Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States, presided over his first Mass as leader of 1.4 billion Roman Catholics on Friday, pledging to align himself with “ordinary people” and not with the rich and powerful. He also called for missionary outreach to help heal the “wounds that afflict our society.”
The election of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a native of Chicago, as pope represents a singular moment in the history of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. But some of the cardinals who selected him said his life of service to the poor in Peru and his senior roles at the Vatican mattered far more in the conclave than his nationality.
At a news conference in Rome on Friday, some cardinals said discussion of Cardinal Prevost’s American background was, in the words of Cardinal Robert McElroy, the new archbishop of Washington, D.C., “almost negligible.”
The conclave was not a “continuation of the American election,” said Cardinal Wilton Gregory, archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C. He added, “It was a desire to strengthen the Christian faith among God’s people.”
In Leo’s persistent advocacy for the poor, migrants and a “synodal” church that seeks input from parishioners rather than simply directing them, many people saw a continuation of his predecessor, Pope Francis, though Leo is seen as quieter and less charismatic.
“It matters a lot that we have a pope and a spiritual leader whose heart is for migrants,” Cardinal Pablo Virgilio Siongco David of the Philippines said at the news conference. “And I think he will sustain the direction of Pope Francis.”
Risky but inevitable predictions of what kind of papacy his will be were plentiful, inside and outside the church.
Pope Leo will soon confront questions that deeply divide Roman Catholics, like greater involvement of lay people and women in decision-making, and a more welcoming view of divorced people and gay people. Francis took steps in each of those directions, even weighing the ordination of married priests under limited circumstances. Those positions earned the animosity of conservative traditionalists who wanted a more top-down, doctrinaire Catholicism.
American church leaders rebutted any suggestion that Leo’s election should be seen in a U.S. political context, but he could find himself at odds with the rightward turn of the United States under President Trump, particularly on migrants.
Asked if the cardinals who supported the new pope saw him as a counterweight to Mr. Trump, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York, shrugged.
“Would he want to build bridges to Donald Trump? I suppose,” he said at the news conference in Rome. “But he would want to build bridges with the leaders of any nation.”
Like many in the church’s hierarchy, as a cardinal, Leo was criticized over his handling of priests accused of sexual abuse, both in Chicago and in Peru. The ongoing fallout from such cases around the world, and the church’s history of covering them up, is likely to be another major challenge of his papacy, as they were for each of the three previous popes. (In 2012, the cardinal spoke out against popular culture that accepted “homosexual lifestyle.”)
Leo XIV is a member of the Order of St. Augustine, a group known for missionary outreach to communities and wide consultation in decision-making, both within the order and with parishioners.
“That’s very interesting for a pope, because it means that he is geared toward collaborative decision making,” said Sister Gemma Simmonds, an author and senior research fellow at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology at Cambridge University.
The last pope named Leo is remembered for his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, criticizing capitalist excesses and the wretched state of the working class. Some analysts and prelates read a connection to that history in Leo XIV’s choice of a name.
“We might have a Rerum Novarum 2.0,” said Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago.
At the Sistine Chapel on Friday, where his fellow cardinals had elected him a day earlier, the new pope evoked the teachings of Francis in his Mass, saying that a loss of religious faith had contributed to “appalling violations of human dignity” around the world.
Echoing Francis’ frequent criticism of prelates who revel in their trappings and put themselves above their flock, Leo said it was cardinals’ duty to “move aside” and “to make oneself small.”
In his homily, he also lamented that in many spheres, Christianity is seen as “absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent.” He spoke of settings where, rather than faith and service, “other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power or pleasure.”
The new pope worked for more than 20 years in Peru, where he was hailed this week as an almost-native son. As a young friar at the Augustinian mission in the northwestern town of Chulucanas, “one of the things he did is to insist that the leadership of the mission becomes Indigenous,” said John Allen, a veteran Vatican analyst. That fact may have made an impression on an increasingly diverse College of Cardinals that ultimately selected Leo.
Leo later returned to Peru as bishop of Chiclayo, a post for which he became a Peruvian citizen. Priests there recalled that he often traveled deep into the hinterlands to meet people, listening to them at length, and that when there was a backlash against migrants who had fled Venezuela, Bishop Prevost organized clergy and lay people to care for them.
Many analysts had said the election of a pope from the United States was unlikely, with much of the world already seeing the country as wielding excessive power, but Leo’s long history outside the country might have made that less of an issue.
The contrast to President Trump, however, is obvious. A social media account under Cardinal Prevost’s name had reposted messages critical of the president’s positions on issues like immigration, mass deportation, gun control and climate change.
And in February, the social media account had a riposte to comments by Vice President JD Vance, who asserted on Fox News that Christian theology could justify turning away migrants and strangers in need because caring for family comes first.
“You love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world,” Mr. Vance said.
In response, the social media account shared a link to an article in The National Catholic Reporter titled, “JD Vance Is Wrong: Jesus Doesn’t Ask Us to Rank Our Love for Others.”
Reporting was contributed by Matthew Mpoke Bigg, Elisabetta Povoledo, Patricia Mazzei, Motoko Rich, Mitra Taj, Julie Turkewitz and Genevieve Glatsky.
