What Pope Leo XIV, the anti-Trump pope, thinks
Trump will pass. Leo XIV will remain. The Church already has it, this: it has been lasting for 2,000 years. Its horizon is distant, infinitely more stable than the legislature of a stagnant liberal democracy. At the pace of eternity, 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 ecclesial government. When young Robert Francis once asked his mother, Mildred Martínez, if she wanted to be like men, she replied: "No, because we are already better!" A wise and brave woman behind the new American Pope. The one of a silent revolution?
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 through the Holy See as if at home: he identifies them as Il Dottore and Monseñor C. Ideologically opposed, both help Lozano 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 links 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 style 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 compromise pontiff (a light progressive), a transitional figure. Well, no: he is revealing himself as a serene yet strong voice that in the political arena 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. Unintentionally, in a short time he has established himself as a moral counter-power to a President of the United States who always responds by raising the stakes: he has not had the slightest scruple in brandishing the name of Louis Prevost, the Pope's MAGA brother. Heads and tails of a family.
It doesn't matter. The continuity 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 simultaneously received squatters from the Roman periphery and last December he made it so that for the first time in the history of the Vatican 1,400 gay, lesbian and transgender people made a pilgrimage to the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica as part of the Jubilee.
All this will not, of course, appease the fury of the traditionalists, ultraconservatives who, concerned by what they consider doctrinal and liturgical relativism, and annoyed by the timid openness on issues of sexual morality and governance, will continue to wage cultural and power battles 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 Peruvian above all else. In Chiclayo, for two decades he served as a missionary (and eventually bishop) in contact with indigenous communities and poverty, and relying on 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 also give no quarter 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-billion dollar hole. 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 carves out time to study German on his mobile with Duolingo. He wants to put order in the economy. But he does not want any product to be commercialized with his image in Rome or the Vatican: he has forbidden it. He also aspires to put an end to Vatican cybersecurity leaks, another headache in a nest of intrigue where everyone watches everyone else.
Will he succeed, with all this? In ecclesial 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, knows how to listen. There is no doubt about his reformist agenda, but he is one of those who acts without the care being noticed, without grand gestures, changing profiles, breaking inertia, varying norms, setting new priorities... He acts from within, without causing damage or noise. Without purges, he has confirmed Francisco's appointments, 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 striking economic and religious national populism. Leo XIV is more like the Chinese political approach: let others make mistakes, do not rush. Methodical, calm, dialoguing, he is a pastoral pope, cautious, who wants to avoid schisms. "Advance without breaking and resist without yielding," synthesizes Vicenç Lozano.
In a world turned upside down, chaotic and remilitarized, this pope works from moral authority so that universal hope and the hunger for justice overcome the identity fear that builds walls. His election in 2025 was already that: in the Sistine Chapel, hope overcame fear.
