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: