On the day of the first impressions about it is already known that it does not give headlines, nor surprises, nor show. Robert Francis Prevost, the first American Pope, is discreet and silent, does not give the feeling of wanting to attract attention to himself. In his first words on the balcony of San Pedro he did not make a single reference to himself, as Francisco, Benedict XVI or Juan Pablo II did before. He has given a certain idea of return to normal, that of the usual potatoes, after Francisco’s gale.
If 2013, Bergoglio in his early days revolutionized the Vatican and the city of Rome. It was an instant seduction with its gestures, its improvisations, its comings and goings, transmitted electricity and the advent of many changes. Premost no, and it is still curious. And placate confrontations, both within the Church and outside, because the divisions of politics, of society, are also within the Church.
On the internal front, the homily of the Mass held on Friday was revealing against the Cardinals, in the Sistine Chapel. Leo XIV appeared almost like a simple and careful manager of an ancient tradition that now reaches him. “God, to happen to the first of the apostles, entrusts me to this treasure to me, so that, with his help, it is his faithful administrator,” he explained. Translated, that he will not govern alone, but with others, and that he will not decide drastic changes on his own in the delicate mission in hand. The term chosen, administrator, almost bureaucratic, is the antithesis of the charismatic prophet.
Without a doubt, it will have relieved because those related to Francisco and more progressive were already happy since the previous day. The most traditional sectors reproached the Argentine Pope for an excess of authoritarianism and solo decisions, in addition to a loss of institutional solemnity that, in his opinion, eroded the Church. In this sense, the first important test for Premost is to decide where you will live. If you will stay in the residence of Santa Marta, such as Francisco, or will return to the Apostolic Palace. But he still leaves it in the air, Vatican Fuentes have pointed out. It will continue for now in Santa Marta and decide later, because also the traditional papal rooms need arrangements.
At the moment, on Thursday night Leo XIV approached what until now has been his home, literally two steps from the Vatican, and had his first encounter with faithful. It was the first time he looked dressed in white. He was close, he signed an autograph for the first time to a girl, although he noticed that the firm, being new, still did not go well, and agreed to some selfis. The first, who knows, with the nun Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary of the Synod of the Bishops, central organism in Francisco’s mandate.
As for its relationship with world politics, the first contact of the new Pope will be on May 18, Sunday, when the Pontificate’s starting ceremony is held. As at Francisco’s funeral, on April 26, almost all the heads of state and government will probably be seen again in the same place who then attended that Mass. It will be the time when Leo XIV will go directly to them, although already in their first speech after the most mentioned word was chosen was “peace.”
It is symptomatic that in a welcome climate and waiting for events, the only aggressive reaction against Leo XIV has come in his own country, the United States, and from the ultraconservative world related to Donald Trump. Being an American potato, the battle that is coming is evident and in those circles it is already directly an “anti-trump”, in the words of Steve Bannon, formerly ideologue and strategist of the US president. Corriere della Sera. The phrase makes an equivalence with the conspiracy thesis of a deep state that manipulates citizens, and a week ago Bannon had warned that Prevost was “the dark horse” of the hidden power groups in the race to the Pope’s succession. “It’s the worst choice for Maga Catholics [siglas del movimiento Make America Great Again]”, Explained a Politicopointing to “the globalists of the curia.”
Laura Loomer, extreme right and conspirationist activist, who defines “proud Islamophobic” and “white nationalist”, has said. “It is Anti-Trump, Anti-Maga, open pro-front and a Marxist convinced like Pope Francis. Catholics have nothing good to wait. Another Marxist puppet in the Vatican,” he wrote on social networks.
Also the editorial comments of the conservative chain Fox News showed their concern for the possibility that the new pontiff “was convinced that the Church should no longer oppose modernism, but to accept it and even be part of it, to seem relevant and current.” A reflection that seemed made more than a century ago, with Leo XIII, the previous Pope called like this, the pontiff who began to dialogue with the modern world, to criticize the evolution of capitalism in the industrial revolution and introduced social issues into the Church.
Leo XIV, the one now, is perfectly clear that reference of his predecessor of the nineteenth century, and has in fact chosen the name, as a cardinal has told, for his concern about the conditions of the working world. The story has revealed it to a Croatian television network Cardinal Serbio Ladislav Nemet, archbishop of Belgrade, who at dinner held after the election of the Pope, sat next to him: “We talked and asked how he chose the name. And it is very interesting, he said he wants to pay more attention to the social problems in the world, as well as those of justice. He also said that we are in the middle of a new revolution. XIII There was an industrial revolution, now there is a digital revolution.
