May 9th, 2025
I got a text yesterday from our daughter-in-law in Texas. at 12:40 PM CDT.
She wrote, “Great news! America is gonna make the Catholic Church great again!”
I momentarily felt queasy. I replied, “Seriously?”
She said, “Depending on your definition of great, but we got an American pope for the first time.”
I had a brief panic attack. I thought to myself, “Sweet Jesus, did they elect Cardinal Raymond Burke?!”
I took a deep breath and wrote to my daughter-in-law, “Who?”
Her answer: “Robert Francis Prevost.”
That name meant absolutely nothing to me. So, I replied,
“I will have to look him up.”
My daughter-in-law wrote back that she had heard that he was a progressive.
My response was, “That will piss off MAGA.”
Apparently, it did.
I, like millions of other people, did look up the biography of Leo XIV. My conclusion is that he is very Catholic, and that can mean all sorts of things.
I was born right at the end of the papacy of Pius XII. He was pope during WWII, and his legacy is, well, mixed. Since then, the Church has had leaders who have been pretty decent: John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I (who only made a cameo appearance), John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. All of these popes shepherded an unruly flock of believers, and they inspired many of them. They also infuriated a substantial minority of Catholics. They were world leaders who tried to promote peace and justice. They sometimes succeeded, like when John Paul II acted as a catalyst for change during the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Sometimes, they failed, like with the Church’s sexual abuse scandal. They tried to teach eternal truths in a world that is constantly changing, while acting as a symbol of unity for millions upon millions of coreligionists. How can any person do all of that?
Pope Leo XIV will surprise us. That’s what these popes do. John XXIII was elected as a caretaker pope, and he initiated Vatican II, which changed both the Catholic Church and the world at large. John Paul II was instrumental in taking apart Soviet communism. Francis placed care for our planet front and center as a moral imperative. These popes also surprised us with what they did not do. They never agreed to allow priests to marry. We still don’t have women deacons, much less women serving as priests. Reading Pope Leo’s past for hints about his future is probably a fruitless effort. Once these guys get elected, all bets are off.
There are perhaps 1.4 billion Catholics in the world. Any number that large means that the population will be diverse. I have often met Protestants, mainly Evangelicals, who are convinced that the Roman Catholic Church is this monolithic organization that demands absolute obedience from its adherents. I find that notion to be laughable. Anybody who has ever attended a parish council meeting of a Catholic church will see that it is all barely controlled chaos. Take the population of a typical parish (if there is such a thing) and make it exponentially larger, and it becomes astounding that so many people can be unified at all. The genius of the Church, when it actually does its job, is the ability to combine diversity with unity. I mean “unity”, not “uniformity”. The fact that Catholics can do anything together is a miracle.
Pope Leo in his first address to the public as pontiff emphasized unity. Good luck with that. It is a worthy goal, but one that is probably beyond the capabilities of mere humans. The Church is often a mess. There is no doubt about that. I have to remember that it is, and has always been, a work in progress. Leo will take the next step in the process.
God bless him. God bless us all.
Frank is Emptiness 