Clergy waves us flags during the speech of the newly elected Pope Leo XIV in the Vatican on Thursday, May 8th.
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The choice of Pope Leo XIV born in Chicago to lead the Roman Catholic Church threw an immediate question:
What does this mean to the USA and President Trump?
In terms of the truth, the President Leo’s election described the truth as “great honor for our country”. But there are obvious signs of Trump and the new Pope – who urged peace and unity in his first statement – immediately dessed.
Like his predecessor, Leo, born Robert Francis Prevost, has campaigned to help the poor and migrants. He emphasized how important it is to protect the environment. He demanded the racial justice and recently criticized Vice President Vance’s views, a Catholic, in the church.
Leo’s choice is “not a political statement” of the College of Cardinals “, but contains a political message,” said Massimo Faggioli, a papal expert and professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University, said, told papal expert and professor of theology and religious studies Morning edition.
The church concerns about the rise of nationalism
In a letter to US bishops on February 10, the late Pope Francis The beginning criticized sharply the promised mass shifts of the Trump government. Francis wrote that “concerns about personal, community or national identity … easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as a criterion of truth”.
During his time in politics, Trump referred to the arrival of migrants at the US border as “invasion” – also as many were sold by economic uncertainty, violence and climate change. Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has shaken the world order, alienated long -time allies and apparently teamed up with autocratic leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungary Viktor Orban.
Although the choice of a US Pope seemed impossible to close the Church’s observer, the “Trump effect” is in America and the international global order, said Faggioli, one of the things that “made the impossible possible”.
“The United States is also a great uncertainty for the Vatican,” said Faggioli. “And the choice of a Pope from the United States is an opportunity for the Vatican to examine what this new America means for the world and for the church.”
The 20 -year -old Andrea Gallardo from Texas is wearing an American flag after Pope Leo XIV appeared in the Vatican on the balcony of the basilica of St. Pet after his election in the Vatican.
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The relationship of the new Pope to Trump and the USA
Reverend William Lego, who heads the Saint Turibius community in Chicago and knew the new Pope most of his life, said that Leo and Trump will have an “interesting relationship” as with every political leader.
Lego has known Leo since the two were in sixth grade. They visited the high school, seminar and Villanova. He said Leo always “focused on helping people. He always did things, always very needy, as you say, very ready to do things”.
Leo’s opportunity to “live with the arms and work with them … for him his calling,” said Lego.
Lego said that he was not sure about the message of the Church to the USA and the world with Leo’s election.
“When the church is open to the spirit, the spirit will probably be the best or candidate for the church at that time. And our role as Catholics around the world is once the expression of the mind. Our next journey is that we start working together and continue to find out how the spirit is alive in the world,” said Lego.
He continued and said: “In his view of power, this position could now be used with an American Pope. There are always two sides to a coin.”
This digital article was based on radio stories published by Ashley Westermann and produced by Nia Dumas.