The two are white and Anglo -Saxon, come from migrant families and were born in the same country, the United States of America, one in Chicago and the other, in New York. Here end the similarities between the until Thursday Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, now, and the US president ,. Among them there is an ideological, spiritual and human abyss.
It was speculated that the Republican had gone to the funeral of Pope Francis with the only interest of pressing so that a countryman would be in his home and thus try also through the Vatican, but if it were true, he has left the shot by the cylinder head. Trump supported another candidate, Timothy Michael Dolan, who had publicly supported, but has become a bishop of Rome a man with his same passport, but a very different mentality and ambitions.
The new shepherd comes from the fourth country in the world with more Catholics in the world, but where the Church is dominated by the most ultraconservative wing, which advocates orthodox posture, in the antipodes of the opening. And with a formidable growth of evangelical tendencies, which put religiosity and dogmas above the gospels.
The initial speech given by the second American Pope in history, in which peace and dialogue were the axes, already confirms the clash. He asked “disarming, humble and persevering peace comes from God.” “God who loves us all and unconditionally. We still maintain in our ears that weak, but always brave voice, of Pope Francis blessing in Rome. In that same blessing God loves us. God loves you all and evil will not prevail,” he began, in front of the crowd, on his balcony to St. Peter. Leo XIV then asked “to build bridges with the dialogue with the meeting, leading us all to be a single town always in peace.”
What seems normal in a, is more valuable and recalcable in times when armed conflicts multiply, alliances that were believed to be safe, increasing doubts and distrust, also insecurity, also increasing, as long as the diplomacy loses effectively and gaining the armament careers, ultranationalism and contempt of the different.
Prevost, before inheriting the throne of San Pedro, already left clear clues of its principles, which is considered similar to those of the late Bergoglio. A man who will turn 70 in September, very fogged in the streets and after the street in social networks, has used channels at his disposal to expose what he did not like from the Trump government. From Viejo, he has reflected message to message and declaration to declaration of his commitment to the rights of migrants and the fight against climate change, for example. He has gone beyond that, he has not avoided direct criticism, shaving behaviors, for example, of the current vice president of the US, the Catholic (Trump is not, he declares himself a non -confessional Christian), as well as the migration policies promoted by the president himself, in his present legislature and in which he led him to the oval office between 2017 and 2021.
Deportations, Climate Change and Floyd
In his X account, in which he was defined in Spanish as “Catholic, Agustino, Bishop,” is the trail of that complaint position. There is his last retuit, of April 15, of the commentator and writer Rocco Palmo, who said: “While Trump and [Nayib] Get up [presidente de El Salvador] They use the oval office for illicit deportation by the federals of an American resident, who was an undocumented Salvadoran, the now DC Aux +Evelio asks: “Do you not see the suffering? Are you not worried about their conscience? How can they shut up?” An allusion to the case of Kilmar Abrego García, a migrant deported by error to a Salvadoran megacárcel.
A day before, Prevost shared another tribune written by Salvadoran Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala who questions the agreements between Trump and Bukele, to expand those massive deportations of undocumented US and enter them in the so-called terrorism confinement center (CECOT).
Shortly before, on February 3, the Pope shared an opinion article by a journalist from the National Catholic Reporter Titled “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus does not ask us to hierarchize our love for others”, a criticism of what was said by the vice president – with Catholicism five years ago – about the need to worry first of the family itself, putting behind those we have further.
The clash with Trump number two, which coincidentally, was given after Vance, in a television interview, argued that the Christian concept of the order of love It justified to prioritize love towards national citizens over immigrants, in defense of the restrictive immigration policies of the Trump administration. With Francisco, Vance was not understood either. The story seems to be repeated.
The US Vice President JD Vance, accompanied by his wife, visits Pope Francis, on April 20, 2025, a day before the death of the Pontiff.
The choice of Cardinal Prevost has been very celebrated by Catholic leaders in the US who defend the rights of migrants, because they understand that their proximity to Francisco’s legacy (which was the one who appointed him purple) and his career as a missionary and bishop in Peru indicate that he can be a good lawyer of his cause. “It is a unique opportunity and a very intelligent decision by the cardinals, connect to the Latin world with the US,” says Antonio Fernández, director of Catholic charities in San Antonio, to the EFE agency.
Fernández hopes that the new Pope, of American nationality, can serve as an intercessor. “Maybe you can talk to Trump and try to convince him of (…) open the services to all people in this country, especially the poor and migrants,” he says.
Reflecting his reserved personality, Prevost, whose profile picture is a photo of his with the newly deceased Pope Francis and that before the papacy followed 87 people, barely tweet his own messages, of his harvest, and mainly shares messages in English and Spanish, of a diversity of sources ranging from Catholic media to the Peruvian Episcopal Conference or the American cardinal Blase Cupich.
Throughout the last decade, their retweems reflect a commitment to the poor and migrants – especially with Venezuelan refugees in Peru – or in favor of combating climate change, which Trump has declared himself proud. In addition, he has condemned the possession of weapons in the US or shared prayers in memory of, the American black citizen who died at the hands of a policeman who suffocated him in 2020. In turn, his messages also show his contradiction with respect to abortion or euthanasia, issues in which even the most progressive part of the church is inflexible.
There are no messages about Gaza’s War, before which Francisco was so critical of Israel, whom the US supports fissures, but gave statements to the visit of his predecessor to the Holy Land, in 2014, claiming justice for the Palestinian cause and a solution of two states, which Washington has dynamited.
A counterweight
The cardinals have opted in this week’s conclave by a religious that allows continuity – and with a resume that is not the favorite of the high instances of their country of birth (by experience, it also has Peruvian nationality). This bet is understood as a kind of counterweight to Trump’s phagocitator power, which has barely exceeded one hundred days of government.
The theologian Miguel Pérez believes “defining” the words that the Pope pronounced at his first Mass, last Friday, when he asked that the Church. “That idea of the light in the mid -dark times and that the behavior of the community sets the difference and changes things, which is the light that enters through the crack, is beautiful and stimulating,” he says. “You’ve called me to take the cross,” he said in the same Premost intervention, talking to God. For the historian, this indicates “that he has completely assumed his role in the 21st century”, which is not only from shepherd or the administrator, but that of “public figure with responsibility that the fight is thrown to the shoulders for the world, for the good of all, because he always speaks of community.”
That way of thinking has roots in two Lionsin his opinion. The first is Leo XIII, “that in a new time of growing capitalism and industrial revolution he put the workers already disadvantaged in the center of the story.” The second, León de Asís, San Francisco’s partner, “defender of clarity, joy and friendship.” “It is not just a Pope who continues to wear black and not red shoes or calls women to read at their mass, but someone and episcopal,” he summarizes. An aged concept but very driven by Francisco, which seeks to open the institution to all baptized to make it more horizontal and universal. “Just what Trump does not like, who loves the hierarchy, like his favorite, Dolan,” he says.
“León calls to end that harmful verticality, the same as he prefers to speak with other religions without boasting that his is the good and correct, someone capable of understanding the other in his differences and finding it in the similarities. In these hours, we have always heard him talk about bridges and dialogue, he is overcoming confrontations, in a context in which multilateralism is damaged, especially by leaders such as Trump,” he says. That is why he understands that the Republican could not “say more” than what is a “great honor” for the US to have a Pope. “He doesn’t add an adjective,” Ironiza.
The theologian concludes highlighting that Leo XIV has put in his first letter of presentation “the courage”. “He has asked to advance without fear, and that, when they intimidate Trump’s capital letters, their threats and their decrees, as well as the totalitarian steps of other world leaders, gives hope,” he concludes.
