Once I worked with a woman at a Midwest-based think tank. Her name was Mary, and she told me about the visit of Pope John Paul II to Chicago in 1979, when more than a million people gathered downtown to see him celebrate Mass. She was arriving separately from her parents, and the plan was to meet up on-site. But her parents didn’t know where to find her in the huge crowd, so they wandered about yelling “Mary! Mary!” As you’d imagine in a crowd of Roman Catholics, that was unsuccessful, and they didn’t locate her.
I doubt they were too disappointed, because the excitement in the United States over John Paul’s papacy extended beyond the large local population of Polish-Americans. There was a great deal of anticipation even among non-Catholics, for late in the Cold War a pope had been chosen from communist Poland.
Jump forward 46 years and once again a new pope has been elected and is generating huge amounts of excitement, even among non-Catholics.
We could ask, “What does this mean for San Francisco?” Or if that’s too parochial, we could pretend this is the Voice of America (oh, wait, that name is out of fashion, so how about) the Voice of the United States, and try to figure out what this means to us.
I’ll lay my cards on the table. My fellow Methodists were a distinct minority in Wisconsin, where it can be assumed you’re either Catholic, were “raised Catholic,” or are Lutheran. I’m not Catholic. But Wisconsin is a heavily German and Polish state, with a growing Latino population — all of which means I was marinated in Catholicism.
And if that wasn’t enough tenderizing, I now live in Chicago, a heavily Catholic city that is going nuts about the fact that Pope Leo XIV is the name chosen by the man many people here knew as Robert Prevost, born in the Windy City. The huge amount of Polish pride in having their native son become Pope John Paul II might even be eclipsed by Chicago civic pride, as well as a heated argument between Cubs and White Sox fans (the latter won, as it was revealed that Prevost not only is a Sox fan but had attended a game of the 2005 World Series). (And, though I’m a Sox fan, I note that the team set an MLB record last year for losses, and this year isn’t going much better; divine help is welcomed.)
Beyond the side game of tracking Leo’s baseball loyalties, the main game of damning or claiming as one of their own began across the U.S. political spectrum.
When CNN’s coverage of the papal conclave — in which the College of Cardinals vote on the new pope — announced the white smoke, I was on a work Zoom call; in the background, I kept refreshing the web page hoping for an announcement of his identity.
Why did I care?
I think my interest is sparked by the idea that the Catholic church has met the moment with this choice. Conservative commentator Charlie Sykes has pointed out the similarities of the John Paul II and Leo XIV elections and noted, “We can’t know everything that went into their deliberations, but it seems as if — in this moment — they decided that the Americas were the epicenter of the world’s moral crisis. Surveying the spiritual, social, economic, and political challenges facing the world, they decided that this was the moment to select an American pope, who could confront the humanitarian and moral challenges posed by the United States and its president.”
Beyond the side game of tracking Leo’s baseball loyalties, the big game of damning or claiming as one of their own began across the U.S. political spectrum.
Mayor Daniel Lurie congratulated Pope Leo on behalf of the city, noting “This is an inspiring moment for American Catholics, including those here in San Francisco. May his message of inclusion continue to build bridges across communities.” Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi also praised Leo for the promise of an inclusive papacy. In a statement, Pelosi, a practicing Catholic, noted, “In his own words, Pope Leo XIV said, ‘We can be a missionary church, a church that builds bridges, that is always open to receive everyone.’ Let us thank God for His Holiness Pope Leo XIV and for this vision of unity.”
Eric Bazail-Eimil writes at Politico, “The new pontiff is emerging as a sort of Rorschach test within the American Catholic Church, as liberals and conservatives cling to disparate data points and anecdotes to prove his ideological, theological, and liturgical bona fides and loyalties to them.” He adds that the competition isn’t only among Catholics; and “Leo will assuredly flummox liberals and conservatives alike after the honeymoon period ends and the real work of setting doctrine begins.”
That’s because the pope, and anyone really who puts their Christianity before their politics, doesn’t fit easily in either major party. People quickly dug up posts by Prevost criticizing Vice President J.D. Vance and U.S. immigration policies. But Sykes added, “Do not be surprised to discover that the new pope remains a Catholic — staunchly pro-life, skeptical of gender ideology, and theologically conservative.”
That’s as it should be. Religious leaders are not supposed to fit into our political party structure. Even when you don’t share a religious leader’s specific spiritual beliefs — whether they’re Pope Leo, Pope John Paul II, the Dalai Lama, or the Archbishop of Canterbury — you can be grateful when they comment on a policy or trend or action and in so doing remind us that the most important things are not the immediate Twitter fights in front of us.
It is nice for the Catholic church that, after centuries of popes being selected by warring factions who had politics and money in their minds more than the Gospel — whether it was French kings or Italian noble families, who served up countless “bad popes” who created more scandals than Pete Hegseth left unsupervised with a box of Franzia and a smartphone — the hierarchy has now produced a string of popes who take their faith and their role seriously. You might disagree with actions or statements from Popes John Paul II, Benedict, Francis, or now Leo, and some or all of them might fall outside your personal political and philosophical sweet spot, but each of them has taken his job seriously to be a steward of the now-1.4 billion Roman Catholics in the world.
That is why the interest in a new pope extends beyond the Vatican’s borders, beyond the church boundaries, and into the streets of San Francisco.
