The identify alone typically speaks volumes. In selecting to reign as Francis, first of that identify, Jorge Bergoglio signaled clearly the fashion of his hold forth, which aspired to the simplicity of the saint of Assisi whereas providing all types of ruptures with custom.
A successor who selected Francis II or, for that matter, John XXIV or Paul VII (after the popes of the Second Vatican Council) would have signaled an extra push for liberalization; a successor who opted for Benedict XVII or Pius XIII would have been promising a traditionalist swing.
Whereas the identify Leo XIV guarantees, maybe, some model of the “peace” that the previous Cardinal Robert Prevost invoked in his first phrases from the papal loggia — peace between the church’s contending factions in addition to within the wider world. The final Leo was long-reigning and common and remembered fondly by Catholics of various theological stripes. He’s well-known for his interventions in Nineteenth-century debates over capitalism and socialism and his assist for the revival of Thomist philosophy, a legacy that’s neither “left” nor “proper” however merely Catholic in a approach {that a} divided church struggles to realize at the moment.
Maybe no pope can obtain it, and definitely there may be an interpretation of Leo XIV’s election that simply emphasizes continuities with the Francis period: He’s a Francis appointee who entered the conclave as a popular candidate of a few of the earlier pope’s allies; he’s an American who’s additionally a critic, recently, of the Catholic vp of the USA. One can inform a narrative the place the final level was essential to his election — the place a minimum of some cardinals needed an anti-Trump American as pope — and the place his identify guarantees a much less destabilizing however nonetheless liberal-leaning papacy.
However actually, after the Francis years, conservative Catholics would possibly welcome even that type of shift, with a pope who isn’t precisely on their aspect however who additionally doesn’t current himself as their scourge and critic, who doesn’t push doctrinal change so laborious as to danger schism and who avoids petty wars like Francis’ try to snuff out the Latin Mass. A pope who tries to rise above the fray and provides the church’s completely different factions respiration house, as an alternative of threatening chaos or battle with each appointment, each synod and each papal interview.
That respiration house could be particularly helpful as a result of the questions liberal and conservative Catholics have been preventing over because the Sixties, whereas enduringly vital, will not be the territory that issues most to the Christian future.
For one factor, the Catholic tradition warfare has been an argument about how one can adapt to or resist a secular and liberal type of modernity that now not appears notably dominant. As Dan Hitchens put it in top-of-the-line appears on the Francis hold forth, Catholicism at the moment faces “an more and more anarchic and multipolar worldwide area,” a disaster of confidence inside the liberal order and a deep uncertainty about which forces truly characterize the longer term. (An ageing Europe and East Asia? A youthful, liberal Africa? Narendra Modi? Xi Jinping?)
In the meantime, the spiritual order of the Western world is arguably post-Christian however not particularly secular. Because the sociologist Christian Smith wrote in a brand new guide, “Why Religion Went Obsolete,” the decline of institutional spiritual religion has not given us the “secular metropolis” envisioned within the Sixties. As a substitute the rise of “supernatural, enchanted, magical, esoteric, occultic” concepts among the many youthful era signifies that Christianity now confronts a wierd postmodern model of the paganism it as soon as overcame — a cultural scenario by which its personal supernatural claims are now not a stumbling block however maybe a necessary promoting level.
It is a a lot weirder panorama than the one by which liberal and conservative Catholics clashed over contraception or homosexual marriage, and it’s more likely to get weirder nonetheless as we transfer deeper right into a digital and digital and artificial-intelligence-mediated existence.
Catholicism has had little of observe to say so far about what it means to be Christian and human beneath these circumstances or how Catholics ought to assume morally and spiritually about their relationships to those applied sciences. But when Leo XIV reigns so long as Leo XIII did, no difficulty could also be extra vital to the devoted — or the world.
So a pope who preaches on the supernatural and teaches in regards to the digital might properly do far more for his church than a pope who returns but once more to the battles of the Catholic tradition warfare.
Particularly a pope who does so from an American background, as a result of within the altering circumstances of the Twenty first-century world, the significance of America is more likely to be fixed. Our fractious type of Catholicism is the strongest within the developed world, our politics and tradition showcase vibrant and darkish paths for humanity, and any humane type of Twenty first-century civilization should win right here in an effort to win usually.
Now we’ve got given the world a pope; might he give us these items that on this fateful hour we most want.
