In this video, our apologists Joe Heschmeyer, Jimmy Akin, Tim Staples, and Catholic Answers host Cy Kellett share their first impressions of the newly elected Pope Leo XIV!
Transcript:
Tim: His brother said he wanted to be a pope. I mean, a priest from the time he could walk.
Joe: I’m in John Wayne Airport. There’s noise and people walking by.
Jimmy: It has been conventional wisdom for a long time that there wouldn’t be any American popes for the foreseeable future.
Tim: I love America. Yes, I do, but we’re a mess.
Cy: We just need to take that clip and put it on YouTube. Could we just have Tim with his hands up? I love America.
Joe: I’m Joe Heschmeyer, and Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago, Illinois, was just named today the new pope, Pope Leo XIV. He is the first American pope. And this comes literally one day after on Lila Rose’s show, I said, well, he was the most likely American to become pope. There probably wouldn’t be an American pope this time around, and he was probably unlikely.
– What are the odds that we get an American pope?
Joe: I would say very low, but not zero. Okay. Prevost is the name that I sometimes hear thrown around as a possibility because of his work with the Congregation for Bishops. He knows a lot of the cardinals.
– If you had a percentage, you would say Cardinal Prevost is going to be the next pope. This American cardinal, what would you give it?
Joe: I would put it in the low single digits. So, mea culpa, he did indeed become pope. I said it’d be someone unexpected. And on that count, at least, I was right.
So what do we know about the cardinal? As you can imagine, this is going to be a little more informal. I’m in John Wayne Airport. There’s noise and people walking by. But I wanted to make sure to get something out, just because people are asking me, what do we know about him?
So far, we know a little bit. We don’t know a ton. He actually only became a cardinal in 2023, so he is somewhat of an unknown, I think, even to the other cardinals. But here’s what we do know. He was born in Chicago. He’s the first American pope. He was born in 1959, so he’s 69 years old. He actually went to Villanova for college, where he studied math. He then joined the Augustinian religious order. He then the Augustinians sent him to Chicago Theological Union, where he got his MDiv. He went on to Rome, to my own alma mater, the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, better known as the Angelicum, where he got both his license and his doctorate in canon law since 1985.
So basically my entire life, he’s spent a lot of his life essentially as a missionary in Peru, although he had some stints in the U.S. as well as particularly in the last few years in Rome. Sorry for the airport announcements and everything else. In Peru, he taught canon law, he taught patristics, and he taught moral theology in the seminary. So he has a wide range in terms of what he’s taught on.
Additionally, a wide range. He’s got a lot of languages that he speaks: English, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese, and he can also read German and Latin. So he is well prepared for maybe the international dimension of the papacy.
First, his papal name is a really fascinating choice: Pope Leo XIV. This seems to be a nod to Pope Leo XIII, who was pope from 1878 to 1903. That, coupled with his more kind of traditional-looking papal garb, is telling. An interesting sign. He didn’t feel the need to be John Paul III or Francis II or anything like that.
Right now, I think a lot of what you’re going to be hearing are just rumors or speculation or things that aren’t very based in fact. But the Catholic Herald last week put it like this: they said Prevost is something of a cipher when it comes to many of the contested issues in Catholic life in terms of where he stands on matters such as the ordination of women deacons or the blessing of persons in same-sex unions or the Latin Mass. He’s played his cards awfully close to his chest. So he’s not someone who’s known for having strong, maybe doctrinaire positions in either direction. He has a reputation, if anything, of maybe being something of a centrist, which could be very interesting.
We just don’t know. And so I would avoid anyone claiming to know more than we have information to support. On some issues, the black-and-white issues like women’s ordination to the priesthood, he’s been perfectly clear. But a lot of the other issues seem like they just have not come up in a way where he’s had to address them. And so we’re just guessing, really.
Tim: Nobody knew who Prevost was until pretty recently because he was in like the top 10 and all of that that you saw out and about. But I just liked the guy because, number one, he’s an American and a linguist. Right? I know he’s fluent in five languages. He wrote.
Cy: How unlikely is that? An American that speaks five languages.
Tim: That’s right. And he’s not, you know, I don’t want to pick on the Americans. Right? I mean, I love America. Yes, I do, but we’re a mess.
Cy: You just need to take that clip and put it on YouTube. Could we just have Tim with his hands up? I love America.
Caller: Okay, we get it.
Tim: But we’re a mess when it comes to the Universal Church. We’re just notoriously, you know, in kind of a little bubble. Yeah, you might say, over here. But I tell you, Prevost, he just… He has everything. I mean, the man. I love the fact that he is a cradle Catholic. You know, his brother said he wanted to be a pope from the time he could. I mean, a priest from the time he could walk. Right? And he was just devout his entire life, always knew what he wanted. He went to high school seminary. Right? So he entered at 14 years old, basically, like our friend Father Mitch Pacwa.
Cy: Yeah. And this is in the 1970s, when actually high school seminaries were on the way out. Not many people were entering.
Tim: That’s right. Same with Father Mitch, you know, but there’s nothing like a Catholic that’s been formed from the time they can walk. And that’s this man. But, you know, he goes into the Augustinians, as you know, and he’s in Chicago, which is a great place to be. Chicago. It’s a mess as a city: crime, you name it. I love that. I love that he’s from Chicago. I love that he’s an American. But he, you know, he goes through. And as you know, he got his doctorate in canon law from the NAC, that is the North American College in Rome, and he became a priest in ’82, and then he spent those next five years. And even though he got assigned to Peru, he was really back and forth between Rome and Peru. He didn’t really get his legs in Peru until after he got his doctorate of canon law.
Caller: Okay.
Tim: And licentiate before that. But in ’88 is when he went back to Peru with that brand new doctorate. And for 10 years, you know, he was not only teaching, which he did, but he also pastored. He was a pastor, which I think is so important for a pope to be in. A lot of times in Peru, too.
Cy: I think he’s there during the Shining Path. I have to look that up. I have. But that’s a tough time to be.
Tim: In Peru, from what I read. Yes. I don’t know, but that detail popped up in what I was reading. And so, you know, he’s just… He’s got, you know, think about. He’s an Augustinian. You know, the Augustinians are famous for education, pastoral ministry, and mission. That sums up what we need in a pope, especially in, you know, a successor of Pope Francis, because that was Pope Francis’s heart. And I think that’s another reason why I really like Prevost. He was close to the Holy Father, Pope Francis. Pope Francis is reported to have said he was his guy.
Tim: Yeah, I read that. I gotta confirm.
Caller: Aren’t you allowed to do that? I don’t know if that’s allowed. I’m gonna look that up.
Caller: That’s right. That Pope, you’d think he…
Caller: What are the rules on that?
Tim: That’s right. You’d think he… Universal authority or something.
Caller: Yeah, right. Who does he think he is?
Tim: But at any rate, he spent those years in Peru, but then he came back to the United States after 10 years there in Peru and once again, you know, in Chicago, you know, he became the provincial there of the local Augustinian order. And then eventually in 2001, he became the prefect of the entire order. But I think all along the way, this is a brilliant man, a holy man. He’s quite reserved. But everything about this man, I think, points to this guy’s going to be a great pope, in my humble opinion.
Cy: You’re not the only person that I have heard say that. And what did you think about the name Leo? What did you think about…?
Tim: What did it mean to you? I don’t know if I can say this on the air.
Caller: Oh, I love it.
Caller: Well, I mean, what I’m kind of… I really want to know.
Tim: Now you’re going to get mad at me.
Caller: Oh, oh, I see. Because…
Tim: No, Leo. What a perfect name in that, you know, Leo was known as the liberal pope.
Right.
Cy: You know, I love Leo XIII.
Tim: Of course, I love Leo XIII. As do I. And the Pope of the Rosary. No pope ever wrote like this pope. He wrote multiple encyclicals just on the Rosary, as well as the Blessed Mother. He was the most prolific Marian pope we’ve ever had.
Tim: But he was known as the Rerum Novarum.
Right.
Cy: That’s what he’s remembered for more than anything.
Tim: Verum Novarum, the worker and the dignity of the human person, which leads to Centessimus Annus, Annus of John Paul 100.
Cy: Years later, and Quadragesimo Anno.
Caller: I skipped over…
Caller: Oh, did… I didn’t mean to.
Tim: No, I jumped over. No, you’re right. Was that Benedict XV?
Caller: No, that… Or was that Pius? I think Pius XI.
Tim: Yeah, Pius XI, those three. Wonderful. We studied those in the seminary. How could I not? And we studied them together, in fact, just…
But Leo XIII was the one that kick-started it. And again, he’s known as, quote, unquote, the liberal pope. But he also… And the reason why I think folks would get mad at me, I think it’s a profound title for this pope because he also wrote the encyclical on the heresy of Americanism.
Cy: I wondered if you were going to get to that. Now, I thought that was Pius IX that wrote that, but somebody told me earlier it was Leo XIII that wrote that.
Tim: No, it was Leo XIII. And I actually love that encyclical.
Cy: Well, you got to explain that, though, because people… It’s not an anti-American thing. It’s against the heresy of Americanism.
Tim: Yes, a very big difference, because he praises America, you know, Pope Leo did, but the problem is Americanism. And we’ve had problems that go way back, as you know, I mean, all the way back to the 1800s. Our lovable bishop, John England of Charleston, South Carolina, who famously, you know, after the Pope condemned slavery for the umpteenth time from the Vatican, you know, going back to Paul III, you know, hundreds of years. And of course, Bishop John England, who was a powerful man, said, well, you know, the Pope’s not talking about our slavery here in America. See, we have a different kind of… And of course, the Pope was expressly talking about that and slavery, period.
But we’ve had this problem in the United States of Americanism that we have an inflated idea of ourselves, let’s just put it that way.
Cy: Generally speaking, well, we’re a new order of the cosmos. You know, we’re a Novus Ordo. So, like, we’re like the… And that is an inflated view.
Tim: It is. And I think if you read the letter, in fact, I gave a talk on this on one of our cruises years ago. If you read it, he writes, it’s the only encyclical letter ever addressed to a particular bishop. And it was to the great Archbishop… Yeah, Cardinal Archbishop Gibbons. James Cardinal Gibbons, who I absolutely love. I love that man. You read his book *Faith of Our Fathers*. It’s one of the reasons why I’m Catholic.
But he addressed it to him because he was the Cardinal Archbishop of the first see of Baltimore. And the Pope is basically saying, it’s time that we slap this stuff down. This idea, taking our Declaration of Independence and the certain things that we hold dear to and exalting them up out of their proper context, let us just say, like, freedom of the press.
Tim: Freedom of the press. Okay, what does that mean? And of course, freedom of press and freedom of speech always have to be qualified in the context of the common good.
Cy: Because look what they are now. I mean, exactly the most vile pornography is covered under this idea of freedom of the press. The Pope was right about that. Leo XIII was right.
Tim: He sure was. And it’s a lot more. But you know, the whole idea that, you know, if we disagree with the Pope, well, by golly, we saw this happen, didn’t we, during the reign of Pope Francis. We’ll just go out and have a protest, you know, let’s march against the bishops, you know, and hold up signs. You know, we want this, I mean, this idea of Americanism and unfortunately a lot of the negative stuff.
And I have to say this, you know, in watching the lead-up to the Pope’s election, the commentators were, and I’m going to be nice, I, you know, I’m going to be nice. But just the incessant slapping of Pope Francis and saying things that are just not true over and over and over again. Well, you know, the Church, he was unorthodox and wasn’t orthodox. And now we’re going to get back to the actual teachings of the Church. And you had even so-called Catholic commentators saying stuff akin to this. And it was like I was getting hit in the belly over and over and over again. I’m going, oh, Lord, you know.
But a lot of these problems, let’s face it, come from America.
Jimmy: Howdy folks. I just thought I’d share with you a few thoughts about the newly elected pope. What I’m going to be offering you are first impressions only. They are subject to revision because we’re still getting to know this new pope. He’s not like Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who everybody knew before he became elected as Benedict XVI.
But there is some that is known about Cardinal Prevost. You know, he’s been around on the world stage a little bit. I was aware of him as a possible candidate for the papacy or what’s known as a papabile, someone who’s popeable. I was not expecting him to be elected though. And one reason for that is it has been conventional wisdom for a long time that there wouldn’t be any American popes for the foreseeable future.
Partly the reason for no American popes is in the past. Well, there weren’t that many American cardinals, and I’m talking like 100 years ago, and they didn’t have airplanes to get American cardinals over the Atlantic Ocean quickly enough to let them play that much of a role in the discussions leading up to a conclave that could lead people to have confidence in them.
Then after World War II, America became a global superpower, and following the collapse of the Soviet Union, America was sort of the last man standing in terms of being a global superpower. And you didn’t, the thought went that the cardinals wouldn’t want to have the United States as the dominant geopolitical power in the world at the same time as having the papacy in the hands of an American.
There’s also some reasons why they might want to be suspicious. In the 20th century, especially after World War II, when the CIA was founded, there was meddling that the CIA did in nations across the world, including in Italy, and that even though a lot of Americans aren’t aware of that, it kind of gave a bad reputation to America and American intelligence in a lot of circles.
And so there could be concerns about if we had an American pope, would papal policy be crafted in CIA’s Langley headquarters and so forth? So there are reasons for suspicion, and Americans tend to be sort of loud and we can have a reputation for, especially given our global superpower status, for having the attitude of just being large and in charge.
And that’s something that was not a particularly desirable trait for a pontiff, because the pope needs to be the servant of the servants of God. And that’s a little bit in tension with some of the images that America has projected, including, like, under President Bush or under President Obama or under President Trump. You know, there are very large, colorful personalities, and so I can understand why many cardinals would be hesitant to have an American.
So, you know, we’ve now kind of crashed through that barrier. I don’t know when we’ll have another American pope, but it was a bit of a surprise to have one this time. And I’m pleased that the College of Cardinals were able to find someone that they had confidence in and that that person is an American, and they didn’t let that deter them. So I think that’s a positive.
I also like the name that he’s chosen. Cardinal Prevost chose the name Leo, and so he’s known as Leo XIV. And anytime a pope picks a name, you tend to think of who last had that name. And what might that tell us about this new pontiff?
Well, like every pope, the previous Leo, Leo XIII, had some flaws, but he was a fundamentally good pope with many admirable qualities. He also wrote the famous St. Michael prayer for protection against dark forces that used to actually be part of the prayers after the Mass. And so this is just one thing connected with Leo XIII, but it’s notable that he did that. And I think it would be a good idea to say the St. Michael prayer for the protection and guidance of Leo XIV.
In terms of his theological orientation, well, I guess I’ll say this. One of the things I was watching was how many ballots would it go before we had a new pope? Now, four ballots is sort of the modern minimum. Nobody gets elected on the first, second, or third ballot. And if someone’s elected on the fourth ballot, it means that this is a person that the cardinals can agree on.
There didn’t need to be a lengthy, drawn-out process. If the conclave had gone on really long, or if a conclave goes on really long, what you tend to have is a couple of candidates representing different parties where neither party is strong enough to get their guy elected. And so then they start searching for compromise candidates.
The fact that Leo XIV was elected on the fourth ballot means that there was pretty quick agreement. A lot of votes coalesced around him quite rapidly. And of course, there are going to be other people who got votes. And I’ve even encountered rumors about who some of those were. I’ve seen a rumor that has been reported in the press that Cardinal Tagle from the Philippines, who would have been a highly progressive pope, was an early leader. And then the votes kind of coalesced around Prevost as an alternative.
In terms of what I can say about Prevost’s positioning theologically, he’s a centrist. He’s not highly progressive, he’s not highly traditional. He has not written a lot or spoken a lot on the various hot-button theological issues in the Church. And so I would expect that we’re not likely, at least for the foreseeable future, we’re not likely to have any major theological shifts in the Church.
Now, he’s a big promoter of peace and so forth and environmentalism and things like that. But all of that I look on as kind of secondary. It’s not the Pope’s main job to promote environmentalism or to promote world peace. As valuable as world peace is, it’s not the Pope’s main job. The Pope’s main job is to teach the Christian faith. And I’m not seeing any early signs of rupture on that.
I also suspect that we’re going to be in for a more peaceful period in the Church than what we’ve had in recent years. But I’ll get to reasons why I say that.
One thing that the cardinals definitely look for today is someone to be pope who is a missionary, who has a missionary heart. Now, when Francis was elected, he had made an intervention as Cardinal Bergoglio. And an intervention in this case is a speech in the general meetings before the conclave where he really pushed the idea of the Church needs to be missionary.
And so I think the cardinals saw that, and they thought that was promising. But then, even though Pope Francis was able to engage with the world media in ways that attracted good publicity, his missionary efforts didn’t seem to bear a lot of fruit.
In this case, the cardinals have again picked someone with good credentials as a missionary. Cardinal Prevost, even though he was born here in the United States, he spent many years in Peru and, you know, helping people there. And so I think that that’s part of why they were willing to go with him, even though he’s American in origin, because he’s clearly showed heart for people in the developing world, and that also earns him some credentials as a missionary.
Another thing that cardinals look for in a pope is someone who is a governor. When Pope Francis was elected, there was a big concern that the Roman Curia, that’s the offices in Rome that assist the pope, that they were kind of unmanageable. You know, we’d been coming out of the Vatileaks scandal and so forth. There were a lot of concerns about management in Rome.
And one of the things Pope Francis was elected to do was to clean house in Rome to get the governance of the Church kind of back on track. And that’s another area where the results were kind of mixed. But Leo XIV does have qualities that suggest he has governing ability. He’s been a diocesan bishop. He also has worked at very high levels in his Augustinian order.
And he knows the inside of the Vatican to some degree because he’s been the head of the Congregation for Bishops, which is one of the most important congregations, or now it’s the dicastery for bishops. It’s one of the most important dicasteries in Rome because it’s involved in selecting bishops all over the world.
All over the world. And Francis appointed him to head that, even though reportedly the two of them didn’t always see eye to eye. But even Francis had a lot of confidence in him, despite the fact that they sometimes disagreed.
In terms of his governing style, Prevost has a reputation for being more reserved. Now, Francis, by his own admission, he was going to make a mess. In fact, he reportedly said when John Paul II died, he actually supported Ratzinger as pope because he realized that was a moment when we needed continuity, whereas he said if I became pope, I would make a mess.
And he encouraged people to make messes as sort of in the spirit of creative destruction, I guess, where in order to make progress, you need to shake some things up. And Pope Francis definitely did that.
So, and just like on *Doctor Who*, every time they cast a new doctor, it’s in reaction to the previous doctor. So Francis was a mess maker. And I think the College of Cardinals with Prevost were looking for a peacemaker, and that seems to be borne out.
Prevost has a reputation for having a more reserved personality, a pleasant personality, and an ability to listen to different groups. Francis talked a lot about listening to different groups, but I don’t know that he was that successful in that.
But Robert Prevost, now Leo XIV, has a reputation for being able to listen constructively to different parties and be able to work with people coming from different places. As you may know, in Latin America, where Peru is, there are some counterbalances in theological trends. There’s the progressive liberation theology and the conservative Opus Dei.
And that was true of Peru, where Prevost was able to work with people who were parts of both groups. He was able to listen to both groups, and he was perceived as a peacemaker down there. So I think he has a markedly different style than Francis had, and I would expect that to continue into his papacy.
I thus foresee that we’re entering a period of greater stability in the Church, at least in all likelihood. No one knows the future, and I can imagine how things can go sideways, particularly with things like the German synodal way and stuff like that being an outstanding issue that has not been resolved yet.
So I can see that there will be junctures at which we may have some ruckuses occur. But on balance, I would say Leo XIV looks like we’re going to be in for a period of greater stability and peace within the Church, which I know was a concern of a great many cardinal electors.
I also don’t foresee any major doctrinal shifts, at least not in the beginning. I can’t predict the future on that. But because Prevost is a centrist rather than highly progressive or highly traditional, I don’t think that there are any foreseeable major shifts. It’s not like he has any personal doctrinal projects that he really wants to push forward now that he’s become pope. He may, but at least they’re not known at this point.
Another sign that I think is positive is that when he came out on the loggia at Saint Peter’s, he was wearing the traditional papal vestments that newly elected popes wear. And that’s something that Francis had markedly not done.
Now, this is a matter of personal style, and it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things how a pope is dressed in terms of what vestments are they wearing. I mean, Francis was wearing clerical garb. He just wasn’t wearing all of the traditional vestments.
But the fact that Leo XIV was signals a return to previous papal tradition and thus continuity with popes from the pre-Francis era. On the other hand, he praised Pope Francis in his opening address from the loggia. But that’s to be expected. Every newly elected pope praises their predecessor. Francis did the same thing with Benedict.
So it would be bizarre if a newly elected pope did not come out and say nice things about his predecessor. In his initial appearance at the loggia, Leo XIV used three languages: Italian, Spanish, and Latin.
And the fact he used all three of them, now he needs to use Italian because he’s now the bishop of an Italian diocese, the Diocese of Rome. Using Latin is traditional in these services because the Church is a global Church and Latin is the global language it uses.
And the fact that he went into Spanish also, he said a greeting to his former diocese in Peru, and the fact that he did that also is a sign that he cares about where he comes from. He cares about the developing world. So that’s all good.
One thing I wondered if he would do is greet America in English, and he didn’t. And I understand that because, like I mentioned, there have been pretty serious concerns about having an American pope.
And so he needs to signal to the other cardinals and to the world as he makes his first impression that don’t look at me like I’m Donald Trump in papal garb. I expect him to downplay the fact he’s from America in order to position himself as a global leader.
I still think it’s great. I think it’s exciting that we have a pope who’s from America. And I look forward to being able to hear the pope speak in English when he visits America. And he will.
But I understand why he would downplay his American origins, especially as he’s making first impressions on people, and especially given the reputation that America still has in many places and currently has under our large and in charge current president.
So I understand why he would take that approach. And I don’t consider it a slight. I consider it a prudent move, actually, that he, at least in the present geopolitical moment and as the first American pope, did not go out of his way to emphasize his Americanness in his public debut to the world as pope.
Like I said, he will be coming to the United States. Now, that’s something every pope does in modern times. John Paul II did it, Benedict XVI did it, Pope Francis did it, and so Leo XIV will do it too, and it’s just a matter of time.
But I suspect that America will not be his first international visit. If I had to guess. Now, there are actually some international visits that had been scheduled by Pope Francis. Like there’s one in Turkey later this year for the 1700th anniversary of the first Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. That’s the council that infallibly defined the divinity of Christ.
So he may well go there. I would, if I were him, defined in the divinity of Christ, the first ecumenical council of all. That’s a big deal. So I would go for the anniversary of that. And he may fulfill some of the other planned upcoming papal visits. He may not go to others. He may modify the plans in terms of newly planned papal visits before he comes to the United States.
I suspect he might go to Peru to greet the people who he previously served and to indicate publicly that his heart is still with them and with people in similar situations. And I think that would be a positive demonstration of him as the servant of the servants of God, as someone who’s not just a high muckety muck now, but someone who cares about people in more modest circumstances and who wants to show that tangibly so.
I could see him going back to Peru as an early papal trip, even before coming to the United States. But he will eventually come to the United States, and I look forward to that.
In the meantime, let’s keep him in our prayers. What I’ve offered you here today are just some preliminary thoughts based on my knowledge of him and first impressions of him. But I suspect, just to summarize that we’re looking for a period of greater peace in the Church. And I think things are positive. I can’t say that I’m going to get everything on my wish list, but things are looking positive and we should continue to pray. We should pray for Pope Leo XIV, just like we should pray for every pope. Thank you so much and God bless you.
Cy: Hello and welcome to Catholic Answers Live. I am Cy Kellett, your host. What an extraordinary day. What an extraordinary day. May 8, 2025. And I thought I’d do something a little different. Everywhere you go, there’s commentary on the new pope.
We haven’t… If you just woke up and you’re like, oh, my first show of the day is always Catholic Answers. We have a new pope and his name is Pope Leo XIV. And so I thought I’d start a little bit with something you’re probably not going to hear much of, a little commentary on the new pope.
I really see… I haven’t seen any of that. I don’t know why everyone’s being so quiet about it. Nobody will share their views. But I want to talk a little bit about Pope Leo. Just before we went on the air, Siobhan came in. Siobhan, the always helpful Siobhan around here, said, today is the feast of the apparition of St. Michael. May 8 is the feast of the apparition of St. Michael.
And Pope Leo XIII, the last Pope Leo, wrote the St. Michael prayer that we often say at the end of Mass or in other situations. And apologists pray it all the time. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. That is, the apologists need that.
And so there’s a connection with today, with St. Michael, to both the day and to Leo XIII, the last Leo that we had. And this is not even the big, like the fact that we have a pope, the fact that he took the name Leo, these are big, big things.
But that he’s an American, I have to tell you, I am still dealing with that. I don’t know how you feel about it, and you’re welcome to call us 888-318-7884. We’re going to do open forum. We’re going to talk about anything that you want to talk about.
But I assume there may be some people who want to talk about the pope, about the papacy, about what the name Leo means, or any other questions like that. We’ll do our very best to get you an answer.
But if you just want to talk about what it means that we have a pope from the United States, I’m trying to process why is that shocking to me? And I feel like part of it, I’m going to be frank, is that I think in America, we think of ourselves in some ways as the child, not as the father. Europe is the father, we’re the child.
And so to think of the Holy Father as an American, the father’s got to come from over the Old World. And now I didn’t have that feeling about Pope Francis. And I think it’s just because that’s not my country; Argentina is not my country.
But as an American, it’s very odd to have an American pope. And now, people, I don’t want anyone to misinterpret. That’s not a judgment on the pope. I’m not mad that he’s an American. I just can’t get over the shock.
I was listening. I was actually on the air this morning at a local Catholic radio station here, AM 1450, JP2 Catholic Radio. And I started to speak into the microphone and everybody jumped. And I thought I did something wrong. And then they started saying, white smoke, white smoke. And I thought I didn’t process it correctly. I was looking around for what are they talking about?
And then I was like, oh, white smoke, we have a pope already. And then I got to speak with… In the… There’s this period where you know there’s a pope but you don’t know who the pope is. And then on the air with us, we had Archbishop Cordileone from San Francisco, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, and who’s just a wonderful, delightful person.
And I didn’t say to him, who do you think it is? Or something like that. I’m not going to do that because what’s he going to say? In a few minutes you’re going to be proven wrong. And your chances are 1 in 133, basically.
And we didn’t know at that point that was it, it was an American. And then I got… I finished working with JP2 radio and got in the car to come over here, and I wanted to be back here when we learned who the pope was. I wanted to be back at Catholic Answers with all my brothers and sisters here so we could hear it together.
But then I’m in the car listening to EWTN and I hear Monsie say, I think she said something like, they’re opening the doors or there’s movement or something. I was like, I’m not going to make it back. And then you’re listening and EWTN was, you know, they allow you just to listen to what the proto-deacon is saying. And he says all this stuff in…
Latin. And then he said, Robertum, I think. And then Franciscum. And I couldn’t figure out Robert Francis. I don’t even know anybody named Robert Francis. I thought that was the last name. I didn’t hear the. Because his name is Robert Francis Prevost. His name was Robert Francis Prevost.
And then I heard it was Matthew Bunsen. Dr. Bunsen said, we have our first American Pope. And I was utterly confused. I couldn’t think. I thought of Robert McElroy in Washington. That’s the only Robert I could think of. I was utterly confused until they started to describe Robert Prevost, who Tim Staples says he said on the air on Monday. We’re looking for the audio of it. He says he said on the air on Monday, if it’s an American, it’ll be Cardinal Prevost.
And then we just started learning about him. And I got here to Catholic Answers. Everybody was just riveted watching the television. And the Pope Leo thing, I think that added to my sense of shock because it’s an old-fashioned name. I mean, Leo’s an old-fashioned name. So it kind of made me feel like, what, what is this Pope doing picking?
And the obvious thing, the first thing you think if you kind of know your popes a little bit is you think of Rerum Novarum. You think, well, this Pope is choosing that name. Because clearly the thing that Leo XIII is most famous for is Rerum Novarum, which is the beginning of the modern. It’s generally cited as the beginning of the modern teaching of the Popes on the social order. It’s about new things.
And so this is the Pope who said, look, we gotta deal with this, with these new things that are happening in, you know, the mass communication and labor and the globalization and all that stuff. And popes have, each pope has promulgated some social teaching in every case since then. So you get a sense that this Pope is choosing Leo in part because that also Leo wrote to Americans. He was the first Pope who wrote specifically to the United States, wrote letters to us here in America mostly, correcting us on some things we needed to work on.
That’s good. It’s good to get correction. God corrects those that he loves. So, you know, all processing all of that and then got here and just listened to or saw the new Pope come out and listened to his words in Italian and in Spanish. And my Italian and Spanish are good enough that I could tell he was speaking Italian and then Spanish. That’s how good they are. I could say, that’s Italian, that’s Spanish. What’s he saying? I don’t know, but I did hear Pace in there somewhere, so I knew that he had made a greeting of peace.
But I just want to share with you some of what the Pope said, because I don’t know if anybody has shared or how much has been shared. And these are important words when a new Pope comes out. So now he’s Pope Leo XIV and just amazingly an American in that role, but also a Peruvian and also a European. I mean, he’s a very, he’s an extremely cultured, well-educated man.
And he comes out with the first words. And this is very intentional on his part. Popes don’t mess around with their, the first words they say as the Pope, they do not mess around with it. This is, you know, one thinks back to John Paul and be not afraid. You know, right in the time of where everything seemed to be dissolving after the Second Vatican Council, in the midst of the sexual revolution. And he comes out and says, be not afraid.
Well, this Pope came out and said, peace be with you all. And then let me read a little bit of what he said and see what you think of it.
Dearest brothers and sisters, this is the first greeting of the risen Christ, the good shepherd who laid down his life for the flock of God. I too would like this greeting of peace to enter your hearts, to reach your families, to all people, wherever they may be, to all nations, to the whole earth, Peace be with you.
I don’t think you could have a more perfect opening to a papacy than that. I don’t know if Pope Leo is going to be the greatest pope ever or if he’s going to be one of those popes where we go, let’s skip over that guy in class, you know, let’s just move real quick. I don’t know. You don’t know either. Nobody knows. But as far as a beginning, if you want to start, I think those four lines, those four sentences that he started with, you can’t beat it, you can’t do better than that. That’s as good as it possibly gets.
And then I heard the commentary, then the various news heads saying, well, think of the war in Iraq and the war in Gaza. Frankly, for a lot of talking heads, you know, the Congo doesn’t even exist. Or, you know, there’s two wars that we got to think about those two. But actually there are some horrible wars around the world. So they’re saying, well, the Pope is putting himself forward to say we need to stop all this.
And I think that that’s right, but that’s not even close to enough. That’s right, but that’s not even close to enough. This is a greeting of peace after the person of Jesus Christ. He, he’s specifically invoking and blessing the world with the peace of Christ. And the peace that we’re lacking in this world is only the tip of that, is war. The lack of peace in this world goes far, far deeper than that.
For whatever reason, modern life robs us of peace. So here you have this man who has now taken the name Leo, which harkens back to the church’s first effort to in a systematic way engage with the new things of modern life. And I think what he’s telling us right from the beginning is, look, this is the thing that you’re lacking in modern life.
And this is evangelical on his part. This is evangelizing the world, that the person of Jesus Christ can give you back what you’re robbed of. You know, our families are starved of peace, our roads are starved. Everything is starved of peace. Our own minds, our own souls are starved of peace. So I think that’s the great beauty of the opening of this papacy. You couldn’t do it any better, any better than that.
And then he added so many beautiful things that were very, very touching. And again, evangelical. That is what I mean by that is he used this opportunity of his introduction to the world. And it really is an introduction because everybody had their choice. And I think 11 people, well, no, it turned out to be 89 at least had him at the top of their card because that’s how many cardinals it took to elect.
But nobody was like, number one guy, it’s going to be this guy from Chicago, Robert Prevost. Nobody thought that. And so he’s using his moment of introduction to the world in an evangelical way to invoke the peace of Christ, to say, I in this office of St. Peter also pray for peace in the world.
And he’s making himself as the vicar of Christ, just repeating the resurrection words of Christ, but listen to how simple, but how perfect his words are. God loves us. God loves you all. And evil will not prevail. We are all in the hands of God.
I have to say, I, when I read the words translated into English, I started to feel a great sense of calm about this papacy, a great sense of, you know, you have that upset of, I don’t know who this is and it’s an American and that’s weird. And what does it mean that he picked this old-fashioned name, Leo and all that, and then you just hear his beautiful evangelical spirit in his first words and you.
At least I did. That was the first, first sense of, oh, we might be in for something really good here. We might be in for something really good. I don’t know. I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But as far as the start, I just wanted to say that before we got going on the show today, that’s a pretty darn good shot.
So start, I mean to say, so let’s continue to pray for Pope Leo XIV, getting used to saying that name. And if you want to call and talk about him or anything else, you have any question, we love talking about the Catholic faith.
Darren said to me to say, and I should have said this, he said, you know, a lot of people are interested in the Catholic faith right now because it’s all over the TV and it’s everywhere. If maybe you’re one of those people and you just, you have an introductory question to the Catholic faith, like, what is all this about? Why do you do all this? You’re welcome to call, too.
If the Pope started his papacy as an evangelist for the peace and love of God, then let’s assist him in that evangelization. And if you’re new, if you are new to this whole idea of the good news or the Catholic Church and all that, give us a call, 888-318-7884.