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Yomiuri Shimbun
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Catholics around the World Embrace an American Pope
Victor Zea/For The Washington Pos Residents carry a banner bearing the image of Pope Leo XIV outside the Santa Maria Cathedral in Chiclayo, Peru, on May 9. The world is a noisy and chaotic place, and right now America is very loud. It dominates: economies, headlines, conversations. And now the Catholic Church, for the first time, has an American pope. There are 1.4 billion Catholics. Will they, especially in the developing world, in the global south – where the church is growing so quickly – embrace Leo XIV? Early signs point to yes. This was a moment when many faithful thought they might get an African or Asian pope. Catholics in the Philippines, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Myanmar hoped a native son would be elevated. That did not happen, and some expressed a tinge of sadness: They were so close. But as the white smoke dissipated, many were quick to pivot. They liked what they were hearing about this pope. 'This is the man God chose,' the Rev. Aris Sison, a diocesan spokesman in Quezon City, the Philippines, told The Washington Post. 'I'm very, very happy.' Leo is definitely American, born and raised in Chicago and allegedly a White Sox fan. But Robert Prevost is a different sort of American – or at least that's how many people around the world have begun to see him. A man who served the poor for decades in Peru, who is fluent in Spanish and Italian, who was close to Pope Francis, who focuses on people struggling at the edges. On social media, some have called him 'woke.' Conservatives worry he'll follow Francis's more liberal tendencies. Progressives hope he will. The Rev. Lucas Ong'esa, from Kisii, Kenya, said the selection 'is not a surprise. It indicates that the Holy Spirit is at work.' As an American, he said, Leo 'is in a position to challenge' President Donald Trump. 'He will even tell President Trump to stop his provocative speeches and plans of conquering different countries and tell him, 'No – you must stop and respect the world.'' Ethiopia Sister Hiwot Zewde, a nun with the Daughters of Charity in Ethiopia, gathered with volunteers in Addis Ababa to watch the announcement of the new pope. 'When someone said, 'He's coming, he's coming!' we were so excited everyone whipped out their mobile phones to take a picture,' she said while laughing. 'We weren't praying for a particular one,' she said. 'When they said it was the first pope from the U.S., we all screamed.' Zewde mourned the death of Francis, 'who was very close to the brokenhearted, the marginalized, those in need. He listened to them and gave them hope.' But she saw a lot of Francis in Leo. She wants a pope who serves rich and poor alike. 'It could be a reminder for President Trump – unity for his own country and even for other countries is important.' She said a long-standing program that provides medical and psychological care for 1,200 female war crimes survivors was canceled after recent U.S. foreign funding cuts. 'The U.S. is not a country only for the Americans,' Zewde said. 'It is a country for the world. I hope and pray the Americans will collaborate with Pope Leo XIV because the effect will be for the world.' Philippines In the Philippines, home to Asia's largest Catholic population, hope had soared for the candidacy of Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle, a former archbishop of Manila. Filipino priests were seeking a renewal of faith in the country, where Catholicism, though still dominant, has been losing influence. 'It is true that Cardinal Tagle is a very charismatic person, very popular,' Sison said. But Pope Francis, who was Argentine, and Pope John Paul II, who was Polish, were 'beloved' by Filipino Catholics. Sison is also heartened by Prevost's choice of papal name, a likely nod to Pope Leo XIII, who grappled with the harms of communism and capitalism, and by his ministry in Peru, where socioeconomic conditions mirror those of the Philippines. 'This is a pope who will be able to relate to our situation,' he said. South Africa The Rev. Russell Pollitt, a Jesuit priest at Holy Trinity Catholic Church near Johannesburg, hoped Leo would uphold 'the dignity of all people.' 'This man seems to have been someone who was on the side of migrants and refugees flocking to Peru from Venezuela,' he said. 'I think that's important, that we don't lose that. Migrants and refugees are becoming a sort of scapegoat for politicians,' he said, a development he called 'immoral and disgusting.' 'The American church leadership seems to be becoming more and conservative – there seems to be this real uncomfortable mix of politics – Republican – and the leadership of the Catholic Church,' Pollitt said. 'It's a real contradiction that on one side of the Atlantic you have this megalomania – contempt for the poor and downcast in any form.' Leo seemed a humble man, he said. 'You don't see many videos of him. He wasn't in the limelight, calling attention to himself.' Peru In the coastal city of Chiclayo, Peru, where Prevost served for decades, hundreds of worshipers packed Santa María Cathedral on Thursday for evening Mass. Crowds outside celebrated a man many knew. A banner proclaimed: 'The Pope has a Chiclayan heart.' Iris Ajip, 42, was working at her restaurant when she heard the shouts: 'Turn on the TV!' She remembered Robert Prevost well – she saw him for years at Sunday Mass. 'We are all just so excited,' she said. Prevost arrived in Peru in 1985, eventually took citizenship and served as bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023. Until his selection as pope, he headed the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. The last time Juanita Llontop Reyes, 74, saw Prevost, she said, she asked for his blessing. 'He is humble, charitable, he's kind, he's good.' The Rev. Juan Mechan Sánchez, the cathedral's parish vicar, spoke of Prevost's care for the people of Chiclayo, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic and disastrous flooding from El Niño. 'He was a bishop who was always close to human pain,' Sánchez said. Brazil Churchgoers filled Our Lady of Peace church in Rio de Janeiro to pray for the new pope. For many, it was an oration of relief. Brazil is home to the world's largest Catholic population. Many here felt great affection for Francis, the first Latin American pope, who communicated a worldview informed by the region's inequalities and economic injustices. The faithful here spoke of Prevost as one of them – a fellow Latin American – and hoped his pontificate would resemble Francis's. Pictures of him astride a horse, in a Peruvian flood, hoisting a beer – images that resonate here – have circulated widely on Brazilian social media. 'He lived the reality of the people. He understands hunger and poverty,' said Beatriz Araújo, 58. 'And it was in a country that is poor, like ours. He knows the real reality and will have his head open.' Elizabeth Clemende, 61, agreed. 'He was in Peru,' she said. 'He sees the people.' Mexico Many Mexicans, too, see Leo as more Latin American than American. 'He is the real deal for us,' said Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez, a sociologist who studies religion. 'I don't see him as a gringo. I see him as a U.S. citizen, as a dude who can understand where the hell he is placed, what's his role. … He's not the 'Ugly American' of the 1950s.' Sometimes, Soriano-Núñez said, Prevost even wrote his name the traditional Latin American way, with his mother's surname after his father's last name: Robert Prevost Martínez. 'He is well-known in Peru and in church circles in Latin America. I'm sure that's why he became pope. I'm sure he got at least 20 of the 23 Latin American votes [at the conclave] – if not the whole set.' Mexican media dubbed him 'least American cardinal.' Some called him 'American-Peruvian.' 'The Vatican chose the perfect anti-Trump,' tweeted Enrique Krauze, a prominent historian. 'White smoke, in a world of darkness.' 'Even though he's American, I feel like he's more tied to us than to the United States,' student Montserrat Díaz, 22, said at the Basilica of Guadalupe, Mexico's most celebrated shrine. In his first public greeting as pope, she noted, he inserted some Spanish remarks into his Italian speech – but not English. 'I thought it was beautiful.' Ghana During the conclave, parishioners at Christ the King Catholic Church in Accra prayed the rosary daily, the Rev. Ebenezer Akesseh said. Many were hoping Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson would be selected. Turkson 'would have made a good pope,' said Edward Akapire, 42, but he didn't expect it. 'We have to be realistic and acknowledge that the church is not devoid of racism,' he said. 'We have a bit to go.' But he said the choice showed a willingness to move away from tradition. Leo could help the U.S. move from 'looking inward,' he said, 'to getting America back to appreciating its global responsibilities.' 'But that all depends on the relationship the pope strikes with Trump,' he said. Akapire hoped Leo would continued the welcoming tone set by Francis. His relative youth, he said, means he should be able to travel widely – including to Africa. First up, he said with a laugh, should be a trip to Ghana.
Yomiuri Shimbun
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
What Pope Leo XIV Means for the U.S. Catholic Church and Trump
Joshua Lott/The Washington Pos Melvin Griggs, left, and Ronald Cashaw talk inside the now closed St. Mary of the Assumption church on Thursday in Dolton, Illinois. Pope Leo XIV grew up in Dolton and was a member of St. Mary of the Assumption. ROME – The new Chicago-raised Pope Leo XIV faces an immediate challenge in his native country: taming the brawling U.S. tribe of Catholics, riven by political divisions that have thwarted the will of his predecessors. Because Pope Leo – earlier known as Bob Prevost from the South Side – is an American better versed than past church leaders in the culture of his home country, some church-watchers and experts say, he may be able to navigate the U.S. Church in a way the Argentine Pope Francis could not. However, they said, it will still be a struggle to pry some American church members away from the now-deeply entrenched American habit of seeing faith through a tribal, political lens. In recent decades the U.S. Catholic Church, like many of the nation's religious groups, has been shaped by secular allegiances. Some who have followed the faith were hopeful that having a spiritual leader from the United States who can speak about the full range of church teachings – from Catholicism's demand to care for migrants, as well as the unborn – could bring some Catholics together. 'Pope Francis was so removed from American realities that … it caused him to really struggle to connect with many U.S. Catholics who didn't recognize themselves, their bishops, or their country in some of the criticisms,' Charlie Camosy, a Creighton University theologian and bioethicist, wrote to The Post in an email. 'Pope Leo XIV's critiques, praise, and invitations to dialogue will come from a place of knowing the U.S. in a far more intimate way.' 'Francis was pastor who was an outsider to the Vatican and U.S. institutions who was deeply committed to a 'poor church for the poor.' That made a lot of people uncomfortable,' said John Carr, who for 20 years led the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development. Pope Leo 'may have opportunities to build bridges.' Yet some of the issues he is believed to care deeply about, such as helping migrants, run directly against the policies espoused by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, himself a Catholic convert. That could set up near-immediate conflict. The question, some U.S. church-watchers said, is what issues Leo will prioritize and how outspoken he will decide to be. Francis engaged in a running battle of words with Trump and, later, Vance, during his papacy over aid to migrants and the poor. Under Trump's presidencies, it's become politically acceptable for conservative Catholics – both MAGA members and those focused on protecting traditional rituals like the Latin Mass – to insult and dismiss the head of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church. Several U.S. cardinals who spoke to reporters Friday about Leo's selection thought he would want to be a bridge-builder to the administration. 'Is there the same type of freedom in his heart and soul, that was in Francis? I believe yes. But that's different from asking: Is he going to express that freedom in the same exact manner, or the same pathways Pope Francis did,' said Cardinal Robert McElroy, D.C.'s archbishop. 'We're looking for someone following the pathway of Francis, but we're not looking for a photocopy. I believe Pope Leo will not be a photocopy of Pope Francis.' The other complication for Leo is the makeup of the U.S. church, which contains factions holding directly conflicting views. If he were to speak more than Francis did about traditional doctrines on topics like same-sex marriage, it could irritate and alienate Catholics who see God as prioritizing inclusion and mercy. If he takes up Francis's emphasis on the world as a global family and extends the back-and-forth criticisms with the White House, he could anger theologically traditional Catholics who have sided with Trump politically. Denise Murphy McGraw, co-chair of the liberal U.S. group Catholics Vote Common Good, sees Leo as a likely ally, especially given his upbringing here. 'He learned at the feet of the master,' she said of Leo, and Francis. The late pope 'wanted everyone to feel they had a place in Catholicism and we have someone now who understands even better, because he understands us. Such a big part of it is he can speak to people in their own language.' But Ashley McGuire, senior fellow at the Catholic Association, an advocacy group that focuses on promoting Catholic teaching on abortion and other traditional social issues, saw something a bit different ahead for the U.S. church. 'He takes his name from a pope who stood firmly against the negative culture of moral relativism,' she wrote in a statement. 'As a canon lawyer, he is uniquely equipped to help bring about greatly needed doctrinal and moral clarity both within the Church and in a world that so desperately needs it.' U.S. Catholics are very diverse politically, and their views can fall into different camps depending on whether the issue is theology or secular topics like immigration and democracy. According to a 2024 poll by the firm PRRI, 39 percent said their political ideology was moderate, 35 percent said conservative and 23 percent said liberal. A Pew Research poll found that in 2024, 47 percent of Catholics sided with Vice President Kamala Harris and 52 percent with Trump. Among White Catholics, nearly two-thirds voted for Trump, while Harris won the votes of nearly two-thirds of Hispanic Catholics. Leo's background has made him as much an international religious figure as an American one. He has spent much of his life in Peru or traveling the world for his religious order (the Augustinians). He also served in Rome, where Francis made him head of the Vatican's powerful bishop-picking agency. While that may limit his knowledge of current American culture, it could also endear him to more U.S. Catholics, almost 30 percent of whom were born outside the country, Pew Research says, a much higher percentage than the population overall. 'How Leo XIV thinks about the many contested issues within Catholicism is entirely unclear. But he seems almost certain to be an internationalist pope – with a particular concern for migrants and the poor – in an increasingly nationalist age,' University of Notre Dame church historian and provost John T. McGreevy wrote The Post in an email. Several of the cardinals who spoke to reporters Friday said that Leo's American upbringing had little to do with his selection as pope, either as a counterweight to the Trump administration or as a way of building a bridge to the U.S. president. Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, said he thinks Leo's impact on U.S. Catholicism will be fueled in part by his multinational, multilinguistic background, which will make it easier for him to connect with diverse U.S. Catholic communities. Leo, he said, will hopefully inspire U.S. Catholics to study their faith's social gospel. 'Picking the name Leo is indicative, I think, of the direction he wants to take,' Cupich said, referring to the last Pope Leo, the XIII. The previous Leo 'wrote stirringly about the rights of workers, immigrants, of those who were living at the margins of society. I think it will give him a platform to reintroduce' these teachings to Americans, he said. 'And I think he will be able to put it in language that's comprehensible and also challenging to Catholics in the United States. So that's what I'm looking for. I think that's the promise we saw.' Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the retired archbishop of D.C., said cardinals who elected the new pope were focused less on nationality than on his potential to bolster Catholicism. The cardinals looked more for 'who among us can strengthen the faith and bring it to the places where it's grown weak?' Gregory said. 'To places where there seems less enthusiasm or appreciation of the common things that draw us together.' As he introduced himself to the world Thursday, Leo presented himself as a global citizen. In his remarks to a wildly enthusiastic crowd in St. Peter's Square, he spoke in Spanish, Latin and Italian and gave a shout-out to his longtime home, Peru. He didn't mention the U.S. or speak a word of English. Robert George, a Princeton University political philosopher who often speaks from a conservative Catholic perspective, said the new pope will challenge Americans by emphasizing Catholic social teaching's call for 'the state to have a role in social life that is less robust than collectivists think it should have, but more robust than libertarians think it should have.' Francis was generally popular among U.S. Catholics, but as his papacy went on, a passionate minority of traditionalists became more strongly outspoken against him. Some opposed his limits on the traditional Latin Mass, while others despised his vague comments welcoming LGBTQ people into the church without any caveat. Some, like Vance, objected to his more liberal stance on immigration. Some experts Thursday and Friday said the new pope has a chance for a new relationship with the administration – of a sort. 'It may offer a reset, not in substance, but in style and leadership,' Carr wrote The Post. 'Leo may seek to deliver the same messages but perhaps more diplomatically. Trump and Vance ought to fear alienating Catholics by a lack of respect for a pope who is from America, speaking for a global Church.' Camosy said it was too early to conclude much about the new pope's approach. 'The pope's opening remarks seemed to suggest a desire to have dialogue and unity.' he wrote. 'I suspect that for some folks [especially younger ones], they are 'gettable' in this regard. But for those who put their secular political commitments ahead of the Gospel, well, I doubt this pope will be able to do much about it.'
