I was so chuffed to meet our new pope—and that he chose the name Leo. After all, that was my name in religious life. (Who says the pope doesn’t consult with me first on stuff?)
A Catholic friend of mine also has two small sons called Francis and Leo.
Whenever little Francis did something disgraceful that was shared on Facebook, his dad had to preface it with the hashtag #NotThatFrancis. We now may be facing years of #NotThatLeo.
More seriously, I’ve always had a soft spot for both Leo the Great and Leo XIII.
Leo the Great faced down Attila the Hun at the gates of Rome and saved it from immediate sacking. Rome was sacked later, of course, but at least he tried.
He also wrote beautiful homilies on the incarnation of Jesus, especially at Christmas time. They turn up in the Divine Office around Christmas and are always soul-stirring.
Leo XIII drank lots of cocaine-infused wine and wrote the encyclical Rerum Novarum, which gave the church its first real modern industrial relations platform.
Most people know the second thing about him, but not the first. In fact, he liked Vin Mariani—the wine in question—so much that he was the advertising face of it. Google it if you don’t believe me.
So now the fun begins in earnest. What kind of a Pope is Leo XIV? We’re all going to find out at the same rate.
The 24-hour global media cycle is like a scouring brush. There is no longer any chance of anyone senior in the church getting away with anything in their past without it being discovered and reported on.
So it’s important our new pope can stand up to this scrutiny.
The US Catholic media outlet The Pillar—whose investigative journalism is beyond thorough —have turned up some unsavoury baggage about the former Bishop Robert not acting on some complaints of clergy abuse in Peru.
This has since been confirmed by other media outlets. Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) apparently also complained in March this year to Cardinal Parolin about Prevost’s record in Peru.
This is more than just overdue library books, unpaid parking tickets, and entirely optional cocaine-infused wine habits. We were hoping for a pope with a clean slate. Do we have one?
On the plus side: the fact that he’s an Augustinian gives me hope. St Augustine’s theological writings form part of the church’s very backbone.
It’s not for nothing that he’s one of the four doctors of the church depicted as holding up the throne of St Peter in the basilica in Rome. The other three are Saints Athanasius, Ambrose, and John Chrysostom.
Pope Benedict XVI of happy memory loved St Augustine’s writings and said that he felt very close to him, especially in his old age.
I hope his religious community’s founder has also soaked into Pope Leo XIV’s bones.
What is the new pope’s agenda? I don’t know.
Does he need one? Maybe. It’s good that he is fluent in Italian, Spanish, and English.
These are the three important languages in the Vatican. You need fluent Italian because that’s the local language and most people working there speak it.
You need Spanish because that’s the first language of an increasingly huge part of the Catholic population, especially in Central and South America.
And you need English because, whether you like it or not, that’s the new international language. It’s also where a lot of really good contemporary theology has been written and published.
This was something Pope Francis missed out on, and I think it’s why he always seemed to be writing about a different church from the one I lived in.
I was also pleased to hope that this pope, while American, was not a McCarrick appointment.
There were too many of the late Mr McCarrick’s proteges voting in the conclave. The sooner his legacy dies out, the better for the church in North America.
At the age of barely 70, we might be able to count on a pontificate of 10-15 years with Pope Leo, so I suggest we get to know him and love him—and maybe even like him.
There is a lot to be grateful for, and I hope that he can ride that wave of initial goodwill to great things for us.
The first thing might be for him to open up about the case that’s pending against him in Peru.
If he can deal with this honestly, it would go a long way to restoring trust in the church both in Peru and globally.