Leo XIV: Solomonic Decision in the Vatican
The hierarchy of the Catholic Church, represented by 133 cardinals and who lived through the turbulent papacy of Francis , who faced strong resistance to his ideas of reform to harmonize the religion of 1.4 billion people with a world culturally at odds with each other, did not turn its back on his legacy, as a powerful current of opinion in the Vatican proposed , but neither did it give carte blanche to his successor to run completely on its rails. In Robert Francis Prevost , elected yesterday in the Conclave of Cardinals, they opted for a figure who would not alienate either extreme . Leo XIV, as he asked to be called, is considered a moderate who, nevertheless, has a reformist sensibility.
Prevost, the first American cardinal to be elected pope, was not on the short list of favorites reflected in the worldwide betting odds, where the one leading the odds was Pietro Parolin , the Vatican secretary of state, the number two in the Catholic Church who scored a huge point by getting Presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky to resolve their conflict and reach a political reconciliation during Francis’ funeral. The bettors were looking for an experienced foreign minister, and after him, for the two cardinals who best represented Francis’ progressive thinking, the Filipino Luis Antonio Tagle and the Italian Matteo Zuppi .
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The details of the lobbying behind Vatican walls that brought Prevost to the chair of Peter are still unknown, but everything points to an option for unity and internal conciliation at the head of the Catholic Church . The 88 cardinals appointed by Francis with the ability to elect, including 24 representing countries that had never had a voice in a Conclave, such as Haiti and Myanmar, did not act as a bloc to achieve the two-thirds of the vote necessary to anoint a new pope, but neither is there an intramural clash that would be difficult to resolve. Prevost became Leo XIV in four votes, the same number of votes it took Joseph Ratzinger to emerge from the Sistine Chapel as Benedict XVI , and one less than Jorge Bergoglio required to emerge as Francis.
“Popular among conservatives and progressives alike, in the Conclave where few people knew each other, he had worldwide visibility,” the Rome-based daily La Repubblica underlined in a profile of the new Pope. Perhaps, as Italy’s leading newspaper suggested, will Prevost follow in his footsteps as a pope who believed the Church’s duties also included pastoral activity in the political sphere? Leo XIII, like Francis much later, wrote encyclicals that sought to avoid the isolation of the Holy See and reconnect with the world in order to regain a place of influence.
Prevost, who has followed the spirit of renewal and dialogue of the Second Vatican Council , has been close to Francis's thinking and pastoral style , having worked for more than 20 years in Peru—where he also holds nationality—bringing him to the Vatican two years ago to preside over the Pontifical Commission for Latin America . "He has a centrist and pragmatic profile, capable of mediating between the different souls of Catholic America," added La Repubblica. "He has a deep sensitivity to social and cultural issues, and could continue a pontificate oriented toward dialogue."
Leo XIV was elected pope in a geopolitical environment radically different from the one Bergoglio entered when he became Francis. When he assumed the papacy in March 2013, political liberalism and progressive governments and leaders were in decline in the United States and Europe, while Latin America was immersed in the pink tide of leftist governments. By the time he died, that world had changed, with the emergence of populist, charismatic, and authoritarian leaders, whom he confronted with speeches.
This is the world that welcomed Leo XIV, so one might ask , to what extent did the context influence the Catholic Church hierarchy's decision to choose Prevost? A Pope for the times of the Church and the world? President Donald Trump was the first to congratulate him. President Vladimir Putin, the second . Perhaps, attentive to their internal reality and the new world order that is being experienced, nine of the ten American cardinals who participated in the conclave—the tenth was Prevost—worked to promote someone they felt comfortable speaking with in the world's great capitals, in the redefinition of global forces, as they did in 1978 for the Polish Karol Wojtyla to become John Paul II?
Leo XIV will not be Francis, but neither will he be the spokesman for the Vatican's far right , like Cardinal Raymond L. Burke , who confronted Francis and called his papacy a tragedy. Nor will he align them. Shy and reserved, little has been known of his thinking in the last decade , although in 2012, in a meeting with bishops— The New York Times recalled yesterday—he lamented that the world's media and popular culture had adopted "sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel," mentioning among them "the homosexual lifestyle" and "families composed of same-sex couples and their adopted children," which his predecessor had embraced.
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However, as he drew from the Augustinians, his order, he favors intercultural dialogue and is committed to the poor, like Francis , agreeing with a more pastoral than doctrinal line, which was what separated Francis from Benedict XVI. The recently deceased Pope brought him to the Vatican two years ago and put him in charge of the Dicastery for Bishops, one of the most influential in the Catholic Church −it is the one that selects the bishops−, trusting that he would continue the work of a participatory and co-responsible Church, more missionary and less clerical .
Francis placed him on the path of the papacy, which ultimately led to the Solomonic decision of this Thursday, and that Leo XIV, like Pope Saint Leo I 1,500 years ago, would restore stability to the Vatican.
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