The writer states that the Supreme Pontiff may be a counterbalance to the conservatives like JD Vance.
By Catholics for Catholics
The New York Times reported that the rise of Pope Leo XIV comes at a time that the American church has been divided over progressives and conservatives.
“The elevation of Robert Francis Prevost, known to some as Bob, to the throne of St. Peter electrified Catholics across his home country on Thursday afternoon. But the first American pope arrives at a time of extraordinary complexity and tension in the church in the United States,” wrote The Times.
Still, the Times article states that the “last several months for American Catholics have been a story about the ascent of the Catholic right. In January, a parade of right-wing Catholic power began streaming into President Trump’s remade Washington. Just weeks later came the hospitalization and decline of Pope Francis, who often seemed to stand alone in offering a different vision of global Christian influence.”
After Francis’ death came the selection of Pope Leo, an American in the mold of Francis, wrote The Times. He is seen as a counterbalancing voice against the rise of new conservative Catholics, the piece said.
“Now the new pope, Leo XIV, faces the task not just of shepherding the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, but of unifying a fractured American church where the church hierarchy, ordinary Catholics, an influential right-wing Catholic media ecosystem and Catholic power in Washington are often at odds,” indicated The Times article.
The Times article stated that the rise of Pope Leo comes at a time when at “a moment of extraordinary muscle and visibility for a certain kind of Catholicism in American public life. More than a third of the members of President Trump’s cabinet are Catholic. So are two-thirds of the Supreme Court, which has issued a remarkable run of rulings expressing an emphatic vision of religious liberty, often favorable to Christian interests.”
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