Vatican City - Pope Leo XIV inherited a fierce battle not only for the soul of the Catholic Church, but also for its position in the geopolitical world.
The new pope will have to decide whether his global pulpit will continue Pope Francis' extensive progressive legacy or restore it to a more conservative approach. The first American pope will struggle to cope with the spiritual decline of the church’s European power base, coupled with the rise of parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. He will be forced to face the legacy of a decade of sexual abuse scandal.
“Usually the most important thing the pope has to take care of is the Catholic Church, but now, it’s much more complicated because we are in a period of global destruction,” said Massimo Faggioli, a professor working inside the church and a world-leading expert, at Villanova University. “The church is more global than ever, so in this case the Cardinal will have to consider what it means to elect a global leader of the Catholic Church.”
Here is what the church inbox:
Over the past century, hundreds of thousands of cases have occurred in hundreds of thousands of countries, and the church’s unique sexual abuse scandal has not been resolved.
The case continues to be discovered, and although Francis went further than his predecessor in solving the problem, campaigners said he wasn't doing enough.
“The next pope must have a zero-tolerance sexual abuse law, which immediately eliminates the abuse of clergy and the abuse that covers the ministry,” said the Survivor Network who was abused by pastors or the Chicago-based watchdog Snap.
"He must use his authority to formulate basic, institutional changes to end systemic practices of systemic abuse and its concealment," it said.
Francis is widely regarded as a progressive force, at least compared to his predecessors and peers. He allowed the priest to informally bless the same-sex couple, asking, “Who should I judge?” In the dogma of the doctrine, he favors topics such as global capitalism and the climate crisis.
Although this has not been cut and dried up (he likens abortion to “hiring killers”), his message angered conservative traditionalists, including the tough Americans, who want to see Francis’ successors restore the doctrine they believe to be the core of the church.
Message from Francis is an oasis that many people unexpectedly have, and an unpopular one for others,” said Effie Fokas, a researcher in geopolitics and religion who specializes in the London School of Economics and Political Science. “It was an unexpected oasis in the era when international liberalism gained ground internationally. ”
“So people are very excited about whether the church will choose to be an oasis on the one hand, or with the wave of right-wing conservatism across the United States and most of Europe.”
Whether Leo likes it or not, the new leader of 1.4 billion Catholics will become the leadership voice of a rising world. Francis chose to use the platform to fight the war in the Gaza Strip, even rebuking President Donald Trump for his position on immigration.
The next pope has the option to continue these obligations. But even a vocal pope will be noticeable for his absence on the world stage.
“Francis has always been a beacon of hope in the world, and this may be the only moral helm on the ship of global politics (sinking),” Sara Silvestri, senior lecturer in international politics at St. George, University of London, said in an email.
She hopes that the new pope will not “get trapped with any political faction” but “bypassing this by emphasizing the universality of the Christian message and its core values of justice and mercy that are unnegotiable and unable to adapt to the narrow scope of political parties or political ideology.”
The key element of how the New Pope navigates these wandering waters will be his approach to the church’s rapidly changing demographics.
According to recent data released by the Vatican, Europe's Catholic population fell by nearly one million in 2022. Meanwhile, Africa's Catholic population grew by 7.3 million, 5.9 million in North and South America and about 900,000 in Asia.
These data show that the number of pastors tracks the decline in Europe and rises elsewhere.
Therefore, a big question for the new pope will be how to meet the needs of the church, whose followers are increasingly based on the global South.
"We need a pope who understands the problems of the Third World," Haitian pastor Piere Domerson, studying in Rome, told NBC News shortly before he announced Leo's election.
"We always remember how Pope Francis understood this universality of the church," he said in St. Peter's Square. "And, because he appointed more cardinals from outside Europe, we also saw that it became more common."
Néstor Medina, a professor of religious ethics and culture at the University of Toronto, said people in the global South “have become more active in the participation of the church in colonization.”
This means that if the new pope wants to “keep people in the church, social justice, ecology and criticism of capitalism must still be the front and center of the new pope,” he said.
Managing these ever-changing currents is not simple - developing countries are not whole. Although many progressive Catholic voices come from Latin America, for example, many African bishops may also be the most conservative same-sex couples, divorced and cohabiting outside of marriage.