The LuLac Edition #5, 320, May 9th, 2025

 

AN AMERICAN

POPE!!!!

MY 8th

 

All week long during the conclave I knew that the selection of the new Pope was going to come down to two men. One from the Italian traditionalists or one from the United States. My reasoning was:

1.          There was a large group of new Cardinals appointed by Francis who were inexperienced and little known.

2.          The conclave had to walk a middle line in its selection. It couldn’t pick a Pope as progressive as Francis and not as doctrinaire as Bendict.

3.          A Pope from Asia or Africa might have been a nod to the growing rate of Catholicism in those countries but with the Vatican in the center of uncertain international issues, a new Pope had to be a man of many countries, not just one.

4.          It wasn’t until the Reagan administration that diplomatic relations were begun with the Holy See. Even in the time when Pius 12^th serve during World War II, that status wasn’t awarded.

Robert Francis Provost was the logical choice. 

Growing up I was told there would never be an American Pope. The reason for that was that we are a young country as opposed to Europe. A little-known fact is that the United States was a mission. It wasn’t until 1902 when the Catholic church in America was taken in as a true partner standing on its own with the Holy See. A big reason for that was the immigrant people who started their own churches for their ethnicities. It started with the Irish and then cascaded in the latter 19^th century with Italians, Europeans, Latins and Puerto Ricans.

The challenge to the new Pope Leo is he will have to use his considerable skills represent the Vatican as a mediator for peace in this troubled world. Further more this Pope has to e an important advocate against hate speech and anti semitic actions.

He has his work cut out for himself.  Robert Francis Prevost, a Chicago native, was selected by the papal conclave on May 8 after 2 days, elected by the College of Cardinals to succeed Pope Francis, who died April 21 at the age of 88.

Prevost, 69, has taken the name Leo XIV.

Prevost's selection was a surprise to some, as he was not among some of the top contenders expected to succeed the progressive, popular Pope Francis. He was ordained in 1981 as a member of the Order of Saint Augustine.

He holds a bachelor's degree from Villanova University, outside Philadelphia, and a master's in divinity from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He also holds a doctorate in canon law.

In a 2023 interview with the Vatican's news outlet, Prevost emphasized evangelization over doctrine.

"We are often preoccupied with teaching doctrine ... but we risk forgetting that our first task is to teach what it means to know Jesus Christ," he said.

"Our work is to enlarge the tent and to let everyone know they are welcome inside the church," Prevost said in a 2023 news conference at the Vatican.

Popes sometimes choose the name of a recent predecessor out of respect or to indicate a desire to continue in their footsteps, the Vatican said. Others pick a name that isn't linked to any recent predecessors in order to show their desire to innovate.

 The choice often reflects attributes they hope to embody in their papacy.

The name a new pope chooses will "indicate a certain spirit and direction and vision of the new pope," said Dennis Doyle, a theologian and professor emeritus of religious studies at the University of Dayton.

Pope Francis, for example, was the first pope in history to take that name, a nod to St. Francis of Assisi.

The significance of the name Leo is also important. Leo the 13^th was head of the Catholic Church from February 1878 until his death in July 1903. He had the fourth-longest reign of any pope, behind those of Peter the Apostle, Pius IX (his immediate predecessor) and John Paul II.

He is well known for his intellectualism and his attempts to define the position of the Catholic Church with regard to modern thinking. In his famous 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum, Pope Leo outlined the rights of workers to a fair wage, safe working conditions, and the formation of trade unions, while affirming the rights to property and free enterprise, opposing both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism. With that encyclical, he became popularly titled as the "Social Pope" and the "Pope of the Workers", also having created the foundations for modern thinking in the social doctrines of the Catholic Church, influencing the thoughts of his successors. He influenced the Mariology of the Catholic Church and promoted both the rosary and the scapular.

Leo XIII is particularly remembered for his belief that pastoral activity in political sociology was also a vital mission of the church as a vehicle of social justice and maintaining the rights and dignities of the human person. Leo XIII issued a record of eleven papal encyclicals on the rosary, earning him the title of the "Rosary Pope". In addition, he approved two new Marian scapulars. He was the first pope never to have held any control over the Papal States, which had been dissolved by 1870, since Stephen II in the 8th century. Similarly, many of his policies were oriented towards mitigating the loss of the Papal States in an attempt to overcome the loss of temporal power but nonetheless continuing the Roman Question. After his death in 1903, he was buried in the Vatican Grottoes before his remains were later transferred in 1924 to the Basilica of Saint John Lateran. He was the last Pope to use the name Leo until yesterday with the  election of Leo XIV in 2025.

As a lifelong Catholic and fourth degree member of the Knights of Columbus I am thrilled beyond words. As a youngster I was told there would never be a Pope from North America. Like many “rules” that were wedded into stone in my precious lifetime, I will always be grateful for being here to see the 8th Pope of my lifetime be an American.

God, indeed, in this instance has truly blessed America!