Did the election of the new pope interest people, or did it interest the media, and has it ended up interesting people because they were given a conclave for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? My hypothesis is that the media sets the agenda, but if there wasn't genuine curiosity about the election, you can already focus on the fireplace; there are more engaging videos on TikTok. The atavistic ritual of the 133 men locked away and disconnected, the experience of sharing a piece of history live must go a long way, but it doesn't explain everything. In a world of bad news and worse leaders, we've been watching to see if a counterweight would emerge in Rome. And even those who only enter a church as tourists have been watching closely, with a wary eye. Leo XIV seems like that counterweight.
We declare ourselves orphans of leadership and we quote John XXIII, JF Kennedy, Simone Veil, Monsignor Romero Or Nelson Mandela. Obama sparked a glimmer of hope that gradually faded. But only with providential figures will we be short-lived. You are the moral leader. What we lack most is believing that the only viable destiny for humanity is peace, but since there can be no peace without justice and the world is so unjust, we don't even know where to begin to fix the mess.
But we have some certainties: every day we talk about war, we are closer to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Every time we adopt the language of war, we are closer to great pain. The parades these days in London or Moscow do not celebrate peace, but rather a victory over millions of dead. When we use the language of hate that triumphs on social media and in politics, we do the work of the military-industrial complex. They want us scared and divided, because we cede our freedom in exchange for supposed security. And the first freedom is to say that war is business as usual.
