The American Pope, A Pope of the Americas

Habemus Papam, and he is an American. The first reaction of many to the news that Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, had been elected pope was slightly hesitant. This is not just because of the old wisdom that an American would never be pope, or at least not so long as the United States was a world superpower, which has now been overturned. Though knowing the cardinal-electors were mostly Francis appointees, and so unlikely to support a candidate totally at odds with the message of his papacy, many couldn’t help but worry for a moment about an acquiescence from Rome to the current tenor of American political and religious life.

We do not know much about Pope Leo XIV yet, but what we do allays those concerns. The sixty-nine-year-old Chicago native is an Augustinian who spent many years of his life as part of the Augustinian mission in Peru. His papal name does not seem to recall the excesses of Leo X and his pet elephant, but rather the social teaching of Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum. Indeed, Prevost arrived in Peru in the 1980s, in the decades following labor movements there, and worked amongst communities experiencing high unemployment and poverty. After a few years back in Chicago as pastor for vocations, he returned to Peru from 1988-1999 during the insurgency of the Shining Path, a communist party, and large-scale repression by the national armed forces, whose human rights abuses he vocally opposed. He later served as Bishop of Chiclayo, and as the National Registry of Identification and Civil Status for Peru posted on social media, “The pope is Peruvian!”—having received citizenship in 2015.

Pope Leo XIV might be the first American pope, but more importantly, he is a pope of the Americas—a pope who knows what it is to be a migrant, a citizen of more than one country, a person who builds bridges between languages and cultures. Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that he thanked Pope Francis while speaking of dialogue and encounter in his initial “Urbi et Orbi” address and has previously spoken of his experience of the synod as highlighting that a bishop “is not supposed to be a little prince sitting in his kingdom,” but is called to walk with and suffer with his people.

The pope to follow Francis was always going to be faced with a difficult task. Francis was charismatic, and as Paul Lakeland noted on this platform, remarkably human in a way that resonated with people far beyond the Church. Initial indications suggest that Pope Leo shares Francis’ desire for synodality, pastoral sensitivity and an emphasis on the Church’s social teaching, though he is perhaps more conservative on questions of gender and sexuality (this being mostly a pastoral question since Francis made no doctrinal changes on these issues either). But the new pope cannot cosplay as Francis, he must make his own way in the papacy. As an American and Peruvian pope, Leo XIV has an opportunity to present a face of the American Catholic Church that counters the politics of fear, nationalism and ever-more restricted borders. Ironically, the fear of the past, that American Catholics might be more loyal to Rome than to the nation, might serve us well in this moment, if we can look beyond the borders not only towards Rome but out, into the world we are called to love.

 

For more papal media resources, visit www.sacredheart.edu/pope. 

Postscript

Leo’s election has been received as a clear blow to those most unsympathetic to Francis. As E.J. Dionne put it in The Washington Post, Leo’s election signified that there is “no going back” from Francis, and this is a bitter pill to swallow for many American Catholics. Steve Bannon described the outcome as a worst-case scenario for MAGA Catholics, referring to him as the “Worst Pick Ever.” It seems unlikely that Bishop Robert Barron, Timothy Busch and other Americans who were stumping for a quiet papacy (or directly for Cardinal Péter Erdő) are happy with this choice, although Barron at least has put on a publicly positive face. Indeed, it is likely no coincidence that accusations of mishandling sexual abuse cases in Peru and the United States came to light in part through reporting from a website associated with the anti-Francis right in the United States. These accusations need to be reckoned with, although highlighting them without similarly pointing to Erdő’s (which had been noted by the Survivors Network for those Accused by Priests) indicates a weaponization of others’ suffering to advance a political agenda.

The election of a Pope from Chicago highlights the richness of Catholicism in the Midwest, a culture unto itself that sometimes gets short shrift in the American imagination compared to the Northeastern variety in places like Boston and New York. The rich ethnic tapestry of Chicago Catholicism—Black, German, Irish, Polish, Italian, Czech, Mexican—has produced some of the most interesting American Catholic literature (such as the novels of John R. Powers and James T. Farrell), liturgical music (GIA Publications and World Library Publications, now merged, are both located there) and kitsch (World’s Finest Chocolate, the oxymoronically named parochial school fundraising company, is also headquartered there). This author was nearly brought to tears imagining how priest, sociologist and romance novelist Fr. Andrew Greeley—lover of Chicago and Catholicism in equal measure—would have received this news. There was a certain poetry in Leo being elected during the very time when the funeral of David Tracy, University of Chicago theologian who occupied the endowed chair donated from Greeley’s literary revenues, was taking place.

The Midwest, in part on the strength of its German culture, has also historically been a hotbed of progressive Catholicism, particularly in its reception of Catholic social teaching. It is thus perhaps unsurprising that a new Pope Leo should come from that land of railroads, refineries and factories, now reduced in many places to the “rust belt” with its accompanying resentments that have helped fuel Trump’s rise. As we watch and resist the horrors to which such resentment and nostalgia can lead, perhaps we can take to heart Leo’s exhortation, “God loves us, God loves you all and evil will not prevail!”

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From the editors—

Daniel A. Rober is a systematic theologian and chair of the Department of Catholic Studies at Sacred Heart University.

Callie Tabor is an assistant professor in the Department of Catholic Studies at Sacred Heart University.

The Interregnum

Francis left us in as normal and natural a way as possible. He worked until a few hours before he died, and more importantly, he was so solidly there. Many people have commented in the last week about how his absence is so hurtful, not so much because he was so evidently lovable but more because we have suddenly lost one of the great prophetic voices of our time, pressing the Gospel into service to the wider human community. Yes, he was the pope, but he was also a person, an extraordinary ordinary human being committed to the cause of human flourishing. Who will take up the task?

This time around in the interregnum, the frenzy is notably worse than the previous occasions we have been without a pope. Unprecedently, public criticisms of Francis from the ranks of the cardinals, most if not all of them over 80, which excludes them from participating in the conclave, have received a great deal of press attention. Cardinalatian sour grapes? The theme of “unity” is offered as a hidden plea for a return to the good old church of the years before Vatican II. There is, of course, not a hope in hell that the cardinals will select someone so conservative that this will happen, and anyone publicly criticizing Francis right now has definitely been erased from consideration. This does not mean that the cardinals might not choose a pope with a very different agenda from that of Pope Francis.

The issue before the cardinals in the conclave is not really one of determining what the agenda of any particular candidate might be. Instead, they need to be looking for a pope who, when he steps onto that balcony in a few days’ time, will not just be a tremendous anticlimax. Francis had enormous charisma, and perhaps the lack of that in one or another candidate might tell against him. But more than charisma, he came across as a thoroughly human being, a real mensch. The challenge that Francis has given to the cardinals who will elect his successor, is to find someone who understands that the papacy is about the people, not about palaces or ceremonies or clerics of whatever shape or size. This is the genie that cannot be put back in the bottle.

If I am reading this aright, then the choice cannot be of someone who has spent his entire career in and around the Vatican, but needs to have extensive pastoral experience, meaning significant interaction with a love of ordinary Catholics in the pew. So, Tagle over Parolin, one would think. Or Pizzaballa over Turkson? Or almost anyone over Burke. It is unlikely, of course, that the cardinals could find a clone of Francis, or that they would elect him if they could. But they need to make a choice that will not break with the human connections that have marked the papacy of Francis. This is much more important than his age or which continent he comes from. The people of God are simply not ready to reinstitute the barrier that there was between the ordinary Catholic and the pope. I have no doubt that Francis’ immediate predecessors considered themselves to be at the service of the whole community of faith. But not since John XXIII has it felt like that. Paul VI was too timid and fearful despite his many fine qualities, while John Paul II was ebullient, verging on arrogant, a true muscular Christian. Perhaps Benedict was actually a transitional pope, cooling the fierceness of the previous papacy and setting the stage for a more peaceful presence.

We have no idea who will appear on the balcony when the decision is made. The two clues to who he is and how his papacy will unfold will lie in how he is dressed to greet the people, and how he speaks to them. Francis, you remember, eschewed the finery and settled for the plain white cassock. And Francis struck a bargain with the crowd: yes, I will bless you, but first you have to bless me. You are not for me, he might have been saying. No, I am here for you. And I hope we can walk away from the events on the balcony full of joy and hope.

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Paul Lakeland is emeritus professor of Catholic Studies at Fairfield University.

Pope Francis and the Journey Forward

I remember well the moment Jorge Bergoglio stepped out onto the Vatican balcony to make his first appearance as Pope Francis, the Room of Tears just moments behind him.

The day Francis was elected, I was on a business trip for the Catholic publishing house I was working for at the time. I had left behind in my Toronto office 10 profiles I had prepared of the men most frequently cited as papabile. I was vaguely miffed at the thought of all that work done for nothing.

I was quickly charmed, of course. The humility inherent in Francis’ request for prayers as he began his pontificate was touching. But, like millions of other Catholics, I suspect, I thought: Who is this man?

Jorge Bergoglio was definitely a surprise. And now, with Pope Francis gone, I think surprise is one of the descriptors people will use to explain his 12-year papacy.

Initially, it was the details that struck us: first Jesuit pope, first Latin American pontiff, first pope to take the name Francis. A pope who paid his own hotel bill and carried his own luggage, who canceled his own newspaper subscription after the conclave, calling the local newspaper kiosk himself after his election to stop delivery to his former residence.

His presence, his sense of fun and his self-effacing style appealed to many. Often, I heard people say that they weren’t Catholic but were very impressed by Francis’ leadership. Perhaps the most remarkable for me were the Evangelical friends who were so impressed by Francis that they began attending Mass at St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto because they felt they could—and should—be listening to Francis.

Soon the things we remarked on became more substantive. The release of Laudato si’ in 2015, for example, was a breath of fresh air, if you’ll excuse the pun. Its focus on the environment spoke to anyone willing to acknowledge that the climate is changing, to the detriment of all. Francis was able to put it into a faith context, explaining how ignoring the warning signs around us ran contrary to the Gospel, whether because of the destruction of creation or the willful ignoring of the cry of the poor. Not only was it an education for many Catholics, but it was also a conversation that shone new light on the church in a secular world as a credible authoritative voice on such matters.

Francis also furthered the church’s fraught relationship with women, appointing more women to important roles and opening the conversation on ordaining women to the diaconate. The latter, of course, is a conversation that has frustrated many as it has stalled, but it has at least begun—and that fact alone will bolster attempts to take it forward. It’s a dialogue that would have been simply unthinkable in earlier pontificates.

Then there was the striking comment made in 2013, just three months after becoming pope: “If a person is gay, and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge?” That comment was seen as cause for celebration by many who had felt ignored or insulted for so long. Again, a small step on a global scale, but a monumental one in terms of the life of the church.

And, of course, there was the Synod on Synodality, a decision that will resonate for some time in the church, offering people who’d never been listened to an opportunity to speak –and, just as importantly, the church a chance to really listen. The impact of the synod, and the direction in which it takes the church, will prompt a shift in culture from which we cannot turn back.

Surprises all, and all badly needed.

I am a hardened cynic. But I am also a romantic, in love with the best of the church. I would still like to think that the white smoke signaling the election of a new pope is miraculous rather than manipulated. My eye will be on the chimney, waiting to see in which direction the church heads after we have witnessed the scaled-back funeral rites for a man who thrived on a simple, humble approach to life.

I pray fervently that the legacy of Pope Francis will be that we continue to appreciate the need to embrace the other, to protect the planet and to think about what the church should really look like in the 21st century. Most of all, I pray that we continue to listen to each other, as individuals and as a church, in these challenging times.

Well done, good and faithful servant. You will be missed.

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Catherine Mulroney is a communications officer at the University of St. Michael's College in the University of Toronto.

The Church of the White Lotus

(SPOILER ALERT!)

Season three of the HBO Max acclaimed series, The White Lotus, explores affluent capitalism’s encounter with spirituality—and it contains important lessons for U.S. Catholicism during the Trump era.

Set in the fictional White Lotus hotel in Thailand, where rich U.S. American and European hotel guests interact with the local Asian culture, the resort boasts a world-renowned wellness program, which (in my view) resembles a commercialized spirituality centered on stress-reduction, life-planning, physical health and relaxation. Characters constantly contend with questions about purpose, spirituality, ethics, mortality and relationality. Sadly, their intransigent attachment to wealth and power is often at odds with the spirituality of non-attachment that the hotel seems to promote—resulting in many cringy (albeit humorous) scenes that, I observe, represent critiques of capitalism and commercialized spirituality.

This tension between capitalism and spirituality is best represented through the dichotomy between Victoria (who is at least honest about her attachment to wealth in her iconic monologue) and Chelsey (the innocent, optimistic yoga teacher who subscribes to a New Age spirituality and genuinely cares for people). Can you guess which one ends up dead?

Interestingly, the series teases potentially genuine spiritual transformations, considering that some characters experience a “burning bush” or a “falling off the horse” moment that sparks meaningful self-reflection. However, though some of the characters embrace this transformative journey (e.g., Laurie’s monologue, Saxon reading Chelsea’s book and Tim thinking about the drops of water), hotel guests are largely fighting an uphill battle due to their low tolerance for discomfort. In the end, some of the characters do return to old patterns (e.g., Rick and Piper) or end up sacrificing their values for money or power (e.g., Belinda and Gaitok).

The White Lotus hotel setting doesn’t help. In a self-defeating sleight of hand, the hotel staff encourages guests to unplug from their devices by trying to collect phones but then offers them a wide array of comforts through massages, pools and other (sometimes eroticized) wellness treatments. When guests genuinely attempt to connect with the local culture by venturing out of the hotel, they end up seeking refuge back at the White Lotus after experiencing snake bites, water gun fights, exposed elderly bodies at a pool, substance overconsumption, discomfort at a meditation center and sexual drama with locals. Moreover, space does not allow further exploration of the material and ideological colonization the hotel inflicts upon the local culture, which is significant.

Not surprisingly, sexuality operates as an instrument of power and unhealthy relationality—as seen, respectively, in the fight between Jaclyn and Laurie over Valentin (the sexy Russian wellness employee at the hotel) and the controversial threesome between Lochland, Saxon and Chloe (and Greg/Gary). Sex equals capital. And capital beats spirituality.

In the end, with some notable exceptions, many characters subscribed to a pseudo-spirituality that ultimately succumbed to (or was threatened by) their capitalistic tendencies, wealthy lifestyle and lack of connection to the “majority world.” We learn that, after facing a significant challenge, an enduring transformation can only unfold through genuine connections with the real world and a meaningful degree of uncomfortable non-attachment—two central traits of Jesus’ life and ministry.

Our U.S. Catholic Church leaders are currently experiencing a White Lotus moment. They are facing an oligarchic federal administration that is using its capital to consolidate its authority and (I argue) increase the wealth of its benefactors. U.S. Catholics are now faced with a choice between either (A) power, money and privilege or (B) integrity, struggle and persecution. Do we find refuge in our privilege and cozy up to the rich and powerful? Or do we go out into the streets, experience persecution and live up to the Gospel?

Some have made their choice by attending a “Catholics for Catholics” eucharistic adoration event at Mar-a-Lago—sacrificing immigrants, transgender people and other oppressed groups in their pro-life quest and opposition to “gender-ideology,” and looking the other way while the government pulls funding from USCCB’s social services. Others are speaking out and taking a stand, holding rallies and prayer services along the border, and reminding folks that the Gospels call us to serve the vulnerable and welcome the stranger. Most U.S. Catholic leaders are silent. Unfortunately, due to sensationalism in the capitalistic media and the bombardment of information on the internet, there is much doubt about where most of the Catholic laity stands.

I pray we find our way through these difficult times. I hope Catholic leaders can rediscover the Gospel and follow Jesus, who was rooted in the real lives of the local culture; who rejected money, power and prestige in favor of the poor; who was steadfast in the face of religious and political oppression; and who was persecuted for being the unexpected leader he was. I hope we renounce comfort in favor of justice. And I hope we can become the field hospital Pope Francis envisions and not an exclusive hotel with a pseudo-spirituality that is apathetic to the real world.

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Ish Ruiz is the assistant professor of Latinx & queer decolonial theology at Pacific School of Religion. 

Forming Ministers to Form Disciples: The Unmet Challenge of Lay Ecclesial Ministry

One of the perennial issues the Church faces is that of quality formation. Indeed, one of the pastoral issues that emerged through the Synod on Synodality was the significant but unmet formational needs of local churches. Today’s ecclesial landscape is characterized by the pervasive and persistent presence of lay ecclesial ministers and these ministers are crucial to forming ordinary Catholics for the fulfillment of their baptismal call as missionary disciples.

Problematically, the lay ecclesial ministers entrusted with formation are increasingly in need of better formation themselves. The percentage of lay ecclesial ministers—including directors of religious education, youth ministers, OCIA coordinators, campus ministers and others—earning a graduate degree in theology and ministry has decreased over the last 35 years. Although more lay ecclesial ministers earn graduate degrees today than in 1990, dioceses and graduate Catholic theology programs have been unable to keep up with the expansion of lay ecclesial ministry. There have not only been more lay ecclesial ministers than priests in active ministry for well over a decade, but there is also an increasing need for more lay and ordained ministers. This need is pervasive but especially acute in non-white parishes and shared parishes with multiple cultural communities with unmet pastoral needs. As a consequence of this shifting ministerial landscape, those entrusted with the formation of missionary disciples themselves often lack the formation and education to fulfill the demanding ministerial task before them.

This is not to blame lay ecclesial ministers who painstakingly labor to meet the spiritual and material needs of ordinary Catholics. Instead, it is a call to the broader U.S. Church and those of us in its institutional structures—dioceses and universities—to think more creatively and collaboratively about how we can form and equip lay ecclesial ministers for the ministries they are called to fulfill. Indeed, most lay ecclesial ministers are what Pope Francis calls the “saints next door” doing their pastoral work with insufficient resources, inadequate staffing and insufficient pay in positions that can be revoked at a whim. Still, lay ecclesial ministers take up the call to ministry placed before them by the Spirit and they deeply desire more formation so that they can better serve the people of God.

Embarrassingly, this problem only continues to worsen. Gone are the days when the Church could only rely on ordained priests and religious sisters for the effective formation of missionary disciples (if it ever really could). Simultaneously, the separation that has formed between some Catholic colleges and universities and their diocese is no longer tenable not only as higher education grapples with the realities of shrinking enrollments, but also as dioceses grapple with the increasing formation needs of its ministers. By working collaboratively to meet these formational needs, both the diocese and the Catholic university strengthen one another’s institutional stability and grow one another’s capacity to contribute to ecclesial mission.

To meet these unmet needs, dioceses can do several things:

1. Like each diocese provides for seminarians' education and formation, we as local churches might envision scholarships for the graduate education of lay ecclesial ministers. Dioceses need to financially support the formation of lay ecclesial ministry just as they fundraise for an annual seminarian fund and create endowments to pay for the formation and education of priests. Lay ecclesial ministers make modest salaries and often support large Catholic families. Consequently, paying for graduate education out of pocket is untenable.
2. Dioceses might leverage their human resource offices to create standards for lay ecclesial ministers’ salary. These should include a salary increase for earning a graduate degree in Catholic theology and ministry. Indeed, some dioceses already leverage their HR offices in this way for their Catholic K-12 grade teachers, but these same dioceses have yet to expand this practice to all lay ecclesial ministers.
3. Dioceses should actively encourage young people to pursue forms of lay ecclesial ministry—especially those from non-white and underserved Catholic communities. As a young man in the Catholic Church, I lost count of the times when parishioners approached me and asked if I had considered the priesthood. Without diminishing this grassroots support for cultivating ordained ministry, ordinary Catholics can encourage fellow missionary disciples to consider a vocation to lay ecclesial ministry. In university enrollment terms, this increases the “top of the funnel” for the Church, which requires not only more ordained ministers, but also more lay ecclesial ministers to meet the pastoral needs on the ground.

For their part, Catholic graduate theology programs can also do several things:

4. Make graduate education more affordable through scholarships. By working with local dioceses, creative financial models could be created to bring down the total cost of education.
5. Create stronger relationships between theology faculty and the local church. By strengthening relationships, priests and parishioners grow in trust of the faculty to whom they can recommend potential lay ecclesial ministers’ formation. Simultaneously, faculty gain a better sense of the realities of ministry, its demands and the types of formation that are necessary for lay ecclesial ministry.
6. Create and grow effective online learning models to make Catholic graduate theology accessible to lay ecclesial ministers who cannot leave their ministry for full-time formation.

For a synodal Church that requires well-formed ministers and disciples, this type of university-diocesan collaboration is crucial to ensure that those entrusted with the formation of missionary disciples are themselves well formed.

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Deepan Rajaratnam is the Director of Ministerial Formation at the School of Theology & Seminary at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, MN.

Jubilee, Migrants and Hope

The 2025 Jubilee Year theme is “hope does not disappoint.” Jubilee calls for forgiveness of debt, liberation and restitution echoing Jesus, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor; to proclaim freedom for prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,” (Luke 4:18).

The pandemic revealed that in disasters people show amazing acts of courage and generosity, especially to the most vulnerable. Sadly, it also demonstrated great selfishness. Today, governments around the world are choosing self-protection and a “preferential option” for the wealthy, responding to millionaire influencers, not the “cries of the poor.” In March, the European Commission streamlined the process for deportation of undocumented immigrants and created detention centers. This is in stark contrast to Pope Francis’ visit to Lampedusa to pray for migrants lost at sea in the “globalization of indifference.” He has frequently denounced this rise of “a myopic, extremist, resentful and aggressive nationalism.”

As an American by birth, adopted Canadian, religious sister and physician, my ministry has been in pediatrics and health policy ethics. The Trump cancellation of nearly $40 billion in funding for humanitarian aid and disaster relief has crippled the U.S. work in health care, food security, clean water and research through the National Institute of Health and Center for Disease Control, with life-threatening consequences for millions of migrants and refugees.

The U.S. Congress has even directed Medicare and Medicaid cuts for its own citizens of $880 billion from Medicaid and Medicare, which covers vulnerable populations, including poor children, pregnant women, people with disabilities and patients in nursing homes. More than half of Americans say someone in their family has used the programs.

America will become great again when it becomes the welcome of the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”

I was horrified by U.S. bishops’ support of Donald Trump as the “pro-life” candidate based on the single issue of “protecting unborn life” and ignoring other threats to life from poverty, war, violence and ecological disasters. Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), now recognizes deeply troubling “negative consequences for the most vulnerable, on human rights, economic justice and government serving the common good,” but it was predictable from Trump’s threatened vengeance.

Pope Francis has condemned Trump’s deportation policies and demonization of immigrants and directly refuted J.D. Vance’s theology of ordo amoris: “love your family, neighbor, community, fellow citizens and then prioritize the rest of the world,” using the Good Samaritan parable of Jesus. An arrogant Vance then charged the USCCB for opposing the immigration policies for self-interested financial reasons.

Cardinal Robert McElroy, the new and well-placed Archbishop of Washington and student of history and political science, has creditably attested to “technological secularism, practical materialism, philosophical pluralism” in American history.

Villanova University’s Massimo Faggioli has provided an insightful analysis of divisions in the American Church and its relationship to power structures and excessive patriotism in From God to Trump: Catholic Crisis and American Politics (2024).

In October 2024, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lowered annual immigration targets from 500,000 to 395,000 because of economic concerns. Disrespectful comments about annexing Canada as the 51st state have galvanized commitment to our shared “socialist health system” values.

In chaos and fear, it becomes easy to believe God has abandoned us. Workers in agencies such as Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities witness God’s love in their care for desperate refugees and immigrants. Religious sisters at the Mexican border even risk arrest for assisting illegal immigration. The Synod reminds us we journey together because relationships are based on love and respect for everyone’s inherent human dignity (CCC, 2423).

On the second Sunday in Lent, we heard, “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3:24). In 2011, Daniel Groody proposed a theology of migration based on scripture from Abraham, Ruth and Naomi to Jesus and the Holy Family as well as lived experience. Migration is a grace of crossing borders, exchange, reciprocity and resilience.

Government must be committed to “reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view of the common good,” (CCC 2425). The common good includes socioeconomic and environmental determinants of health. Promotion of fossil fuels and dismantling environmental protection mechanisms must be resisted. In this Jubilee year, we need prophets who call us to hear the cries of the poor and cries of the earth in our wounded world. Silence and inaction, in the face of evil, are complicity.

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Sister Nuala Kenny, emerita professor at Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., is a pediatrician and physician ethicist.

In Appreciation of Human Skills

So many of my students say they are “afraid to say the wrong thing.” I don’t think they are alone. We all feel a need to arrive at the correct answer quickly and efficiently. To begin by stating the obvious, we live in an exciting, strange and scary time to work in higher education. Academic life asserts the importance of inheriting the past and wagers on the future. Without entering pressing political or environmental conversations, colleges and universities nonetheless confront changes to student demographics and preparation, questions about the long-term value of a high-cost investment of time and resources, a societal shift in capacities for sustained attention and reading comprehension and the speed and scope of a technological revolution brought about by artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision making.

But colleges and universities are always a bit outside of the regular timeline. Thorough research and good scholarship move at slower paces than news alerts and social media. At Catholic schools, committed as they are to a fuller vision of education than merely job training, that slower pace also permits a gradual development of students as whole persons. When academic communities strive to engage hearts (like I believe we do as part of the Pioneer Journey at Sacred Heart University), we recognize student (and human!) identities that are far more complex and richly textured than a resume of skills and accomplishments. Indeed, I think a Catholic education promises not only training in a robust set of career-ready technical skills but also perennially necessary human skills: creativity, critical questioning, historical consciousness, self-expression and rhetorical prowess, moral sensitivity, intellectual curiosity and interior resilience.

But I think there are two human skills where the renewal of the Church and Catholic higher education intertwine: appreciating the beautiful and disagreeing well. Both appreciating the beautiful and disagreeing well require work, require rigor and require time. Both are also about learning what it means for humans to seek delight rather than distraction when encountering, confronting and engaging differences.

Permit the indulgence of an academician’s aside. The Christian understanding of God as triune suggests for us what would be boringly called a metaphysics of diversity. That is, any discussion of “diversity” logically presumes more fundamental unity. Diversity describes differences within a shared category. The diversity of apples in the produce department signals variations on the fruit theme: Gala, Macintosh, Red Delicious, Granny Smith. But if an absent-minded professor forgets their iPhone in the pile of Honeycrisps, we will notice either the difference between fruit and smartphone or a different category for diversity altogether, asking now about how many objects can be rightfully called an “apple.”

Christian thought should consider this kind of diversity-in-unity to be a good thing. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are “three persons in one God.” Somehow, in God, distinctions can express oneness. God’s way of being God happens as diversity-in-unity. Those are big and fancy words and complicated concepts. St. Patrick famously summarized the Trinity in the image of a three-leaf clover. But I think the Trinity offers an image for making sense of the confounding reality where our differences not only can be bridged, overcome and unified through procedures and processes but where differences offer a source of delight, of pleasure, of wonder, of holiness.

How could an idea as confusing as the Trinity be a model for delighting in differences of opinion or different kinds of beauty? The answer is love. For many theologians of the tradition writing in Latin, the verb for the kind of love expressed between God the Father and God the Son is condillectum, mutual love that delights. This is the same Latin word for love that forms the title of Pope Francis’ recent encyclical on the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ, Dilexit Nos. Such love that delights in differences-in-unity shines forth God’s glory, and I happen to believe that’s the same glory we encounter through the beauty of the world God has made by loving it into being. And while some of the beauty we seek seems only to confirm our worldly pleasures and interests, there are other graced moments when creation’s innumerable differences shimmer with the very light of their Creator. Sure, the Trinity is a mystery. To quote one of my favorite theologians, Hans Urs von Balthasar, “If you comprehend it, it is not God.” But an experience of the beauty of difference offers us a glimpse and clue as to what it might be like to encounter the God who reveals Godself in acts of love.

Recalling the image of the Trinity might nudge higher education toward a thicker description of delight as a human skill. We work in an era of polarization and totalization, an era of metrics, speed and anxiety, an era of ecological crisis and threats of plague. Can we still remember how to value delight in our disagreements about the good? Can we still trust that it is good to make inefficient art? Training in how to take time for delight may be the human skill we need most.

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Charles A. Gillespie is an assistant professor in the department of Catholic Studies and director of Pioneer Journey at Sacred Heart University.

Two Churches

I recently had the privilege of hearing Cardinal Seán O’Malley deliver the Bergoglio Lecture here at Sacred Heart University. The cardinal spoke about Pope Francis’ “hybrid” Jesuit and Franciscan spirituality. This spirituality, the cardinal explained, is illustrated in the encyclicals Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti, in which Francis calls for us to care for our common home and to love our neighbor as ourselves. In Fratelli Tutti, Francis uses the parable of the Good Samaritan to underscore who our neighbor is and what our responsibility is. The pope explains that the parable tells us, “we were created for a fulfillment that can only be found in love.”

Another part of the cardinal’s talk that struck me was his explanation of Pope Francis’ view of morality. He said the pope, “views morality in the context of an encounter with Christ that is ‘triggered by mercy.’” Quoting Francis, O’Malley stated that, “the privileged locus of that encounter is the caress of Jesus Christ on our sins.” A caress—what a gesture of love. Before the cardinal’s visit, I had written a brief reflection on Fiducia Supplicans, the papal document on pastoral blessings for same-sex couples and those in irregular relationships. In my reflection, I mentioned my students, almost all of whom have a family member or a friend who is LGBTQ+, and many of whose parents are divorced and remarried. These students, many of whom identify themselves as disaffiliated from the Church, responded positively to Fiducia Supplicans and expressed openness to, and a feeling of, “being more welcomed by the Church” because of what the document said.

A reader of my reflection wrote a response to my column. He was angry about what I had written and argued that a problem with the Church today is that it refuses to stand strong against sin and presents a weakened morality to Catholics. Two examples of sin that the writer gave were homosexual relationships and birth control. He was vehement in his outrage towards the Church’s stand on blessings for same-sex couples. Questioning the Church’s position, he asked somewhat sarcastically, “Did Christ get it wrong or is the Church getting it wrong by not following the teachings of Christ?” He argued that the Church needs to stand strong against sin and enforce the teachings of Christ.

A few days following the cardinal’s lecture, and after I received this response to my reflection on Fiducia Supplicans, Lent began and I traveled to Sicily. There, I visited the many hundreds of churches, cathedrals and basilicas that over centuries have stood emblazoned in architecture and art that integrates the Byzantine, Roman and Arabic cultures that typify Sicily and Sicilian people. As one guide put it, “Sicily is a very inclusive culture and the people are very welcoming.” Immersed in all this art, I was overwhelmed and awestruck by the beauty that revealed, over and over again, faith in a Christ whose incarnation, crucifixion, death and resurrection spoke only of love. 

On Ash Wednesday, the Vatican reported that the pope remained in stable but guarded condition and that he made his usual call to the parish in Gaza. His homily for Ash Wednesday Mass, which was read by Cardinal De Donatis, said that Ash Wednesday asks us “to look within ourselves.” In a small church in Sicily on Ash Wednesday, I joined the other people there as we began a Lenten journey of reflection, prayer and repentance. First, I reflected on the words of the writer who said the Church must stand strong against sin.  And then I reflected on what the pope had written about morality being “triggered by Christ’s mercy” and about how the locus of that encounter is “Jesus Christ’s caress on our sins.” I reflected on all the beauty revealing Jesus Christ in the churches, and I felt sure that this Church of love, mercy and beauty is Christ’s Church, not the other one.

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Michelle Loris is the director of Center for Catholic Studies and associate dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Sacred Heart University.

As the End Plays Out – or Not Yet

These may well be the twilight weeks or months of the Bergoglio papacy. Hopefully, he will rally from his current physical deterioration, but it is unlikely, and the end of a papal era may be on the horizon.

So, what is in store for us?

We need Francis, but we also need to prepare for his successor. When he dies, the rites and rituals—the elaborate pontifical obsequies, kick into gear, well greased as they are by centuries of use.

After determining that the pope is in fact dead and not feigning—traditionally his forehead is tapped by a silver hammer and his name called to ensure the authorities that they are, in fact, dealing with a corpse (a custom that appears to have fallen into disuse)—a white veil is then placed over his face, his living quarters are sealed, his Fisherman’s Ring is crushed, several days of official mourning are mounted, his body is placed in a coffin (Francis has opted for one coffin instead of the traditional three) and in the coffin are placed a few items of his pontificate nestled beside him including a canister with a rogito. Then, finally, he is laid to rest in his beloved Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. All these proceedings are presided over by a liturgical majordomo in concert with one of the two key figures during the interregnum, the Cardinal Camerlengo or Chamberlain, currently the Dublin-born American prelate, Kevin Farrell.

The other key figure during the interregnum is the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Giovanni Batista Re, a sprightly 91 only recently reconfirmed in his office by Francis. The Dean will summon all the cardinals to Rome to begin the work of electing the new Successor of Peter.

While this high sacral drama is played out before the world—it is, after all, theater without equal—the expectations, hopes, fears and anxieties of the Catholic community struggle to be heard, to be addressed, and it is a wise hierarchy that would pay them heed.

The Francis legacy cannot be compromised; too much is at stake to have a restorationist pope dismantle the ecclesial vision and pastoral timbre of the Argentine’s pontificate. We need a Francis II, not a John Paul III or Benedict XVII.

The cardinal electors—many of whom have been created by Francis—will discern over a period of concentrated time the qualities most needed in the next pope and what our hyper-turbulent world needs in the new Bishop of Rome. For sure: they will fret about continuity. For some the allure of the Ratzinger papacy will be compelling; for others a new style of leadership is imperative, and for many the special gifts that Francis bequeathed the church must be nurtured and allowed to flourish.

The Francis papacy is not without its flaws, but its strengths are formidable.

He is the pope of many firsts: he is the first Jesuit pope; the first pope to take the name Francis; the first in centuries to live outside the Apostolic Palace, opting instead for the Casa Santa Marta, an apartment complex for visiting clerics and guests; the first to aggressively promote women through appointments to the highest offices of Vatican governance.

To the world—Catholic and otherwise—he is the pope of mercy, a universal pastor who prizes compassion over the law, personal flexibility over administrative rigidity, the enfleshed individual over abstract reasoning.

He has instructed bishops to see their pastorship as something other than mere management; he has exhorted theologians to get onto the streets, to be pioneers in effecting a cultural revolution. And he does these things because he is committed to an enlivening theological enterprise rooted in the reality of the people, grounded in experience and not ideology, a theology that promotes a way of life open to an endlessly unfolding culture of dialogue.

As with his Jesuit companions, he is poised to celebrate all human endeavors that disclose the majesty of God, and therefore all ministry is Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam. And that ministry includes care for our common home, the protection of migrants and the dismantling or at least serious mitigating of the geo-economic policies that perpetuate inequity.

He has made Rome, once the center of an ecclesiastical empire, a treasured seat on the periphery, a sanctuary for a healthy universalism over a debilitating globalization, a soft power that can build bridges, a beacon of human and spiritual harmony in a sea of dark turmoil.

And he can do this—he has done this—because of the authenticity of his moral voice. This is the leader who chose to fly to Lampedusa on his first Vatican outing to stand in solidarity with the homeless and abandoned.

If his successor can do likewise, then the Bergoglio signature will be entrenched.

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Michael W. Higgins’ new book is The Jesuit Disruptor: a personal portrait of Pope Francis. He is Distinguished Professor of Catholic Thought Emeritus of Sacred Heart University.

 

Pope Francis’ Hospitalization

“I’m still alive, although some people wanted me dead.”
— Pope Francis, when asked “How are you?” after abdominal surgery in 2021

The last two weeks on the Vatican news beat have been a nightmare. The Vatican has been relatively forthcoming in its statements—seemingly at the direct request of the pope—while Francis’ doctors held a press conference last Friday (a week into his hospitalization) that was refreshingly frank about his condition.

As of this writing (Wednesday, Feb. 26), his condition remains critical, though the past few days have shown steady improvement. We are expecting the results of Francis’ CT scan tonight, which should provide further details. But recovery is increasingly possible, even if the pope will continue to face some chronic health issues, like the bronchitis he often deals with in the winter.

The problem is not the doctors or even the Vatican’s communications team. The problem is the wild speculation—whether well-intended or malicious—that has clouded the picture so thoroughly that journalists now spend most of our energy fact-checking or counteracting it.

Some of this speculation, of course, comes from a place of genuine concern for the pope and a desire to rally as many prayers for him as possible. I believe this was the motivation behind Cardinal Dolan’s ill-advised comment during a prayer for the pope, that Francis is “probably close to death”—something his doctors have not said and have, in fact, explicitly denied. Similarly, the Gemelli Hospital chaplain’s remark that “now is the hour of hope against all hope” may have been intended to encourage prayers but instead fueled greater alarm.

Even within the Vatican, there was concern that launching a nightly rosary for the pope’s health—just as was done in the final days of John Paul II—might inadvertently signal that Francis’ condition was more dire than it actually is. That concern appears to have been well-founded. Striking the right balance in these moments is difficult, and I’d like to believe that most people speaking about the pope right now have good intentions. But I would urge them to seek out reliable sources, follow the twice-daily updates from the Vatican and approach anything that seems sensational with caution.

This same caution is even more essential when encountering deliberately misleading or outright fake news. Already this week, I’ve seen an Italian journalist fooled by an obviously AI-generated “photo” of the pope in bed. I’ve heard of Catholics in Kenya and China sharing the same photoshopped letter on Vatican letterhead falsely claiming the pope has died. And nearly every day, anonymous reports circulate online insisting that the pope is already dead.

Why do people do this? Some are simply chasing clicks for ad revenue, trying to grow their social media reach, or seeking the dopamine hit of viral engagement. Others have more ideological motives, using Francis’ illness as an opportunity to shape the narrative in their favor. This is most evident in projects like the College of Cardinals Report, compiled by two right-wing journalists as a resource for cardinals in the next conclave. The site ranks papabile based on their perceived orthodoxy on hot-button issues, even commenting on whether they sufficiently opposed COVID-19 shutdowns and vaccinations.

The reality is that greater skepticism and media literacy are more necessary than ever, especially as AI-generated content spreads while content moderation and fact-checking are stripped from major platforms. For well-intentioned Catholics awaiting news about Pope Francis—and potentially a future conclave—this discernment will be all the more essential.

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Colleen Dulle is a writer and producer at America Media, where she hosts the weekly news podcast “Inside the Vatican.” Her forthcoming book on grappling with faith while covering the Vatican will be published by Penguin Random House in spring 2025.