Americans packed St. Peter's Square on Sunday and saw one of their own begin to serve as the pope. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance, the leader of the U.S. Church, joined dozens of American Catholics (holding the American flag) as Chicago-born Pope Leo Xiv celebrated the traditional inauguration. American enthusiasm reflects a rare sense of unity in a polarized national church. Since Leo became Pope, his progressive and conservative factions have celebrated him (although there are some internet carnival corners). Vance's boss has a well-known relationship with the last pope, and his recent closed-door meeting with Leo seems dedicated to working: "We're going to find something very important to work together."
But if Leo's latest predecessor is any guidance, the American Catholic probably won't last. Since John Paul II became the first non-Italian pope in about 450 years in 1978, every pope has had conflicting, often flawed relationships with his homeland. Each of them breaks the centuries-established pattern of the marchs of a group of Italian popes in their own way, who are intimately involved in the political and ecclesiastical life of their homeland: as opponents of the Roman emperors, as secular rulers of the medieval and Renaissance, and as prominent participants in modern Italy. Pope Paul Vi reportedly was the last pope of the Italian pope (except for John Paul I's brief pope), who cried over the news of the assassination of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978: The two have known each other since college.
The last three Popes each chose a very different path between Rome and family, sometimes confrontational and sometimes transcendent. Together, they provide a potential model for how Leo connects with the American Church, American political leadership, and the United States.
Jorge Bergoglio never came back after leaving his hometown of Argentina in 2013 for a meeting that made him Pope Francis. Francis visited several nearby countries and was not shy about participating in politicians and church leaders around the world. But he still effectively kept silent about Argentina, even though it rode through three comparisons of the president and experienced political and economic instability for a while. Francis rarely has a resentment on one issue, but when asked why he never came home, he was cautious, even avoided.
Perhaps Francis felt he could not intervene in Argentina with the same moral influence he often sought and enjoyed elsewhere. He was widely loved there, but he left behind a mixed legacy. Argentine Catholics have long debated whether Francis was doing enough local bishops to defend the interests of the pastor and the church during the country’s so-called dirty war. Furthermore, during his time as Jesus’s Congregation, some critics considered him autocratic. Before he became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, the local hierarchy sent him far away to the capital, which was often considered a task of exile.
Leo’s relationship with the United States is not that complicated, especially since he has spent almost the entire adult life elsewhere. As New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan said after the meeting, his missionary in Peru and his global travel made him a "world citizen." Dolan continued, “Where he comes from.” In theology and commission, it is enough, but one might want to create a sense of breathing space for his countrymen to help him avoid permanent political activities brought into their homes.
In his case, Leo is more interested in maintaining unity than in the clear scope of the American left or right. Perhaps this would push him away from American affairs, or at least easier than Francis's affairs with America. However, Leo repeatedly emphasized the dialogue in his early days as a pope that he would not keep his distance from himself like Francis did, just as Francis did to Argentina.
Francis, leaving his home, took the opposite approach of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who struggled to interact with his native Germany. Before Benedict became the Pope in 2005 (for example, in a high-profile dispute with the dissident theologian Hans Kung) and Pontiff, when the German church began to become the vanguard of the progressive Catholic cause.
Benedict visited the country three times as Pope, most notably in 2011, when he addressed the federal government. Despite his good reception there, his visit stimulated public protests and resistance to doctrines about sexual morality and national abuse scandals, including those of Benedict being accused of unfortunate scandals before becoming the pope. It is easy to read about the Pope-like ideological differences that make Benedict's relationship with Germany constitute the same ideological differences: while Benedict is more conservative than Catholic Germany, some observers regard Leo as being more left-leaning than American Catholic leaders. However, Leo does not have the teachings that Benedict enjoyed when he became the Pope. Furthermore, Leo's missionary work prevented him from being plagued by religious affairs in the United States, and politics like Benedict was in Germany.
By engaging in public life in his homeland, Benedict special effects his Previous John Paul II. There is no modern pope (and very few actually) that has had an impact on their homeland as John Paul II did with Poland. In 1979, John Paul met an estimated 11 million shots during his first Pope trip to Poland, one-third of the population. They saw a confident Christian witness in their indigenous sons against communism and reminded their country of religious roots that atheist regime had covered. Both historians and pope biographers view the visit as a turning point in Communist Poland, and in the Cold War itself. The trip inspired the Solidarity Workers Movement, one of the most successful opposition movements in the Soviet Union. Indeed, Lech Walesa signed the 1980 GDANSK agreement, which granted a visit to the Pope the year before and gave the union formal status.
Yet even those who worship uniformly like John Paul of Poland are not always welcomed by sources of moral authority and guidance. His first time in Poland back The Cold War received a cooler and smaller response in 1991. John Paul challenged his fellow countrymen to achieve newly acquired freedom in a way consistent with the gospel and Catholic tradition, rather than free markets, free love and fast food, a message that is not as exciting as his fellow countrymen and anti-communism rhetoric.
Perhaps the disagreement over the Poles could be his opposition to abortion, a problem he addressed personally on this trip, which was held in an ongoing debate on the proposed state ban. "I can't be indifferent to this crisis," he said. "I'm also the son of this land." An ordinary pole, interviewed this New York TimesSaid that she disagrees with John Paul on the issue, but her broader view of him has not changed: "He is our pope, and I love him." This incompatibility of pride and affection from obedience to the authority of the pope can provide the most obvious analogy with many American Catholics who may disagree with Leo's enactment of abortion or immigration, but still express enthusiasm for their own enthusiasm for occupying one of St. Peter's presidents.
The ultimate model for understanding Leo’s potential approach is not from the pope of the past, but from his relationship with Peru in his country of choice. Leo has witnessed several national crises firsthand as Matthew Casey-Pariseault, a scholar of religious and public life in Latin America, observed: “A bloody civil war, a decade of dictatorship and unstable post-rhetoric led to three former presidents being sentenced to prison sentences.” Although many in the United States are concerned about the upcoming constitutional crisis (even civil wars, gradually falling into authoritarianism or dictatorial regimes), an American with experience in all of these prospects, suddenly has an unparalleled platform to address them.
But, he doesn't necessarily want to do this, at least not directly. Leo shows that he is more reserved than most of his modern predecessors. Indeed, in the case of the Pope, he provided only a single direct statement about his homeland.
When a reporter asked him if he had any information about the United States, he offered a standard blessing, with only one word, just like Whitman's mysterious fullness: "Many."