ROME (OSV News) — Only a few days have passed since the election of Pope Leo XIV, but the 266th successor of Peter has already given a hint on the style of his papacy, from his traditional papal vestment on his election day to his first homily in the Sistine Chapel May 9 and his address to the cardinals May 10.
OSV News asked George Weigel — the American biographer of the pope from Poland, St. John Paul II — about what the first few days of papacy tell us about Pope Leo XIV, how as an American missionary he can influence the world and about his own hopes for the papacy. Weigel, a Baltimore native, is a distinguished senior fellow at Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center.
OSV News: What was your reaction to the election of Pope Leo XIV, the first North American pope?
Weigel: Since Pope Leo has spent so much of his ministerial life in Latin America, I didn’t instinctively think of him as a “North American pope,” despite his having been born in Chicago. I think there’s been a tendency to overplay this national business in the first days of the pontificate. It’s an interesting novelty that we now have a pope born in the United States, but what it really demonstrates is that national origin is of no consequence in the search for a successor of Peter in the 21st century.
OSV News: What does the first homily and appearance at Mass and at the balcony tell us what kind of papacy we have ahead?
Weigel: I thought Pope Leo presented himself very well, and in a way that demonstrated that he understands the nature of his office. He’s not going to be a pope of personal idiosyncrasies, I don’t think.
OSV News: How can Pope Leo XIV influence the United States? What is needed from the pope regarding your country?
Weigel: What the vital parts of the church in the U.S. will be looking for is what they would be looking for from any pope, irregardless of where he was born: support and affirmation of the new evangelization and its efforts to convert a deeply confused culture; an understanding that the living parts of the church in the U.S. embrace Catholicism in full, not Catholic Lite; and encouragement to continue Catholic work in building a culture of life and resisting the culture of death.
OSV News: How can Pope Leo XIV influence the world as an American and as a missionary?
Weigel: Pope Leo is a very intelligent man, so he must know that the great crisis of our time is the crisis in the very idea of the human person. Are there givens in the human condition, the understanding of which leads to personal happiness and social solidarity — or is everything plastic and malleable, such that we can change what we are and who we are by acts of will? The best service the new pope can do for the world is to teach it, or in some cases remind it, of the biblical view of who we are and where we’re supposed to be going: We are creations, not accidents; and we are destined for glory with God, who is the ultimate reason for our existence.
OSV News: What are your hopes for this papacy?
Weigel: Clarity of doctrinal and moral teaching, good governance, thoughtful appointments to the episcopacy and the College of Cardinals, encouragement of missionary discipleship, and defense of persecuted Christians, all of which will flow from a bold witness to Christ. As for world politics, the best thing this pope, or any pope, can do is follow the example of John Paul II and summon people to a fearlessness that transcends partisanship and narrow nationalism and that calls aggression and evil for what they are.
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