Don’t Read a Pope Like a President

I’m back to functioning again (mostly) and we have a new pope. It feels like a new era.

Catholics and non-Catholics alike have been scrambling to find out what they can about Pope Leo XIV, unearthing decades-old photos and interviewing his siblings. The two groups have largely different reasons for their scavenging for information. In some ways, even this reminds us that a papal election is very unlike a political one. Political elections involve this kind of digging with the intent of soiling the candidate’s public perception, such that sordid stories can derail a campaign. With Pope Leo XIV, he was largely unknown to most people when he appeared on the balcony in papal regalia. Thus, such excavations of his past come after his appointment.

There is a desire to humanize the new pope, as we might seek to do on meeting someone for the first time. Are there anecdotes that will tell us who he is, and sports preferences that will help us to relate our experiences to his? It’s like trying to break the ice from afar.

The problem with an over-focus on a pope’s life before his appointment is that it denies the Divine. It presumes that the office is a mere human institution and doesn’t confer graces that were hitherto unavailable to him. We who believe should expect that he would become different, if only he approaches the office with a docile heart. It is very likely that he will grow after the appointment, and we should hope that he does, because we should want a pope who is responsive to the workings of the Holy Spirit.

With worldly appointments, we expect men to become worse with their new positions—not better. Power, fame, and prestige nurture one’s vices, and are thus bad for the soul. “Power corrupts” is an idiom that all Westerners know, and for which we do not have to reach into obscurity for examples. Yet, a papal appointment is not the same, and attempts to create parallels will thus fall short or lead us astray completely.

It seems timely to remember that Gioacchino Pecci (later Leo XIII) was expected to be a progressive who might deviate from doctrine, but upon gaining the papal office, took on the socialists and communists. He was a true defender of the Faith, unyielding on doctrine, and who championed human dignity against the utilitarian, reductionist viewpoint espoused by communists.

All of this is difficult to accept or understand when looking at papal appointments through secular eyes. Irreligiosity causes us to ponder: what is a pope without the Faith? He becomes merely a geopolitical power, capable of directing over a billion people. Thus, the evaluation is reduced to: Should we fear him? It’s a cold and inaccurate viewpoint that denies the reality of the spiritual elements at play, and thereby reduces such a beautiful moment into a power play.

Moreover, there seems to be something lost in this modern ability to forage through the life of a pope before he was so. There’s an absence of mystery, such that “more” information can seem to be a privation compared to the “less” that we once had.

Headlines imply that all matters are settled as they pronounce: “Here’s Pope Leo XIV’s Stance on X!” Replace X with any major political issue. But Pope Leo XIV has yet to comment on any of those matters.

We won’t really know how Pope Leo XIV is going to lead until he does. But we can pray, because unlike the secular world, we acknowledge the reality of the spiritual, and we know that such prayers are received by a loving God—that they are not impotent, and that Leo needs them. He will be a worse pope if he is not prayed for.

It is true that he might break our hearts, but he hasn’t thus far. Let us not live as secularists, and instead be willing to hope, to pray, and to have faith.