The last months for American Catholics have been a story about the rise of the Catholic right. In January, a parade of right -wing Catholic power, which became Washington’s rebound by President Trump. Only a week later came the hospitalization and decline of Pope Francis, who often seemed to be alone to offer a different vision of global Christian influence.
Vice President JD Vance, Catholic in the new conservative style, was one of the people who saw Pope Francis Vivo, a letter meeting between representatives of two contrast visions for Catholic values in the world.
Then came the impressive arrival on Thursday of a new Pope: an American, born in Chicago, and a prelate whose priorities for the church seemed to place it in Francisco’s mill. He is potentially another compensatory voice against the recent tension of Catholics on the right of the country.
The elevation of Robert Francis Prevost, known by some as Bob, to the throne of San Pedro’s electrified Catholics in his country of origin on Thursday afternoon. But the first American Pope arrives at the same time or an extraordinary complexity and tension in the Church in the United States.
Now, the new Pope, Leo XIV, faces the task not only to guide the 1,400 million Catholics in the world, but to unify an American fractured church where the hierarchy of the Church, ordinary Catholics, an influential probabilities of Ecostyston Ecoston.
The Pope assumes the role in a moment of extraordinary muscle and visibility for a certain son of Catholicism in American public life. More than a third of President Trump’s cabinet members are Catholics. So are two thirds of the Supreme Court, which has issued a remarkable series of decisions that express an emphatic vision of religious freedom, or favorable to Christian interests.
The second Catholic president in the history of the nation, Joseph R. Biden Jr., left office just a few months ago.
The emergence of a new right -wing Catholicism in Trump’s Washington contrasts with a broader decrease in the presence of the Church in American life. The waves of Catholics left the church after the revelations of sexual abuse generalized by the clergy, and the American culture in general has become more secular. Today, about 20 percent of Americans describe themselves as Catholics, a participation that has remained stable during the last decade, according to the Pew Research Center.
Mr. Vance, who became faith in 2019, published his wishes in the new online pontiff on Thursday afternoon. “Congritions to Leo XIV, the first American Pope, in his choice!” Hey wrote. “I am sure that millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for their successful work leading the Church. God bless it!”
Mr. Trump, who
Pope Francis faced Mr. Trump, more recently and avidly on immigration. In February, only a few months before he died, the Pope strongly criticized Trump’s mass deportation policy in an open letter to US bishops, qualifying him as a violation of the “dignity of many men and women, and whole families.” The letter was also seen as an indirect message for other administration members, including Mr. Vance, who used a Catholic theological concept to defend the repression of administration against immigrants.
Pope Leo is likely to share the priorities of Pope Francis in a variety of social issues. An X account that seemed to belong to the new Pope published a message in April critical of the “illegal deportation” of the Trump or Kilmar Abrego García administration, the man deported by mistake to El Salvador in March. The same account has also shared several critical articles by Mr. Vance.
“This Pope will clearly continue to speak of justice, for peace, refugees, the poor and the hungry,” said Reverend Thomas J. Reese, a Vatican analyst for a long time. “If this puts it in trouble with Trump’s White House, so it is.”
On Thursday night, some right -wing Catholic media were beginning to express the skepticism of Pope Leo’s orthodoxy. The Lifesitenews website published “5 worrying things you need to know about Leo XIV”, written by its chief editor. The list included the criticisms of the new Pope about the immigration policies of Mr. Trump.
Even so, the Catholic doctrine does not mapping perfectly in the US political disputes, and it is not clear if Pope Leo will have the appetite of his predecessor for combat. Inserting directly into the American political landscape could be more thorn for an American.
For some American Catholics, their selection was a sign that the Church here is an entertaining maturity. The country approaches its 250 birthday next year, but the Catholic Church claims an age of approximately 1,750 years.
The United States was still considered a missionary territory for the Catholic Church as recently as the early twentieth century, said Kim Daniels, director of the initiative on Catholic social thinking and public life at the University of Georgetown. “A Pope of the United States is, in a way, a sign of our arrival in global Catholicism,” he wrote in an email, calling his choice “an extraordinary gift” to the life of the American Church.
The American Church is now the largest fourth in the world, behind those in Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines. The United States is the first of them to give birth to a Pope.
For leaders of Catholic institutions and mines throughout the country, the selection was a moment of optimism for their church and their country.
“It’s wonderful news, it is surprising,” said Curtis Martin, founder of the American Focus Catholic Ministry, about the selection of an American Pope. The name also feels auspicious: Mr. Martin named one of his children after Pope Leo XIII of the beginning of the century, who was born in Italy.
Mr. Martin said he saw Pope Francis as a leader who stood out to listen, especially for those who did not understand the Church or agreed with the ISS teachings. He hopes that Pope Leo can take the next step, listen, but also speak more directly about the church’s teachings.
“What has happened so far is the opportunity to enter a real dialogue,” Martin said. “The Church may never list better than with Pope Francis, but now it is an opportunity to speak.”
He added: “I think Pope Leo could lead that.”
Reverend Robert A. Dowd, president of the University of Notre Dame, said he hoped that Leo’s elections could be “a moment of union” for the American Church.
“He is an American with a global perspective, but he is an American,” said Father Dowd. “He understands, I think, the state of the church here in the United States.”
As significant as the time was felt for many American Catholics, the new American Pope has spent much of his adult life abroad, in Peru and Italy. Pope Francis, who was born in Argentina, never returned to his own country as Pope, and visited the United States only once in his 12 -year -old papacy.
The leaders of the American Church, who are generally more conservative than much of the global church, expressed their welcome and emphasized that the new Pope now belongs to the world.
“Certainly, we rejoice that a child of this nation has chosen for the cardinals, but we recognize that it now belongs to all Catholics and all people of good will,” Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the Conference of the Conference of the Conference of the intention. “His words legalizing peace, unity and missionary activity already indicate a path to follow.”
Alan Blinder Contributed reports.
