Thank God

It might be possible, please hear me out, that there is some aspect of the new Pope, Leo XIV, more important than whether he roots for the Cubs or the White Sox, as needful of divine intervention as those two teams tend to be.

We could start for instance, with the fact that his selection as the Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter initially made everyone who follows Church happenings unhappy. This was followed by reflection, after which his selection made everyone except the sliest of Vatican vipers (who are smart enough not to object) at least conditionally delighted with the choice.

It is all clouded in the fog of overwrought Catholic emotion. People who were sad at the passing of Pope Francis were no doubt sincere, because we’re supposed to be sad when a pope faces his and our Creator. But upon reflection — there’s a lot of that going around at the moment and probably should be more, and not just about Church matters and not just now — pretty much everyone was happy that he was gone. Again, this is except for the Vatican vipers, who would rather he had resigned and therefore might have exerted some pressure in the choice of his successor.

But even during the most anguished eruptions in the days after Easter Monday, no one said that Francis was a great pope or even a good one; you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone to say he was a good anything. He was like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters, kind of bloated and externally cheerful and ultimately unsuccessful, for which we can be grateful. He was a cruel man who did all he could to run the Church into the ground, and it will take much healing, spiritual and financial, to bring it back.

That fog spread, and remains, about the new pope, Robert Francis Prevost of the South Side (locally called “the sout side”) of Chicago. Sadness turned to equally unjustified joy, or at least possibly justified joy for superficial reasons. He is from the U.S., the first North American pope, which is supposed to tell us . . . what, exactly? He seems to be or to have been a Republican, which given the occupation of the Republican party by Trumpists tells us . . . what, exactly? Nevertheless, people whose thinking does not extend beyond “home team: good” fancy they figured out all sorts of things based on small anecdotes from or about his brothers.

It is to Leo XIV’s advantage that he looks like a pope. Compare him to John Paul II at this stage in his papacy. He has the same look and, forgive me, in that I see hope.

The next round of speculation involved some thoughtful thinking. David A. French had what I’m told is an excellent piece over the weekend in The New York Times. I have read a few snippets of it but not the whole thing. That’s because to subscribe to that paper would require me to give them money for some things I do not support. [Oops, a friend who does subscribe just gave me the piece. It says exactly what I thought it would say, and it is righteous.]

(Let me digress for a moment: If you have energy and a desire to be a billionaire, here’s how you can achieve great wealth: Start a business where people can purchase individual articles from publications to which you do not care to subscribe. People can deposit an amount, say $25, to purchase the right to views individual stories. Small stories might be a dime, big weekend pieces, maybe a quarter. Newspapers and magazines would get, say, half — and they’re in no position to turn down any money. And they’d learn directly which stories readers are willing to pay for, which would be or ought to be useful to them. You, who set this all up, would get to keep half. When the subscriber’s account has run empty, he would refill it. I’d subscribe and if you do not collect and sell subscriber information, I’ll even write a piece praising you.)

The second-phase of speculation included Leo’s choice of name. Many looked to Leo the Great, the first Leo, because he faced down Attila the Hun. Others pointed to Leo XIII, who was pope at the turn of the last century, and particularly his encyclical “Rerum novarum,” an approach to social upheaval during the industrial revolution. Some of us find continuing value in the Leonine Prayers, said after Mass in especially devout, tradition-observing parishes, and wrote the St. Michael prayer himself. It should be noted that traditional Catholics had Leo high on the list of the regnal names they hoped the new pope would assume (even if they were not necessarily hoping that Robert Prevost would be that new pope).

During phase II commentators saw what they wanted to see.

Then came the third round of speculation, in which people who had some knowledge read the tea leaves — no, this is Rome, so they read the entrails. For the first time, there is informed analysis.

The liberals assume that Leo, having been created cardinal and then promoted by la Papa Francis, will be a continuation of that unhappy papacy. It is true that Leo shares some of Francis’s concerns — as do we all. But he lacks the Peronist approach that rendered Francis more like Donald Trump than a Holy Father. The Church, to him, was whatever he said it was. Leo shows no signs of being impulsive and authoritarian. Everyone, no matter his philosophy, agrees that Leo listens and welcomes being reasoned with.

“‘He has started well,’ Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Pope Benedict’s former personal secretary, told Corriere della Sera on Monday. ‘Now a new phase begins. I sense a certain widespread relief. The season of arbitrariness is over.’”

The authoritative Edward Pentin, writing from Rome about the conclave that chose Prevost, continues: “One particular area discussed concerned loose adherence to Church law during the past 12 years, and Pope Leo XIV, who has a doctorate in canon law, is expected to address this concern. He may also examine liturgical laws and Vatican oversight of those regulations. It is not certain if, at this stage, Pope Francis’ suppression of the traditional Latin Mass will be included in any canonical reset, but it is very probable that representations will be made to Pope Leo sometime in the near future regarding those restrictions.”

With the stroke of a pen, Leo could gain the good will of the millions of traditionalist Catholics. (Of whom I am one.) All he needs to do is withdraw Francis’s cruel, pointless Traditionis custodes, which basically told traditionalists that they were no longer welcome in his Church.

When he appeared before the cheering throng in St. Peter’s Square after his election, Leo wore the vestments of a pope, not the reduced, performatively “humble” garments that Francis wore (which, as Father Raymond de Souza has noted, is what a pope wears when he is having breakfast). In his early days as the Roman pontiff Pope Leo has made it clear that he is not merely cleaned-up version of his predecessor. And he spoke of peace as a foundation to, well, nearly everything. He sounds like a pope. (Well, with a Chicago accent.)

That has been noticed. Traditionalists have pointed out that the new pope is an actual believer — something of which they did not accuse Francis or his henchmen. (Nor does anyone expect or want him to go back to the old days of selling indulgences. That concession has been taken over by the President of the United States, from all appearances. Of course, many Trumpians have taken to the internet with a new resurgence of anti-Catholicism. To them, Trump is the only true and living god.)

Yet many who hold strong beliefs while hopeful are wary. Francis seemed as if he might be a good pope, in the first weeks after the vipers mentioned above forced Pope Benedict’s resignation, but the opposite is what came to pass. Yet leading traditionalist voices are showing increased confidence.

“I don’t want to give up personal information, but what I know and what I have understood in the last couple days, leads me to think that the Church is no longer going to be ‘East Germany’,” writes the influential Father John Zuhlsdorf, known popularly as “Father Z.”

The traditionalist site Rorate Caeli offers similar sentiments:

“You may criticize us as much as you want, but we feel an increasingly warming kinship with Leo XIV. There is something unmistakably good about him. He has a good heart. He seems sincerely kind. That is already a huge asset for a bishop, and not as common as it should be. . . . May Traditional Catholics give the new pope the love and esteem and respect, and prayers, he deserves. Freely and without fear, and hoping for the best, knowing they might not be reciprocated, and expecting to be disappointed. It seems to be our fate.”

Tweeted the well known English Catholic traditionalist author Damian Thompson, “I have been re-reading the homily delivered by Pope Leo in the Sistine Chapel. Its passion and eloquence are breathtaking. Leo cannot and will not water down what he said. There can be no more indifferentism or blurring of boundaries with other faiths. The Pachamama has been exorcised.” (The Pachamama is a South American idol that Francis had brought to the Vatican, where it was worshiped or close to it.)

Pope Leo’s ascendancy has already had an effect on me. I regularly read the always excellent daily homily-like columns at The Catholic Thing, and the other day I read a particularly excellent one by Father Benedict Kiely. (The one today is extremely good, too.) Because of it, at 2 a.m. I undertook to read the sobering, frightening Epistle of James (Knox translation, of course). It is a serious to-do list for Christians. I do not know of anyone who can read it without concluding that there’s a lot of work you and I have to do before we even think of Heaven. I suspect a lot of people are arriving at the same conclusion, which can only be for the good.

We can do what we Catholics call an Examination of Conscience and seek to do what is right and, by St. James’s light, necessary. The new pope inspires that kind of thinking.

Or we can follow the loudest in the crowd, the people who are attacking the righteous though non-Catholic David French and of course Catholicism itself, their previous favorite pastime, antisemitism, having become recognized as shameful.

Though I’d not call it miraculous I must point out there are signs. For instance, this week Major League Baseball reinstated Shoeless Joe Jackson, who was thrown out of baseball following the infamous 1919 game-fixing scandal. No one, baseball seems to tell us, is beyond redemption, even if it takes 126 years to get there.

Shoeless Joe, it is worth noting, played for the White Sox.