Many orthodox Catholics are relieved, and to some extent even elated, by what they’ve seen so far from the new pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, the American-born Robert Prevost. Pope Leo compellingly speaks about the centrality of the crucified and risen Christ. His calls for unity in the Church suggest a desire to bring Catholics together, and not to side unilaterally with progressives against the tradition-minded. His manner and bearing are modest and far from autocratic and divisive. When he talks about “listening” he seems to mean it. He is unlikely to go wobbly on issues that directly affect the integrity of the moral law, or what eminent Catholic thinkers have called “the truth about man.”
But one should not expect too much too quickly from the new pope. This Augustinian priest and bishop appears not to have imbibed the “Christian realism” that informs St. Augustine’s political reflection in The City of God. By no means an ideologue, Pope Leo nonetheless takes for granted the half-humanitarianism of more recent Catholic social teaching.
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