One of the most moving pictures after the death of Pope Francis was a close -up of his shoes when he was in his open coffin in the basilica of St. Peters. They were a testimony of the Catholic Church, which he wanted – one that went to the edge served the most vulnerable and rejected employee.
Two weeks later, when Pope Leo XIV entered the middle of the Vatican Auditorium to address journalists, he also wore simple Oxfords, like Francis, who dispensed with traditional papal shoes.
But while he can walk in Francis’ shoes, early signs of a papacy with a style and its own direction indicate the ideological lines and traditional Catholic significant with a political awareness that is characterized by intercultural experience and global dynamics of power.
Some well -known messages, some new ones
In his first big speech to the media, Leo conveyed a pointed political message after a self -ironic joke in his American English in the middle west.
He called for the publication of detained journalists, praised war correspondents, called for the responsible use of AI and convicted ideological noise in the media. He appealed to reporters to give the weak place – “those without voice”.
In contrast, Francis used his first meeting with journalists to thank them for reporting them to report on the conclave and the communication of the true nature of the church was urged. As a Pope, he mocked as a subtly mocked journalist who asked difficult questions and made it clear in interviews against negative reporting, and condemned as a reporter for the “illness of COPOPHILIE” – an obsession with excrement.
In his first speech to the world diplomats about the Holy Chair this week, Leo Frieden demanded that it was more than the lack of conflicts, but requires work and diplomacy. He also confirmed the Catholic teaching that the family is rooted in the union of a man and a woman and that the “unborn person for the elderly” is the same.
Leo’s biography, which was reflected in the decision in the first few days as a Pope, speaks to a man who is shaped by more than one culture and a country.
Before Francis made him a cardinal in 2023 and appointed him to lead the powerful Dicastery of the Vatican for bishops, many took over the fact that a Pope from the United States was out of the question – too politically difficult for a global church that was geared to the dominant superpower of the world.
But Leo’s politics is in a sharp contrast to those of the US President Donald Trump – on migrants, poor, media freedom and climate change, not to mention the sound. His support for migrant rights included a powerful (and now deleted) tweet vice president JD Vance, who will be among the dignitaries on Sunday in the papal inauguration.
Leo is positioned as a moral counterweight at a time when many fear that the United States will turn to authoritarianism. This attitude, said observer, may have contributed to securing his choice in the secret ballot.
Even his earlier appointment to lead the Dicastery for bishops brought him into a strong position to focus on the cultural war of the US bishops on topics such as same-sex marriage and abortion.
“I think it is no coincidence that Pope Francis chose me,” he said BBC in 2022 of his new role in the selection of bishops worldwide. “I am an American and I think I have an insight into the church, into the United States … and to look at the challenges of the Church in the United States.”
Leo’s call is a centerister who has not expired from the right or left, said Catholic church historian Massimo Faggioli, professor at Villanova University near Philadelphia, where Prevost studied. “But Trump’s second term is not just a change from the government. It is a change of regime. The government’s cooperation is closed by the government for refugees and migrants and increased so -called religious freedom.”
Faggioli says that this political moment of the United States, in which the freedoms that were once taken for granted, are at risk that Leo, a man who is defined by the balance, can get out of his comfort zone.
Nevertheless, he has shown the willingness to take clear stops in other geopolitical situations. Francis slowly named Russia as an attacker against Ukraine and was unable to capture the invasion as a colonial aggression act, says Faggioli. In an interview from 2022, Leo (then Bishop Robert Prevost) described the war as “a true invasion, imperialist in nature where Russia wants to conquer territory for power”.
O’clock | Leo demands peace in Ukraine, Gaza:
Pope Leo XIV, who headed his first Sunday prayer since his election in the Fonplave, demanded an end to the war that killed innocent people in Ukraine and Gaza. He also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Despite the widespread attention for Leo’s American – from “Bob from Chicago” memes to his love for the White Sox – he is also a Peruvian citizen, with decades as a missionary and later Bishop of Chiclayo.
“The Latin American cardinals see him as one of their own, not as Gringo,” said Thomas Reese, Jesuit priest and senior analyst at religion News Service. “I think you got into the conclave behind Prevost, and that made the difference.”
Leo saved English for the 2nd day
In Peru, he also served as an important present for Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a deeply conservative Catholic lay group with headquarters that was open to Francis. (In one of his last acts as a Pope in January, Francis dissolved the group, which was plagued by sexual abuse and financial scandals.)
Leos Peruvian identity was also from the balcony with a view of thousands on the St. Peter Platz an hour after the white smoke when he spoke in Italian, Latin and especially Spanish – a subtle shift of his identity from his home country to his adopted country and in the broad global south. Only the next day he spoke his English indigenous people during the fair with cardinals in the Sistine chapel.
When his voice selection of the global church nodded from Francis’ global church to the south, his decorated gold packaging francis, simple, often reused clothing-in contrast, which interpreted some as a gesture compared to traditionalist factions. His message – who focused on listening and concentrated mercy – has clearly repeated its predecessor.
“He is a pastor of a new generation and a strong employee of Francis absolutely in favor of the synodal process,” said Andrea Vreede, long -time VatikanRespondent, and referred to Francis’ drive to make the church less hierarchical and to give normal members more voice.
His choice of name Leo XIV connects him with Pope Leo XIII, author of the Encyclical Rerum Novarum from 1891, “of New Things”, a fundamental text of Catholic social teaching and an illness against the exploitation of employees during the industrial revolution.
“He was on the side of the unions, the employee, the defenseless people in his time,” said Reese. “I think Pope Leo will be a prophetic voice for justice, peace and protection of the environment. I think it is now becoming the DNA of the Catholic Church and the Pope.”
Observers note a connection to Saint Francis from Assisi, the namesake of the previous Pope. The brothers Leo from the 12th century a close companion of Francis-War was responsible for writing many prayers, letters and teachings from Francis, and suspected that he was a main contribution to the most important early texts of the saint.
While the name of the new Pope has put the past on the past, early signs promise a guide who will also take his own course for the Roman Catholic Church.
