White smoke billowed from the chimney and the bells of Saint Peter’s Basilica ring out as Catholics around the world rejoice in the election of our new Holy Father, Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, O.S.A. Order of Saint Augustine), Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. He is our first American Pope, born in Chicago. I was surprisingly elated to see that white smoke and truly taken aback that we now have an American Pope. I know nothing of him so here’s a write up from the College of Cardinals.
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a former prefect of the influential Dicastery for Bishops, is a Chicago-born prelate with views close to Pope Francis who spent many years as a missionary in Peru before being elected head of the Augustinians for two consecutive terms.
Born on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois, Prevost entered the novitiate of the Order of Saint Augustine (OSA) in 1977 and made his solemn vows in 1981.
His educational background includes a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Villanova University in 1977, a Master of Divinity from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and both a licentiate and doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical College of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. His doctoral thesis was on “The role of the local prior in the Order of Saint Augustine.”
His career in the Church has been marked by significant roles and achievements. After his ordination as a priest in 1982, Prevost joined the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985 and served as chancellor of the Territorial Prélature of Chulucanas from 1985 to 1986.
He spent the year 1987 to 1988 in the United States as pastor for vocations and director of missions for the Augustinian Province of Chicago before returning to Peru where he spent the next ten years heading the Augustinian seminary in Trujillo and teaching canon law in the diocesan seminary, where he was also prefect of studies. He also served in other capacities there, including as a parish pastor, diocesan official, director of formation, seminary teacher, and judicial vicar.
In 1999, he returned to Chicago and was elected provincial prior of the “Mother of Good Counsel” province in the archdiocese. Two and a half years later he was elected prior general of the Augustinian and served two terms until 2013.
In 2014, he returned to Peru when Pope Francis appointed him apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Chiclayo. He was elevated to Bishop of Chiclayo in 2015. While there, he also served as vice-president and member of the permanent council of the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference from 2018 to 2023.
During that time, Peru’s bishops reportedly played an important role in ensuring institutional stability during the successive political crises that led to the overthrows of successive presidents.
In 2020 and 2021, Prevost served as apostolic administrator of Callao, Peru.
Pope Francis appointed Prevost prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in January 2023, a powerful position responsible for selecting bishops, a position he held until Pope Francis died on April 21, 2025. On September 30, 2023, Pope Francis elevated Prevost to the rank of Cardinal.
During his first months as prefect, then-Archbishop Prevost continued to remain characteristically discreet in the media, but was reportedly appreciated for his ability to listen and his mastery of issues. Aleteia reported that a French bishop who met him two months after he took office praised his “judicious questions” and his ability to synthesize, stressing that this first contact had left him with a “good impression.”
On key topics, Cardinal Prevost says little but some of his positions are known. He is reportedly very close to Francis’ vision regarding the environment, outreach to the poor and migrants, and meeting people where they are. He said last year “the bishop is not supposed to be a little prince sitting in his kingdom.”
He supported Pope Francis’ change in pastoral practice to allow divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion. Prevost appears somewhat less favorable to currying favor with the LGBTQ lobby than Francis, but he showed mild support for Fiducia Supplicans.1
Prevost has faced some controversy regarding clergy sexual abuse although he has been defended in both instances.2 The cardinal’s supporters stress his innocence and say the cases have been inaccurately and unfairly reported in the media.
https://collegeofcardinalsreport.com/cardinals/robert-francis-prevost
TTG
Vance told Fox News in late January: “There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.”
Prevost’s tweet repeated the headline of the op-ed: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
“[The Apostle] Paul reminds them: love starts close. It moves first toward those in front of us, ensuring widows were not abandoned while preserving the church’s resources for those truly without support,” Armas wrote in the op-ed. “But make no mistake — this isn’t about love confined to bloodlines or geographic boundaries. It’s about love rooted in responsibility, expanding outward. And it was subversive even then.”
Matthew 22:37-38
So, how does the mass of MAGA “Christians” see immigration via their Bible?
Google search appears to show at odds:
The Bible strongly emphasizes the importance of treating immigrants and refugees with compassion and justice, urging believers to love them as neighbors and protect them from harm. It explicitly condemns mistreating or oppressing foreigners and highlights the shared human experience of being “strangers in a land”. The Bible also emphasizes the need for immigrants to be treated with fairness and kindness, recognizing that they are also God’s people.
Key Biblical Passages and Themes:
Exodus 22:21: “Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.”
Leviticus 19:33-34: “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”
Deuteronomy 27:19: “Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien…of justice.”
Matthew 25:31-40: The parable of the sheep and the goats, which emphasizes the importance of caring for the hungry, thirsty, and “the stranger”.
The Priestly Source of the Pentateuch constitutes a complex idealized ethno-national theocratic social organization. Within this context the foreigner in the land of Israel is variously disadvantaged. For instance…
Foreigners are not permitted to participate in their pagan cults, thus cut off from their gods & ancestral identity. Foreigners are restricted from participating in Israel’s cult & political life. Foreigners, unlike Israelites, may be permanently enslaved and charged interest. Foreigners may own none of the property granted to the children of the Exodus. Foreigners are required to obey all the legal inheritance of Israel, not their own customs. All this to say, estrangement from one’s tribal-patriarchal head was a severe liability in Antiquity. No liberal would tolerate those terms for their precious third world hordes today.
As for the Synoptics (and Paul’s interpretation of them), they are written under the impress of imminent apocalypse. Don’t get married, let the tares (evil) grow, forsake your family, seek the cruciform of “way” of Jesus. All of that ended when Constantine reintroduced Christianity as a cult of salvation through martial victory. That’s what Christendom, the actual historical religion of the West, was about.
Conservative Christians can’t articulate this (literalism and fundamentalism are sociological products of defensive political postures), but they are more authentically Christian in the Western sense progressive Christians who have developed their own fundamentalist New Testament views.
Post WWII scholarship has placed Jesus squarely within his Jewish context as a radical “scripture-prophet” seeking to heal the body politic of a united Israel preparatory to divine intervention from Yahweh. Yes, that’s what the Good Samaritan is about. The Samaritan identifies his neighbor (neighbor = fellow Israelite in the scriptures Jesus know about) by the standards of the Pentateuch (remember: Jesus said to keep the law) rather than the standards of the Temple elite whom Jesus opposed. These are not universal maxims in context.
John Winthrop,
There are Arab muslims in the Israeli government, both as elected and appointed officials. The reverse is not true.
Jesus had it easy. A clear mission for his life and perfect faith based on direct knowledge. No family to raise and no duty to future generations; no career, no illness, etc. Sure, crucifixion sucks, but so does languishing in a concentration camp, watching friends and family die, until it’s your time; there are forms of cancer that people develop that are as bad, pain-wise, as crucifixion. Even burning to death in a car accident is a pretty bad way to go.
True, Jesus took on all of the sins of the world, but he had special training for that. We are all taking on those sins to some extent every day.
I find the Gospels to fall short in that they contain no practical wisdom, that is to say guidance for regular people to live a spiritual life and a material life simultaneously. As you say, a lot of that is because the Gospels are “written under the impress of imminent apocalypse”. Well, most regular people aren’t making decisions based on that delusion.
I find eastern religions to be much better at addressing normal people’s practical issues. Take, for example, the extensive conversations between reluctant prince and warrior, Arjuna, and Lord Krishna. Now that is some good instruction; something we can apply in its entirety.
Sometimes I muse that Christian progressives realize, perhaps only subconsciously, that they are not living out the exact instructions of Jesus. Rather than admit that to do so is impossible, they attempt to resolve cognitive dissonance by going into hyper-virtue signaling mode about how they are saving this or that [imagined] downtrodden group, better yet if the group they are “saving” is saved at the expense of the progressives. If the progressives can cause their own group to perish in the course of saving others, then they can claim that they made the ultimate sacrifice, just like Jesus. So let’s replace western civ with muslims, or MS-13, and that sort of thing.
This is different from leftist progressives, who are just jealous, hateful socialists and other assorted filth, seeking to deploy social justice concepts to guilt trip society into permitting them to parasitize what others have built – and then ultimately destroy that which they envy. Or who are actual agents of foreign adversaries seeking to demoralize, sow chaos and confusion and thereby eliminate their enemy’s ability to resist.
Eric Newhill,
“I find the Gospels to fall short in that they contain no practical wisdom, that is to say guidance for regular people to live a spiritual life and a material life simultaneously.”
The Gospels don’t fall short. In fact, they are emphatic about what is demanded of us. The command to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless are among the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Jesus calls us to do this in the sermon on the mount and in other passages of the New Testament. It’s a tall order, but it’s an order.
TTG,
It’s a tall order to the point of ridiculousness because it is has no qualifications. Does one feed all the hungry such that one starves to death? Clothe the naked such that one freezes to death? Show mercy to the point where psychopaths murder one’s family right before one’s own eyes? Tithe the poor to the point where one loses one’s house and lives in the street?
Does feeding, housing and clothing people make them dependent and weak? Yes. Often it does. Is that a good outcome?
The practical details and nuances count in these things and the Gospel offers neither.
The philosophy becomes worse when the government becomes both the policy establishing body, deciding who will receive the mercy, and the escrow company for all of those funds slated for deeds of mercy.
Eric Newhill,
If one rejects these “deeds of mercy” outright, they would certainly seem ridiculous. I guess that’s the whole point of the prosperity gospel we hear so much about. Those of us who recognize such “deeds of mercy” as desirable or required have the good sense not to exhaust ourselves serving others. It’s that free will thing. In fact, most of us don’t do as much as we can and we aren’t overwhelmed with guilt over that fact.
TTG,
Jesus didn’t call on us to have taxpayers finance an NGO, have that ship the poor across the planet, then have the citizens therein provide for them via taxation or personal charity (excluding fine places like Martha’s Vineyard and Maui) as they are now “neighbors”.
TTG,
I am highly suspicious of open ended orders to go on global crusades with nebulous objectives. “Take care of the poor and downtrodden” seems like such a crusade.
I’m also one of those who thinks that teaching a man to fish is much better than just handing him fish every day. If I catch 100 fish per day and I give away 50 of those fish, I am out 50 fish and there are still only 100 fish in our society. And the recipients of the fish have their character and soul atrophy by becoming dependent on me.
If I teach these hungry people how to fish, they develop as full fledged independent humans and the grow the number of fish in society. I catch my hundred. They catch their hundred. Now we have 200 fish in our society.
I also am suspicious of of people who can’t figure out to fish on their own. If there isn’t a really good, clear cut, reason for their retardation, then they should be avoided and left to their fate.
Anyhow, this different outlook is why the two of us will never understand each other’s politics. It is my opinion that the majority of those receiving help from our society are whiners, slackers, parasites and actual enemies. You, on the other hand, are compelled to see them all as opportunities to fulfill your Christian mission.
I thought that, in Christianity, all that is necessary is to accept Christ as savior.
IMO, decisions about helping people should only be made at the individual level, meaning man to man (woman, child). Charity begins at home and should stay there.
Major Genius…Reminds Eric Newhill..that
All One Must Know about Love..Mercy..Giving..
Comes From The Holy Bible..Teaching Us about
What Sacrifice HIS SON..Jesus..Made..After Feeding The People..Healing Them By The Holy Spiritn With in Him..As The Son of GOD..Yet Half Human Being too..But We Are Admonished
In The Bible..Also..Not To Cast Our Pearls..Before he Mockers.,.Scoffers And Swine.
Jim..A Believer..In The WORD of GOD..
Jim,
Well yes, that is the problem; pearls before swine. Wheat and chaff. Who is deciding which is which? NGOs? Biden? Democrats? Courts?
When you love everyone, you love no one. When you give to swine, there is not enough left to give to those truly in need.
I ask again, who is so incompetent that they can’t make their way in life? Hey, I need. Will you give to me? Come on man, fork it over. Will send contact info and you send me pre-paid credit cards. I have a very good sad story to tell you. It will convince you, I swear. God bless you.
comment deleted by TTG
Condottiere,
If you want to voice your serious displeasure with Pope Leo XIV, you can do so respectfully. Even Bishop Strickland, who you obviously admire, was quite Christian in his comments.
Hmm, yes, he might have been him first choice of the “usurper of Peter’s chair” the “diabolically disoriented clown”.
Yes …
OK, I’m getting mixed information. I can’t even figure out if he’s a Cubs or White Sox fan either. His brother says he is a Sox fan, others say he’s a Cubs fan. If he’s a Cubs Fan, we won’t hear the end of it from the worst fan base in MLB.
Illinois voter registration records show he’s an active republican voter. The Italian press also reported that he was spotted attending the secret meeting at Cardinal Burke’s residence with other conservative Cardinals immediately before the conclave. The Red Hat Report compiled by former FBI and CIA hired by right wing Opus Dei members have been collecting dossiers and gaming the conclave for 7 years. Another separate report was created by two conservative catholic reporters and was freely available online and in book format to the cardinals. Both projects made the liberals paranoid with impartial information; however, the report had him listed as unknown on his leanings compared to others. Other than a couple recent tweets against deportations and JD Vance, he seemed to keep his head down. I’m wondering if these reports were effective at directing the conclave in anti Francis direction to get their conservative American mole in office by offering a dark horse that tweeted mean things at the orange man.
Condottiere,
Leo XIV is much quieter than Francis and less openly opinionated. I think he’s going to be a little more centrist than his predecessor, but we won’t know for several months at least.
Good luck. It will be interesting to see the Vatican’s response to investigations into Catholic Charities involvement in human trafficking through the US Souther border.
Yes, it seems Catholics have another globalist, liberal, liberation theology , enemy of the USA, as Pope.
The Vatican is allied with the cartels, it seems. Can church hierarchy be arrested and imprisoned? What recourse do we have? Encourage everyone to become Baptists and Protestants?
Eric, Oh but, the MAGA Baptist etc forsake their Biblical scripture regarding the “alien” in their community?
AL,
Everyone ignores parts of scripture that are suicidal.
Should Ukraine turn the other cheek, forgive Russia and give unto Putin what is Putin’s?
Eric Newhill,
As long as Putin gives unto Zelenskiy what is Zelenskiy’s.
TTG,
Sure, of course.
Otherwise, they are going to fight to the death, which is not at all in accordance with scripture, but makes perfect sense to anyone who wants to survive on this planet.
Just like the US should enforce borders, enact and enforce stringent immigration laws, and deport those not following the laws.
Just looking for a little more ideological consistency and a little less preaching from hypocrites.
Eric, that’s what the early Christians did as
Rome’s lions ate them. Likely the closest Christ-ians, ever, to follow the Word.
As an Agnostic I find all faiths/dogmas filled with contridictions that the faithfull go about daily ignorant of.
TTG,
A free flight to a safe haven for retirement? I’m sure that could be arranged. But since his own people tried to assassinate him in 2024 he’ll need his foreign bodyguards for the rest of his life.
A Chicago boy. A degree in Mathematics. 31 years in Peru. Speaks five languages. Opposes euthanasia & the death penalty, abortion & contraceptives, lady priests and homosexuals. Sounds like a moderate and the right pick to me. What’s not to like about this guy?
But I’m sure both the faggots and the MAGAts are going to hate him. Maybe they’ll team up in the future? Oh wait, they already have. Trump’s LGBTQ posse: Scott Bessent, Peter Thiel, Ric Grenell, Tammy Bruce, Jacob Hellberg, Bill White, Art Fisher, Randy Berry, James Abbot, et al.
Ernst Röhm was a part of the originals. The LGBTQ MAGAs need to read up and find out what happened to Röhm and his lot.
Stefan, perhaps Sen Graham should look out for long knives?
Stefan,
Ok. I’ll bite. What the hell does Rohm have to do with anything being discussed here?
Is this one of those special snowflake things wherein if someone doesn’t appreciate your clinical goofiness, they must be a genocidal Nazi?
leith,
Pete Buttguy is now MAGA? Amazing! It didn’t even take Pope Leo XIV to straighten him out. Did he get the other one to convert too?
Fred – the other ‘one’?
So your saying there were only two of them appointed by Biden. What a piker as deementia donOld would say. Many strong men came up to President Donny to thank him with tears in their eyes for the dozens of queers, steers & other genderbenders that he tolerates(?) in his inner sanctum.
/
leith,
Buttigeig is married. The other one would be the hubby.
Trump’s LGBTQ Secretary of the Treasury is also married. Trump said he is “a nice looking guy”. Nice house too, but only if you like pink: https://property-images.realgeeks.com/sccharls/b60f521a06e6d80488f31bf74d78e535.jpg
He is tight with Trump’s other South Carolina pansy friend, Senator Graham.
Fred,
“Pete Buttguy is now MAGA?”
No, Pete is just a regular Joe American. MAGA is quite a different breed (ignorant, likely belong to a cult).
TonyL,
You should direct that to Leith
I am Impressed that Robert Francis Prevost..An American..Was Elected
The POPE..I feel The Vatican Has Shifted To Center / Right And Signals
The Majority of The Cardinals.,Actually Believed Pope Francis..Had
Gone Far to0 Liberal..Out side Old Catholic Doctrine..i like what I
Read About Him.. Now..My MAIN Concern is About HIS Safety..
JIM
he’s only 70… plenty of time for him to disappoint everyone who need him to validate their bias.
His decision to take the name “Leo” is probably meaningful. Likely he gave it a lot of thought. Seems fairly close to the attitudes of his immediate predecessor.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd4lpnpy7no
Oops, hit reply too early. I meant to include the possibility, as Prevost was a life-long Cubs fan, that the name may have been inspired by this guy: Leo “Nice Guys Finish Last” Durocher?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Durocher
Time will tell…
Leo’s big brother has confirmed that the former Father Bob is a White Sox fan. This would suggest that he is walking in the way of the Saviour by favoring the needy and unfortunate. However, if the new Pope demonstrates a turn of phrase, “Leo the Lip” would be an awesome papal nickname.
Progressives are relieved and the wingnuts are just taking comfort in Francis being out of the way. As you say, time will tell. Blase Cardinal Cupich, who knows Leo well, seems very positive.
The Catholic church is a racist, genocidal organization; doesn’t matter who’s wearing the pointy hat. Think of the crusades! The treatment of native Americans from Mexico down to Tierra Del Fuego, burning of witches and pogroms against Jews. The Inquisition!
I hope this Pope starts paying restitutions to all that the church has harmed over the centuries.
Being woke is fun in a psycho kinda way. You can denigrate any human endeavor in a few seconds – and shake down the establishment for cash money!
Eric Newhill,
There was a time that the Catholic Church was all of those things. It was run by thoroughly corrupt men who were in it for the power and wealth. To deny that is idiocy. Thank God for redemption, also a very Catholic thing.