By Rod Dreher, European Conservative.
If the new pope takes a more welcoming line to traditionalists, and holds the line on abortion, euthanasia, and gender ideology, he will go far in winning over U.S. Catholic conservatives.
Cardinal Francis George, once the Archbishop of Chicago, said that the only way the Catholic Church will have an American pope is if the United States goes into decline as a world power. Now the Church not only has an American pope, but one from Chicago. Hmm.
Outsiders cannot know what was in the minds of the cardinals who elected Robert Prevost, Pope Leo XIV, that made them choose a Yank. Catholics are obliged to believe that the selection was guided by the Holy Spirit. That may be, but worldly considerations are also in play—even geopolitical ones.
First, though, it is likely that the cardinals wanted a steadier guide than the erratic Pope Francis, whose personalist style of governance, and his penchant for “making a mess” had exhausted the patience of even his progressive supporters in the Vatican. Leo XIV seems to be just such a calming figure.
In that way, though little is known of his theological views, one can assume he must be broadly in line with Francis’s liberalism. Nevertheless, as past bishop in Peru, Leo reportedly managed well the tensions between theological conservatives and liberals in his Latin American diocese. After Francis’s papacy, in which he seemed to delight in insulting traditionalists, the Church could use a more irenic pontiff.
Still, why an American? How could that be a sign that the United States is in decline?