The identify alone usually speaks volumes. In selecting to reign as Francis, first of that identify, Jorge Bergoglio signaled clearly the type of his preach, which aspired to the simplicity of the saint of Assisi whereas providing all kinds of ruptures with custom.
A successor who selected Francis II or, for that matter, John XXIV or Paul VII (after the popes of the Second Vatican Council) would have signaled an additional push for liberalization; a successor who opted for Benedict XVII or Pius XIII would have been promising a traditionalist swing.
Whereas the identify Leo XIV guarantees, maybe, some model of the “peace” that the previous Cardinal Robert Prevost invoked in his first phrases from the papal loggia — peace between the church’s contending factions in addition to within the wider world. The final Leo was lengthy reigning and widespread and remembered fondly by Catholics of various theological stripes. He’s well-known for his interventions in Nineteenth-century debates over capitalism and socialism and his assist for the revival of Thomist philosophy, a legacy that’s neither “left” nor “proper” however merely Catholic in a means {that a} divided church struggles to attain at present.
Maybe no pope can obtain it, and positively there may be an interpretation of Leo XIV’s election that simply emphasizes continuities with the Francis period: He’s a Francis appointee who entered the conclave as a well-liked candidate of among the earlier pope’s allies; he’s an American who’s additionally a critic, recently, of the Catholic vp of america. One can inform a narrative the place the final level was essential to his election — the place no less than some cardinals wished an anti-Trump American as pope — and the place his identify guarantees a much less destabilizing however nonetheless liberal-leaning papacy.
However truthfully, after the Francis years, conservative Catholics would possibly welcome even that sort of shift, with a pope who isn’t precisely on their aspect however who additionally doesn’t current himself as their scourge and critic, who doesn’t push doctrinal change so laborious as to danger schism and who avoids petty wars like Francis’ try to snuff out the Latin Mass. A pope who tries to rise above the fray and provides the church’s totally different factions respiratory area, as an alternative of threatening chaos or battle with each appointment, each synod and each papal interview.
That respiratory area can be particularly helpful as a result of the questions liberal and conservative Catholics have been preventing over because the Nineteen Sixties, whereas enduringly vital, will not be the territory that issues most to the Christian future.
