When Pope Leo XIV addressed the crowds in St. Peter’s Square on Thursday evening, the first American pope made it clear that the view from his balcony was not the view from the United States. He began in Italian, added a few lines in Spanish, and concluded with the traditional blessing in Latin. He didn’t speak a word of English. He sent greetings to his former diocese of Chiclayo, in Peru, but not to his hometown of Chicago, Illinois.
Until Thursday, it was a given that the pope would not have an American point of view. Catholics in the U.S. are used to thinking of the pope as a remote figure, unreachable and otherworldly — which is why it created such a stir when Pope Francis did things like paying his own hotel bill or posing for photos with famous American comedians.
When and how Leo XIV will turn his attention to the United States is what we’re all watching for now.
The language barrier has helped maintain that air of unreality around the papacy. The pope is someone to look at, rather than listen to; if we do hear his voice, we don’t expect to understand the words. When the last three popes made their official visits to the United States, they prayed in Latin, read haltingly from prepared texts, and communicated largely through translators. None of them was comfortable conversing in English.
Enter Pope Leo XIV, a native speaker of American English with a mild Chicago accent. He chose not to reveal that aspect of himself in his first message to the world, but when he does turn his attention to English-speaking Catholics, there will be no need for a translator and no straining to make out his words. On the contrary, he will be startlingly easy to understand. When, during his first Mass as pope, he began his homily with a few sentences in English, he sounded like any Midwesterner, flat vowels and all.
When and how Leo XIV will turn his attention to the United States is what we’re all watching for now. I don’t see him going out of his way to pick fights with Donald Trump or anyone else in American political leadership. But he chose a name that recalls the legacy of Pope Leo XIII, whose writings in support of workers’ rights and human dignity earned him a reputation as the father of Catholic Social Teaching. That choice seems to be a deliberate signal of solidarity with the working class and the poor, and when the moment comes for Leo XIV to express those principles, he will be difficult to ignore.
Months after his election in 2013, Pope Francis issued “Evangelii Gaudium,” a document that condemned the exploitation of the poor and called for attention to “the structural causes of poverty.” He wrote, “Inequality is the root of social ills,” and he specifically rejected trickle-down theories as expressing “a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.”
Conservative American commentators rushed to downplay Francis’ words. He didn’t really understand the American context, they said; he was thinking of South America, where capitalism is more corrupt. Or they took issue with the official Vatican translation, insisting that it was more moderate in the original Spanish. That was self-soothing nonsense, and as Francis’ papacy went on, it became harder to cast him as any kind of conservative. But the language barrier did make it easier for some to believe that the plain-speaking pope was an intellectual lightweight.
Pope Leo surely recognizes the need to be shrewd in dealing with American politics.
Leo XIV, on the other hand, will face no obstacles when he has something to communicate to American Catholics. There will be no opportunity for anyone to soften his remarks with “What the Holy Father meant to say…” This is certainly bad news for Catholics like Vice President J.D. Vance, who want to use church teaching to serve authoritarian ends. Perhaps the cardinals liked the idea of an American pope who can condemn human rights abuses and call for restitution and repentance in words that will not need translating.
For all his pride in his Argentine roots, Francis never made an official visit to Buenos Aires after he left there to become pope. He seemed to know that such a visit could be used to political ends. For the same reason, the United States could be waiting a long time for a visit from its first native pontiff. Leo XIV has watched from Rome as bishops in American dioceses allowed themselves to be used by Trump and lost their credibility in the process. Even Pope Francis was manipulated into a meeting with Kim Davis, the clerk who lost her job for refusing to certify same-sex marriages, when he came to the United States in 2015. The Vatican later had to clarify that the meeting did not indicate support for her actions, and the intermediary who arranged it — Archbishop Carlo Viganò — has since been excommunicated.
Pope Leo surely recognizes the need to be shrewd in dealing with American politics. If and when he speaks directly to America, it will be because he has something important to say. For our part, Americans — and especially American Catholics — will hear it not as a murmur from afar, but as a familiar-sounding voice ringing in our ears. Then, the question will be, Are we prepared to listen?