The Catholic Church's Hail Mary Pick to Save America From Itself
Now that we’ve gotten all the jokes, memes, and reactions out of the way, maybe now is a good time to analyze the decision behind our newest Pope, Pope Leo XIV, being from the South Side of Chicago?
The Catholic Church’s primary goal is to spread their gospel as far as the eye can see, and try to find new believers, recruit new members, and remain financially, spiritually, and culturally relevant in a world that has seen an overall decline in favorability towards religion in general---especially towards all faiths within the realm of Christianity.
Pope Francis did an incredible job threading the needle between maintaining the traditions and trying to evolve the Catholic gospel and become more accepting in a world that is constantly evolving. Argue what you will about whether or not he pushed the envelope far enough, Francis did make great strides in Europe and Asia while also becoming the first modern Pope to make extended efforts to find dialogue with the leaders within the Islamic faith, including visiting Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. Even his final act was a wonderful example of what it means to be a religious leader, with his Popemobile being transformed to a health clinic for the children suffering in Gaza.
The Catholic Church felt like it was achieving a sort of religious revival all over the world, except for one major region: The (Broken) United States of America.
Pope Francis started his tenure in 2013, right around the time the Tea Party movement within the U.S. was evolving into MAGA under the guise and political rise of Donald Trump. Under Donald Trump, we have seen the religious folk dominantly backing Trump despite *gestures everywhere* everything he has done and said over the years, and this completely conflicts with the Catholic Church’s efforts of becoming the voice of reason for the world.
How can Pope Francis and his kin be taken seriously on a global scale when the country with the most Christian, God-fearing, God-worshipping voters decided for three elections in a row to support what is clearly the wrong horse morally, spiritually, and culturally? And yes, Christianity is a wide spectrum religiously speaking, but the 2024 election saw pretty much every single major God-based religious voting group favoring Trump, even with the results favoring him somewhat with the religious Latinae vote, which is essentially the sheep voting for the wolf.
Either way, extremely disappointing and disheartening results for people who want to continue spreading the faith and happiness related to worshipping God, but seeing said faith corrupted within their own homeland. Christian Nationalism has become the dominant force in the religious vote, and has threatened every facet of life for everyone including some of their own people, and even people in faraway nations---it bears mentioning that part of why Israel has not been officially condemned by the United States government is because of the ties between Zionists, Christian Nationalists, and the intense Islamophobia that persists between both far-right religious entities.
The leaders of the Christian Far-Right will sacrifice their own people if it means spreading harm to those who don’t align with their extremist values. Of course, history has many examples of religious nationalists causing obscene amounts of death and destruction around them, whether it be the Crusades, the rise of the Nazis, or even as recent as the evangelicals trying to conquer politics in Brazil against Lula’s third term as well as the acceptance and complacency related to the ongoing atrocities and genocidal violence towards the Palestinians on Gaza and the West Bank. What is even more concerning is how those not even in the far-right are still deciding to align with them in the face of MAGA. I personally have family who have sided with Trump despite literally being the type of people Trump’s most-rabid fans would like to see eradicated.
How does the Catholic Church combat the dangerous rise of Christian Nationalism and the ongoing torment of MAGA? By choosing an American Pope of course, a new leader that has experience in Chicago, in South America, and in Europe, which gives him a deep wealth of experience and also generates appeal to a wider audience. Chicago is claiming him, Peru is claiming him, and this is good for Americans and Latinaes all over the diaspora. Him speaking Spanish during the opening statements is a beautiful and very important moment in the face of a mass migration occurring within a Latin America still suffering from post-pandemic and post-Operation Condor consequences.
With this new Pope, Donald Trump will no longer remain the most influential American in the world, that title now belongs to a religious man who had already battled the MAGA concept online by challenging their stances on immigration during Pope Francis’ tenure. It clearly looks like Leo will be a continuation of Pope Francis’ legacy and rhetoric, which as a non-Catholic observer, I find to be an excellent next step forward. Catholicism and the overall concept of Christianity in the United States doesn’t have to be fully represented by the MAGA movement of rejecting minority groups, rejecting the concept of helping those in need, while pledging their unholy allegiance to a grifting felon using the name of God only to improve his finances and his distance from the law. With Pope Leo, there is a new religious representation from the United States, it doesn’t have to be Trump, it doesn’t have to be the likes of Franklin Graham, Joel Osteen or Kenneth Copeland.
For the record, I am by no means calling the Catholic institution perfect, not at all. There are still millions of skeletons in those closets, there are still many issues to address related to the secrets, the corruption, and the inability to deliver justice to those using their religious power to take advantage of victims. But Pope Francis was definitely an excellent step forward, especially with his focus on what Israel has been doing, and especially with his ability to reach out to vulnerable communities and even religious leaders who are nowhere close to the spectrum of Catholicism. Pope Francis making his trips to the Middle East should have been much bigger news, but sadly in the world of American Newsmedia, we’re let down on a daily basis.
I firmly believe the Catholic Church is aware that the reputation of -God- is in dire crisis in the United States, with the rise of atheism, the decreasing numbers of churchgoers especially among the youth, the growing discontent towards the vulnerable even among the supposed-religious folk, and most worrying of all the disgusting idolization of Donald Trump for the last decade. Therefore, choosing an American Pope with close ties to a successful tenure was the best decision moving forward for the institution trying to clean up its image as well as the image of being a believer of God overall, even if it doesn’t appear as traditional as what Catholics are used to. This was a proper strategic choice, even if it loosely defies the norm.
Being a person of God, being someone who believes in Jesus and the Holy Spirit, being someone who believes in the words and the lessons from the Bible should not ever mean that you should align with the American Christian Nationalists elevating Donald Trump into eventual martyrdom. There are other options within this great nation as it is, and a major option that has emerged within the United States is Pope Leo.
The Catholic Church sees a religious crisis poisoning the United States, and this crisis has killed millions whether it be via the behavior during the pandemic, the acceptance of Palestine’s genocide in the hands of the Israeli government, or the decade-plus political decisions that has continued to disenfranchise the vulnerable and embolden the violent heretics. Time will tell if Pope Leo XIV can help pull God-loving Americans away from the MAGA cult, but at the very least we should acknowledge that his ascension to the highest position in Catholicism is a vital one when trying to save the United States from slipping towards 21st Century Nazism.
The United States needs to be spiritually saved, and the salvation cannot possibly come from Donald Trump and all the Christian Nationalists worshiping him. Pope Leo XIV might become the solution moving forward.