Vatican City-USA now have two high-level leaders in the global-and scenario there is evidence that suggests that Pope Leo XIV will strongly contrast with President Donald Trump.
The 69 -year -old Pontiff, 69, is known as a moderate humble who used his first papal words to instar the construction of “bridges.” Seen as a spiritual successor of the late Pope Francis, Leo was echoing the chorus of his predecessor to build “no -wall bridges” – a theme that Francis used to openly criticize the Trump administration.
Like Cardinal Robert Prevost, Leo also criticized Trump and Vice -President JD Vance on social media. In February recently, he shared a headline saying that Vance, who is Catholic, was “wrong” in suggesting that Christians should prioritize love their compatriots about foreigners.
And, like Francis, Leo expressed profound sympathy for migrants, the poor and affected by the climate crisis. He shared the support of the late Pope to appoint women to Vatican senior papers and his resistance to striving for support for female ordination. And he also defended an inclusive church that extends to other religions and cultures.
On the other hand, he did not follow Francis’s relative support to LGBTQ+communities, mourning in 2012 as the “benign and sympathetic portrayed” TV shows ”, according to an Arlington Catholic Herald report at the time.
Conclave block confidentiality means that we do not know why the Cardinal’s 133 voters voted for Leo for at least one majority two -thirds. And scholars are divided on how the decision must be interpreted.
For Steven Millies, professor of public theology in the Catholic theological union in Chicago, is an unmistakable repudiation of the Trump administration.
“Cardinals have been one side: this new Pope will be against this 21st century authoritarianism that we see underway in the US and many other parts of the world,” Millies told NBC News. “Choosing an American while a second Trump government is deporting, disappearing [people] And interrupting such alarming extent again is a message. ”
Request to comment on these criticisms, the White House directed NBC News to a social media post in which Trump said it was a “great honor” to have an American Pope and that he expected to know it, and a Vance saying that he was “sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for their successful work that leads the church in the church.”
Millies compare the choice of cardinals to the 1978 conclave, when they selected a Polish pontiff in John Paul II, “behind the Iron Curtain,” he said. “The cardinals were giving a side – they pointed a new pope to the Soviet Union.”
Others are less certain about the intentions of the conclave.
“Either they chose an American because they think it sends a message that he faces Donald Trump and offers an alternative view of American leadership, or chose him, although he was American,” said Miles Pattenden, historian of the Catholic Church at Oxford University of Britain.
“It seems to be quite sensational if they chose him just because he was American and could face President Trump,” he added, if nothing more, because Trump’s term is brief compared to a potential papal life.
Whatever the reasoning of the cardinals, they elected a pope whose personality is night and day for Trump’s sudden personality.
Leo is “a silently confident person, not a flashy personality,” Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester diocese, Minnesota, told NBC “night news” on Thursday. These are qualities that few, including Trump’s most ardent supporters, would attribute to the president.
Even the name of the new Pope carries tips that he can oppose Trump’s worldview. The last pontiff to take this name was Pope Leo XIII, who in his 25 -year -old from 1878 to 1903, defended social justice and workers’ rights against the nascent forces of capitalism.
“The Pope will not agree with anything Trump is saying,” said Bill’s 63 -year -old Bill Ciotti, who before retiring was responsible for planning the liturgy in his church. Ciotti was in Rome, 10 minutes walk from the Vatican, with his friend Bill Champlin, a priest in St. Leo’s parish in Leominster, Massachusetts. When they saw white smoke wavy on TV while dinner, they got up and ran to St. Peter’s square.
“He has criticized Trump and Vance, so I think it will be a big confrontation,” Ciotti said on Friday.
Politically, Leo “will not be the extreme left and he will not be right on the right,” said his brother John Presost in an interview with Associated Press on Thursday. But it is widely seen as continuing the program Francis began, which did not like many conservative US Catholics.
“I think one of the dark horses and, unfortunately, one of the most progressive, is Cardinal Prevost,” said Trump Steve Bannon’s former Cosmeler, who is Catholic and strongly opposed Francis’s platform before Leo was elected. “I think it’s very shocking, given the contempt in which they keep the American church.” He added that “my understanding is PREVOST is one of the closest to Francis ideologically.”
Finally, the believers and unbelievers will have to wait and see how the Trump-length era unfolds.
“Our God is a god of surprises,” said Cesar Jaramillo, 35, Paterson’s lawyer, New Jersey, who has lived in Rome for eight years. “The prediction that the Holy Spirit showed by allowing Leo to lead the opportunity to lead for a very turbulent time, this is a good sign.”