In last month’s editorial I proposed that all the speculation regarding Pope Francis’ successor was idle. As it turns out, virtually nobody (with the notable exceptions of Steve Bannon and Austen Ivereigh) predicted that it would be Cardinal Robert Prevost; indeed he was given only a 1-2% probability. It was striking how many pundits before the Conclave, but especially ones from the US, seemed to think that the Church would run a mile from having an American in the seat of St Peter. And yet I think that the whole Church, and with it many many non-Catholics, was completely enamoured with this pope from Chicago within a few minutes of his appearing on the loggia of St Peter’s Basilica on the evening of 8th May. Granted the Holy Father was not ‘very’ American: he came across as demure, restrained and spoke excellent Italian (and as it turned out excellent Spanish too). It certainly didn’t appear as if Pope Leo was about to ‘Americanise’ the Catholic Church. The question rather is whether he will make America more Catholic.
Given the example of Germany and Argentina, it is clear that national religious revivals in the home country of a newly elected pope do not necessarily happen. It did not happen in the case of Pope Benedict (not helped no doubt by the hostility of much of the German Catholic hierarchy as well as many German theologians) nor in the case of Pope Francis (though he himself never visited Argentina after his election). But I like to hope that in the case of Pope Leo it will be different.
Maybe I am guilty now of falling into the kind of idle speculation I was giving out about in May, except that I think it is safe to predict the the election of not just an American pope, but this American pope, will have huge repercussions, not only in the USA, but also throughout the ‘Anglosphere’. I would even risk drawing a parallel with the election of Karol Wojtyla in 1978, the timing of which was so evidently the work of divine providence. Already by that time in Poland there was a growing movement of intellectual dissent from the Communist line – a key element in this was the founding of the Committee for the Defense of Workers (KOR) in 1976. The future Pope was an integral part of this intellectual ferment. In the words of one biographer, ‘Karol Wojtyla, as bishop of Krakow, forged the Solidarity revolution – in his philosophy classes, his community synods, his secret ordination of priests, his clandestine communications seminars, the smuggling network he oversaw throughout the Eastern Bloc.’ (Jonathan Kwitny, Man of the Century).
It is clear that there is something stirring in the USA and in the Anglosphere at large. First intellectually, and now also politically, there is a growing dissent from the established anti-Christian ruling elite. Perhaps then the election of a man who comes from within this world will turn out to be providentially timely. To this it is objected that Pope Leo has not lived in the USA for decades, but I doubt that is particularly relevant. He grew up in a very American family (his very American brothers Louis and John are a testament to this), and received all his education in American institutions. And the fact that he is a lifelong fan of the Chicago White Sox means a lot for Americans. He is clearly an intellectual and is perfectly poised to promote deeper reflection on our cultural situation, at the same time as helping Catholics in particular to avoid running aground on the reefs of sterile radicalism.
Besides, at least from the vantage point of this side of the Atlantic, there seems to be so much stirring in the Catholic world in the USA. In a recent podcast Matt Fradd enumerated some of the good things coming out of the US in recent years:
Hallow is now the number one prayer app in the world. That’s wild! Bible in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz continues to crush it, drawing both Catholics and Protestants back to Scripture (remember when people said Catholics aren’t into Scripture … and yet I’m fairly certain there isn’t a Protestant Bible podcast that gets as many downloads as Bible in a Year). Bishop Robert Barron and Word on Fire continue to evangelize with beauty and intellectual clarity. Ignatius Press is publishing some of the most spiritually rich books in the Catholic world. FOCUS missionaries are boldly proclaiming the Gospel to university students – not to mention they put on annual conferences that draw crowds not even Metallica could pull off (yes. I’m aware I’m dating myself). Catholic Answers is equipping the faithful to defend the faith with clarity and charity. The Dominicans at the House of Studies are forming minds and hearts through Aquinas 101 and deep Thomistic formation. The St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology – under the leadership of scholars like Dr. Scott Hahn and Dr. John Bergsma – is equipping priests to know, love, and proclaim the Scriptures, helping the Church rediscover the deep unity of Scripture and Tradition. EWTN – the largest religious media network on the planet (you read that right) – brings the Mass, catechesis, and solid Catholic programming into millions of homes daily. Who else … Oh, Exodus 90 is challenging men across the globe to take their faith, their purity, and their vocations seriously.
As Matt Fradd mentions, much of this revival of Catholicism in the USA has firm intellectual foundations in publishing houses such as Ignatius Press, the St Paul Centre (the Word on Fire Institute needs to be mentioned here also), and online resources (such as Catholic Answers, Aquinas 101). The wonderful work of third level institutions such as Steubenville appears to be bearing fruit in the number of philosophers, theologians and commentators it has produced.
And then there is the fact that the two Americans who officially greeted the pontiff after his official inauguration are both very much practicing Catholics: US Vice President JD Vance and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. (By way of contrast, the two who led the American delegation on the 19th March, 2013 to greet Pope Francis following his inauguration were the then-Vice President Joe Biden and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi). While Pope Leo has admittedly crossed swords with JD Vance over the question of managing immigration into the USA, it cannot be denied that JD Vance promises to be such a positive influence in the world of US politics. At the same time the new pontiff is of course careful to guard his independence from American politicians, and so stay free to speak truth to power.
In his Address to the College of Cardinals, the new Pope explained that the reason he chose the name Leo was ‘mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.’ I wonder however if a lesser reason wasn’t also that Pope Leo XIII clearly tackled the error of ‘Americanism’ – the idea taking root in the American church at the end of the nineteenth century that the Church there had to adapt to the (largely Protestant and hostile) milieu in which she found herself – that she would simply have to do it differently from the rest of the world. And so Pope Leo XIII warned the American Church against this way of thinking which he summed up as follows:
The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of the faith. They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them. (Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae: Concerning New Opinions, Virtue, Nature and Grace, With Regard to Americanism, Pope Leo XIII, 1899)
Though that warning is well over a century old it still retains a striking relevance for the Church today throughout the West. It would be interesting if the Pope wanted to encourage the Church of his own native land not to fear being a sign of contradiction there. This would certainly chime with his powerful words of warning against the seductive power of the mass media addressed to the 2012 Synod on Evangelisation:
Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel. […] The sympathy for anti-Christian lifestyle choices that mass media fosters is so brilliantly and artfully engrained in the viewing public, that when people hear the Christian message it often inevitably seems ideological and emotionally cruel by comparison to the ostensible humaneness of the anti-Christian perspective.
To my mind we have every reason to hope that our new Holy Father might be uniquely poised to transform the stirrings of the Church in the USA into a full-blown revival, in a manner akin to Pope Saint John Paul’s transformative influence on Poland and by extension on all the Eastern Bloc. It is nice to think what this might mean for Ireland which already benefits so much from the intellectual leadership coming from the States, not to mention the number of young laypeople, priests and religious who have come to Ireland over the past decade or so to stir up a revival of the embattled faith here.