What Pope Leo XIV, the anti-Trump Pope, thinks
Trump will pass. Leo XIV will remain. The Church already has this: it has lasted 2,000 years. Its horizon is distant, infinitely more stable than the term of office of a stagnant liberal democracy. At an eternal pace, Robert Francis Prevost is the 267th Pope. The Church is not democratic, of course. It is pyramidal. Now it wants to be synodal (from synod), that is, more participatory and plural: Pope Francis began to open doors in decision-making processes to laypeople and women, and to peripheral figures far from the walls of the Vatican. Leo XIV is following this path, that of a collegial and decentralized ecclesiastical government. When young Robert Francis one day asked his mother, Mildred Martinez, if she wanted to be like men, she replied:
The anecdote is explained by the journalist Vicenç Lozano in the book Leo XIV, shadows under the dome (Pòrtic), a dialectical, nosy, well-informed text. The work pivots on two influential anonymous sources, the kind that wander around the Holy See as if at home: he identifies them as Il Dottore and Monseyor C. Ideologically opposed, both help Lozano to understand how he was elected, who he is, and what the discreet Augustinian pope who will soon visit Catalonia, a society he knows quite well, thinks. The Pope who connects with Leo XIII's Rerum novarum (the Catholic social response to capitalism and the labor question) and with the renewal of the Second Vatican Council.
Without a doubt, Prevost does not have the charismatic temperament of his predecessor. He is more discreet than Bergoglio, yes. More reserved, too. But determined. When he was elected a year ago, some believed he was a pope of compromise (a light progressive), a transitional figure. Well, no: he is proving to be a serene and at the same time strong voice that in the political sphere confronts Trump: in favor of welcoming immigrants and against war; in favor of social justice and respect for human dignity; in defense of an integral ecology. Without wishing it, in a short time he has established himself as the moral counter-power of a United States president who always responds by raising the stakes: he has not shown the slightest consideration when brandishing the name of Louis Prevost, the Pope's MAGA brother. Heads and tails of a family.
It doesn't matter. The continuation of what a prophetic Bergoglio started seems assured with a more diplomatic and subtle Prevost: he has returned to live in the Apostolic Palace, but with austerity; he has recovered certain liturgical forms, but as a defense against the trivialization of religious space; he has allowed the celebration of some Tridentine Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, but at the same time he received squatters from the Roman periphery and last December, for the first time in the history of the Vatican, he had 1,400 gays, lesbians and transsexuals pilgrimage to the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica as part of the Jubilee.
All this will not appease, of course, the fury of traditionalists, ultraconservatives who, concerned about what they consider doctrinal and liturgical relativism, and annoyed by the timid openness on issues of sexual morality and governance, will continue to present a cultural and power battle within the Church. The reaction that began against the Argentine Pope will continue with Leo XIV, a North American educated in the suburbs of Michigan who feels above all Peruvian. In Chiclayo, for two decades he served as a missionary (and eventually bishop) in contact with indigenous communities and poverty, and trusting female helpers, both religious and married and single. The Pope speaks English, Spanish and... Quechua! His social sensitivity is also cultural. And like Francis, he will not give respite in denouncing sexual abuse. His goal of strengthening the institution also passes through here, through zero tolerance.
What else has been shaking the house for too long? The Vatican treasury has a multi-million dollar deficit. Prevost, a mathematician by training and a good manager, rational and calculating, pragmatic, knows that nothing can be done without money. Vatican revenue —the so-called Obolo di San Pietro— has been declining in the last decade, especially because the richest dioceses in the world, those of the North American and German churches, have reduced their contributions for opposing reasons: the former because it is very conservative, the latter because it is very progressive. Now Prevost snatches moments to study German on his mobile with Duolingo. He wants to bring order to the economy. But he does not want any product with his image to be commercialized in Rome or the Vatican: he has prohibited it. He also aspires to put an end to the Vatican's cybersecurity leaks, another headache in a nest of intrigue where everyone watches everyone.
Will he succeed, with all of it? In ecclesiastical terms, he is young: 70 years old. He plays tennis and watches football with his personal secretary, the young Peruvian priest Edgard Iván Rimaycuna Inga. When he gets up before six in the morning every day, Prevost's smile is sweet but not naive. Someone has defined him as a non-Jesuit Jesuit. He speaks little, he knows how to listen. There is no doubt about his reformist agenda, but he is one of those who acts "sin que se note el cuidado, without grand gestures, changing profiles, breaking inertia, varying norms, setting new priorities... He acts from within, without causing breakage or noise. Without purges, he has confirmed Francesc's positions, including his rival in the conclave, the Vatican Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin.
He does not want to polarize. In fact, he does the exact opposite of Trump's narcissistic ideological excitement, with his loud economic and religious national populism. Leo XIV is more like the Chinese political temper: letting others make mistakes, not rushing. Methodical, calm, dialoguing, he is a cautious shepherd Pope who wants to avoid schisms. "Moving forward without breaking and resisting without yielding," synthesizes Vicenç Lozano.
In a topsy-turvy, chaotic and remilitarized world, this Pope works from moral authority so that universal hope and the hunger for justice prevail over the identity-based fear that builds walls. His election in 2025 was already that: in the Sistine Chapel, hope triumphed over fear.