too early to know precisely what kind of pope he will be.
Pope John Paul II, who was Polish and became the first non-Italian pontiff in four-and-half centuries, for a time ignited a religious renaissance in Eastern Europe and drew rock-star-like crowds from Rio de Janeiro to Manila. His cause against communism revitalized papal authority, though some of the gains he achieved in church attendance, especially in Europe, eventually petered out.
By comparison, Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate was seen as transitional, plagued by mishaps in interfaith relations and encircled at times by scandal. But the German pope still galvanized traditional Catholics while delivering modest annual growth for the church.
Francis, the first Latin American pope and a lightning rod for some traditionalists, enjoyed enormous crossover popularity in the secular world (Elton John dubbed him a 'hero'). He drove headlines — if not a mad rush to Mass. In 2013, his first year as pope, he drew more than 7.3 million faithful to St. Peter's Square for his Wednesday and Sunday audiences and public prayers, according to figures supplied by the Vatican.
By 2024, that number had shrunk to 1.68 million. Globally, the church still grew, but slightly more slowly than during Benedict's tenure, and it faced mounting challenges including irrelevance in Europe, polarization in the United States and competition from evangelical faiths in the developing world.
Enter Leo, who is not just the first American pope but also the second Latin American one, given his naturalization as a dual citizen while serving the church in Peru. On Sunday, before a court of cardinals, global dignitaries and an expected vast crowd at St. Peter's, the pontiff will be fitted with the Ring of the Fisherman, so called because Peter, guided by Jesus, drew a miraculous catch of fish in his nets.
'The beginning has a certain … not mythology, not mythos … but wonder,' said the German Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, a longtime Francis critic who has showered Leo with early praise.
Leo is already casting a wide net. While repeating Francis's emphasis on social justice and calling for the dignity of migrants in a keynote speech Friday, Leo also hewed to church doctrine and nodded to traditionalists, saying that societies should be 'founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman.'
Inés San Martín, vice president of communications for the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States, a missionary network under the pope, said the important thing is not whether people flock to the church in Leo's first year.
'Will the people stay on in year five?' she asked.
Nowhere is the Catholic Church more progressive than in Germany, which earned reprimands from Francis for moving too fast toward reform. Leo has signaled skepticism on some issues dear to the German church — including ordination of women as deacons. But church leaders are already hearing some of what they want.
Leo has signaled continuity with Francis's focus on human dignity while displaying personal humility in intimate settings. The German church has also welcomed Leo's early pronouncement of being in line with Francis on synodality — or the late pope's push to bring lay people into the top decision-making process at the Vatican and create a less top-down church.
But more than 1.2 million German Catholics have formally left the church in the past three years, for reasons that include abuse scandals, impatience for reform and the economic pinch of the country's mandatory church tax. Leaders of the German church, which is desperately needed by the financially challenged Vatican because of its sheer wealth, are willing to give Leo time — but their patience will also have limits.
'I sincerely hope for Catholics in Germany, 96 percent of whom are seeking reforms and urgently expect movement from their church, that we can see more steps forward. I am aware that solutions will not come overnight. But it would really disappoint us if it stayed the way it is,' said Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics.
Leo has also earned early applause from Catholics who Francis had alienated by rejecting some traditions. They cite Leo's expected return to the papal residence inside the grand Apostolic Palace, as opposed to the boardinghouse where Francis chose to live simply. Leo made his first appearance as pope adorned in more elaborate papal fashion, as opposed to Francis, who wore plain white.
Leo has also shown a propensity for Latin — the ancient tongue of the church embraced by traditionalists, which Francis sometimes uttered but typically eschewed. He has distanced himself from Francis's more apologetic views of Russia, by firmly standing with Ukraine.
In his first speeches, Leo has also deployed a word, 'unity,' seen by some as a euphemism for the notion of returning to a more traditional papacy that more strictly embraces doctrine. While sharp critiques of Leo have appeared in some traditional Catholic blogs and outlets, other conservatives have waxed poetic.
'Is anyone else getting the feeling like we have woken up from a 12-year nightmare, and it just seems like what is happening now can't be real?' conservative Catholic writer and self-described 'Christian nationalist' Shane Schaetzel, wrote on X.
In the U.S., signs of excitement and enthusiasm are everywhere, from live talk radio to overjoyed social media posts, on the left and on the right. Church attendance since Leo's election has doubled in places, including at Villanova University, the pope's alma mater. Leaders at Catholic schools and foundations have begun talking about how to capitalize on the moment and extend it.
'How do you make sure moments like these become not just a flame but an accelerant to something broader?' said Kathleen Porter Magee, managing partner of the nonprofit Leadership Roundtable, which works to bring best management practices to Catholic institutions.
A recently released Pew Research report said while the years-long decline in U.S. Christianity seems to be plateauing, that is not the case with Catholics. For every 100 people who join the church, 840 leave, Pew found. The share of Americans who are Catholic has remained steady for decades — about 20 percent — but that's only because of significant Latino immigration. The U.S. church, perhaps more than any other national Catholic community, is deeply polarized over politics.
'We're coming off a period where polarization was drawing Catholic communities apart,' Magee said. The current moment 'feels different, and that is exciting.' Leo, she added, 'found a way to speak to people across the polarized divides, and that's where optimism is coming from.'
Sociologists who study the church said the buzz around the new pope won't last if the institutions — parishes, schools — remain the same.
'The real challenge is, people don't attend [church] regularly. When we ask why, they say they didn't feel engaged or welcome, or they were bored,' said the Rev. Thomas Gaunt, executive director of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
'What's going to make a difference is whether that local parish is more engaging and more welcoming.'
Maureen K. Day, co-author of 'Catholicism at a Crossroads' and a researcher at the University of Southern California's Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies, said research tracking U.S. Catholics' views on women's ordination since the 1970s found a connection to papal events.
Overall, support for ordaining women climbed until the early 2000s, when it stabilized, and has remained in the low to mid-60s percent, she said. However, support dipped after John Paul's visits to the U.S. and after Benedict resigned.
'We saw that whenever there is this moment that makes the papacy more salient, where Catholic identity peaks, people become quote 'more Catholic' and agree more with Catholic teachings. They become more orthodox,' she said.
The fact that Leo is American, she said, and talks about things like playing Wordle, 'can only make Catholicism more relatable,' she said. 'It's a catalyst or a moment,' she added. But the moment, 'without being captured, it will lose whatever momentum it has.'
Boorstein reported from Washington. Kate Brady in Berlin and Stefano Pitrelli in Rome contributed to this report.