In day one of the Papacy of Pope Leo XIV, Jimmy Akin sits down with Cy Kellett to discuss more information about the first pope from the United States.
Transcript:
Cy: Hey, Jimmy. How are you doing today on day two?
Jimmy: I’m doing just fine. How are you doing?
Cy: I’m doing pretty well. I’ll be honest with you, I’m still a bit flabbergasted that we got an American Pope. That is something, I guess my whole life people have been saying there’ll never be an American Pope. And I internalized that.
Jimmy: Yeah, well, that was the conventional wisdom, and I suspect at one point in time that may have been true. But cardinals, you know, are trying to figure out who the best guy is among their number. I saw a press conference that was being held by various American cardinals today, and they said that once they got into the discussions, people from around the world who were cardinals were asking them about Cardinal Prevost, and they weren’t concerned about the fact he was an American. You know, as an American, if you always hear it’s not going to be one of you, then you can kind of internalize that. But that really wasn’t a concern for other folks.
And I think it’s kind of similar to when Pope Benedict was elected because he had been, you know, he was from Germany and of the World War II generation, and he had been forced against his will to join the Hitler Youth as a young man because all German youth were required to. Some people thought that would just be a deal breaker for him. But it was clear in all the decades of his service since that he totally opposed the ideas of the Nazis and had no sympathy for them, and it just wasn’t a concern.
Also, there was concern about the fact he had had to be, as the head of the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he had had to administer discipline at times to various errant theologians, and people thought that would be a deal breaker. But people in the conclave saw his kindness, his gentleness, and that his reputation did not correspond to the reality, and it just wasn’t a concern for him.
Cy: Yeah, yeah. You know, I went back, Jimmy, and I read some of the pre-conclave prognostications, and Cardinal Prevost was actually on many of the lists. I think I just glossed over it because he was an American. Like, I was like, oh, he is there. It’s not like nobody saw this coming. It’s just that I was editing it out as it happened.
Jimmy: Yeah, well. And, you know, he seems to have taken to the role, and he seems very comfortable in it. One of the things I’m planning on doing is doing a video now. I did a video yesterday with my first thoughts about Pope Leo. I’m planning on doing a second video about how the four most recent popes were met by the world as Pope, you know, because they come out on the loggia at St. Peter’s, and there are differences in how they present themselves.
Even before they say anything, they present themselves, you know, physically to what they’re wearing and what they’re doing with their arms and what they’re doing with their face and everything. I found video going back to the second conclave of 1978. I couldn’t find John Paul I, but beginning with John Paul II, I got video of all four of those loggia appearances for John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, and now Pope Leo.
There are marked differences in how they present themselves, especially Pope Francis. He is clearly the outlier. And frankly, I never speak ill of, or strive not to speak ill of a reigning pontiff. But as soon as Pope Francis came out, he just stood there and he didn’t enter. It was not like John Paul II or Benedict. He wasn’t waving and smiling and things like that, using his arms. He was just standing there for an uncomfortably long period of time.
I said to myself at the time, back in 2013, this is a bad sign. It’s like he doesn’t understand what’s required of him in this moment. I think that was an accurate prognostication in some ways. I think that his instincts did not always correspond to what was needed in the moment. But then when you see Pope Leo come out, he’s doing what he needs to. He’s smiling, he’s waving, he’s dressed in the traditional vestments, and he seems very comfortable despite the enormous pressure.
I mean, Pope Benedict compared the moment when he realized that he was likely to be elected to watching a guillotine fall. You know, he did not want the papacy because there’s enormous pressure. I mean, the room that they take the pope to vest before coming out on the loggia is called the Room of Tears. Some newly elected popes have actually broken down emotionally from assuming the weight of the office, and they need a little bit of time to compose themselves before going out and greeting the public.
But Pope Leo, he comes out, he’s smiling, he’s waving. He seems very calm, he seems very serene. I think those are all good signs.
Cy: And wearing the Mozzetta. Did you see that at the time?
Jimmy: Oh, yeah, I noticed that. Yeah, he was dressed in the traditional papal vestments for this occasion. That was a sign of continuity with popes prior to Pope Francis. So, you know, it’s like, okay, I’m pope now. I’m going to do what’s expected of popes.
That was a good sign. I’ve also been reviewing now, he doesn’t have the kind of paper trail that Joseph Ratzinger had. I mean, he was a theologian, and he had been active for decades writing stuff, and so we knew a lot about his views. Cardinal Prevost doesn’t have that kind of paper trail, but there are records of him giving speeches and things like that.
So I’ve been listening to his speeches and public appearances, watching public appearances he’s made, where he talks and interacts with people and takes questions, and I’m very encouraged. One of the things that they had back in 2012 was a synod of bishops on new evangelization. He made a speech there, and he later read part of that speech, which is available in video. It’s on newadvent.org today.
He talks about media manipulation and how the media tries to normalize abnormal things, you know, abortion and the homosexual lifestyle and things like that. He goes down a list of issues like that. I thought that was all very positive. Also, one of the things he mentions is that the Church’s response to this, you know, given the way things are presented in pop culture, should not be to make worship a spectacle. Instead, good for him.
Instead, it needs to invite people to appreciate mystery as an antidote to spectacle. That suggests to me that his liturgical sensibilities are very similar in that respect to those of Pope Benedict XVI. For people who may be fans of the traditional Latin Mass, I can’t say that he’s going to take any action to re-liberalize it. But saying that we need to not have spectacle in worship and that we need to have an invitation to appreciate mystery as the antidote to spectacle, that’s at least a positive sign.
Cy: Sure, yeah. What’d you think of the name Leo? Did you have any thought upon hearing that his name was Leo?
Jimmy: Yeah, I thought one thing. So there are sort of two elements. I made a very careful study of pope names. In fact, a few years ago, I published an ebook about them because I crunched the numbers on all of the pope names in history. One of the things I found in doing that is there are certain periods in church history where popes have gotten tired of the recent names and they start reaching further back in history.
We’ve been in one of those periods when John XXIII became pope. Now we had a whole run of mostly Piuses, and I think that name has kind of run its course for now. Right? But when John XXIII was elected, he reached back centuries to get John Paul VI, then reached back centuries. John Paul I reached back forever because we’d never had a John Paul before. That was a brand new papal name.
Now then he died after just a month, you know, like 33 days. That put the Church in crisis because that was not an expected conclave. In crisis situations, popes may take the name of their predecessor. They don’t usually do that, but that explains John Paul II as a sign of continuity. Don’t worry, I know my predecessor just died, but we’re going to be okay.
Benedict reached back basically a century. Pope Francis was another brand new name. And then Pope Leo reaches back more than a century, just a little more than a century, because Leo XIII died in 1903. So that’s, you know, 122 years ago now. That kind of fits with the naming patterns of popes either coming up with something completely new, which John Paul I and Francis did, or reaching back very substantial periods of time.
One of the things that communicates is, I’m my own man. Don’t expect me to be a copy of any of the recent popes, including my immediate predecessor.
So that signals his own identity and it signals continuity with Leo XIII, who was credited as being the first pope to really engage the modern world. His predecessor, Pius IX, had famously, I mean, during his reign, he lost the Papal States and Italy became a consolidated country around the Vatican. Pius IX went into a kind of self-imposed exile in the Vatican where he just wouldn’t go out again. You know, he retreated. He very much opposed what was happening.
Then Leo XIII said, okay, the time has come. We need to engage this world. We may not like everything about it, but we need to engage it. He wrote, you know, the first major encyclical on the Church’s social teaching, *Rerum Novarum*, which is Latin for “new things.”
I think that some of those. Now, of course, it’s up to Pope Leo XIV to explain exactly why he chose his name. They often do that, so we’re likely to get some additional insight coming here. But I thought it was good that he didn’t just call himself John XXI or Paul VII or John Paul III or Benedict XVII or Francis II.
Reaching back like that and kind of saying, I’m my own man. I think that shows confidence, and it also indicates we should just read his papacy through the lens of one of his immediate predecessors. Now, actually, if he had chosen John Paul III or Benedict XVII, I wouldn’t be too unhappy.
But, you know, if he had picked John XXIV or Paul VII or Francis II, I would be less confident. The fact he went back so far, regardless, even if he had chosen John Paul III or Benedict XVII, that would make his pontificate polarizing. Because people who didn’t like John Paul II or who didn’t like Benedict XVI, they would immediately be hostile to him.
By picking Leo XIV, he sidestepped the politics involved in recent popes. So nobody is going to say, oh, I hated that guy. He’s not going to have built-in opposition from the beginning of his papacy by just saying, don’t compare me to anybody. Reasoned I’m, you know, I’m my own man. Take me for what I am.
Cy: Yep. Yeah. Not a lot of people walking around with big resentments for Leo XIII. There’s not a big “I hate Leo XIII” contingent. All in all, then, it seems like a very hopeful start.
Jimmy: Would you say I’m hopeful now? You know, popes encounter problems, and no pope is perfect, not even Benedict XVI, whom I loved. So I don’t expect that there are never going to be any storm clouds. But I’d say this is a very hopeful start. I’m impressed by what I’ve seen so far. Not listening to some of the hot takes you get from some of the angrier corners of the Catholic Internet world, but actually just listening to what the man himself has said. I’m optimistic.
Cy: Jimmy Akin, our guest, that’s Ask Me Anything. All the lines are full, so we’ll take questions right after this on Catholic Answers Live.