A pope for our time

Over the course of my lifetime, the Catholic Church has had six popes — Saint Paul VI, John Paul I, Saint John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, and now Pope Leo XIV.

Paul VI was pope when I was born, and I cannot say that I remember the elections of either John Paul I or John Paul II, though growing up in a Catholic household in a small village with a significant Catholic population, we must have been on the lookout for the first wisp of white smoke.

I do, however, have very strong impressions of the first years of John Paul II’s pontificate. Being half-Polish (on my mother’s side), I was, of course, brimming with ethnic pride. And as I became more aware in the late ’70s and early ’80s of the state of the Cold War, I began to believe that the choice of a Polish pope was a sign that the Holy Spirit was on the move, and the Soviet Union’s days of dominating Eastern Europe were coming to an end.

John Paul’s miraculous survival of, and recovery from, the May 13, 1981, assassination attempt was simply more proof, as if any were needed.

John Paul II went on to become one of the longest reigning popes in the history of the church, long enough for me to have graduated from elementary school, junior high, high school, college and graduate school, and to be 10 years into my professional career before his years of suffering — through which he gave such a perfect example to Catholics and all Christians — came to an end.

When, a few weeks later, the white smoke arose from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel and the words “Habemus papam!” were followed by the introduction of Pope Benedict XVI, I was overjoyed. I had read much of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s work (though even “much” was only a small fraction of what he had written), and I greatly admire his intellect and, more importantly, the way that he placed that intellect at the service of the faith.

We were attending a Traditional Latin Mass Oratory at the time, and his “hermeneutic of continuity,” so different from the calls for the church to bend to the “Spirit of Vatican II” — yet coming from one of the chief Fathers of that council! — felt like the corrective that the church needed.

Despite my admiration for Benedict XVI, when his pontificate came to what seemed to me an unnecessarily early end with his resignation seven years later, I found the initial introduction of Pope Francis to be both refreshing and a promising continuation of the legacy of the two previous popes and even after 12 — at times tumultuous — years, history, I believe, is more likely to bear those first impressions out than many people think.

As I think back on my first impressions of each of these popes, I realize that there is something qualitatively different between them and my first impressions of the election of Pope Leo XIV. Of course, there’s a bit of patriotic pride in the election of the first American pope that’s similar to the ethnic pride I felt with Pope John Paul II. But I’ve also had an absolute conviction, from the moment that his papal name was announced, that this pontificate will have a historical significance to rival that of John Paul II’s, Leo XIII’s, and Pius IX’s.

I’ve always been skeptical of those who spend their days trying to read the signs of the times, and for many that practice leads to eccentricity at best and more often outright despair.

But while much has been made of Pope Leo’s own acknowledgment that he see the AI revolution to be as potentially disruptive as the Industrial Revolution and accompanying economic, social and political change that Leo XIII addressed in his social encyclicals (especially “Rerum Novarum”), it struck me immediately that Leo XIII wrote more encyclicals than any other pope, including an encyclical on Americanism (“Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae,” even more relevant to Catholics in the United States today then when it was released in 1899).

Pope Leo XIII also decreed that the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel be recited following every Mass, after he experienced a vision of hell. And May 8 — the date of Pope Leo XIV’s election — was, in the traditional calendar, the Feast of the Apparition of Saint Michael (a different apparition, but still).

What relevance these facts may have to Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate, time will tell. In the end, my conviction may prove entirely wrong. But three weeks after his election, that conviction remains just as strong.

May God grant Pope Leo XIV many happy years, as he faithfully preaches the Word of His Truth!

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