Opinion | Pope Leo XIV May Be a Stern Teacher for American Catholics

As a Jesuit, I felt sure 12 years ago that there was no real chance the cardinals would elect a Jesuit pope. As an American, I felt sure six days ago that there was no real chance they would elect someone from the United States.

Today, I am overjoyed at having a terrible track record for predicting the outcome of papal conclaves.

Now that the initial surprise and celebration have passed, how will American Catholics respond to Leo XIV, the first American pope and the successor to Francis, my fellow Jesuit, when they get to know him better? From what we can tell so far, those on both the left and the right of the U.S. political divide are likely to be frustrated. Leo could well end up being the pope who makes it clear that the reason Catholic doctrine does not fit well into American politics is because it makes heavier demands than partisans on either side are willing to bear.

Even though he is a Chicago native and a White Sox fan known to many of his friends as Bob, Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, was considered “the least American of the Americans” in the College of Cardinals, according to the Italian media. He has deep global experience, first in Peru as a missionary, teacher and bishop, then in Rome as the worldwide leader of his Augustinian order, and finally at the Vatican’s office for bishops, a post that was crucial for overcoming any skepticism among the electors about a candidate born in the United States.

But no matter how much he belonged to the global church, Leo appears to have kept an eye on issues back home. In February, a social media account under his name shared a post concerning Pope Francis’ open letter to the U.S. bishops about the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, including a column I wrote in which I argued that Francis’ letter posed the question to American Catholics of “whether we judge our politics according to the Gospel or the other way around.”

Already, many commentators are trying to classify his positions — on immigration, abortion, gun control, racism and L.G.B.T.Q. issues, among others — as conservative or liberal. Mapping a pope’s thinking onto the contemporary left-right political binary is doomed to fail, especially for a pope who has taken the name Leo XIV. The name connects him to Leo XIII, who inaugurated modern Catholic social teaching with his 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum.”

That document laid out a way for the church of the 19th century to engage with the struggles between labor and capital during a period of industrialization. Refusing to adopt either capitalist or communist frameworks, it honored free agreements between workers and employers, but also described them as subject to a “natural justice” higher than any market forces or claims to private property.

In the 21st century, the Catholic Church in the United States struggles with demands for partisan allegiance that are in tension with a broader advocacy for the justice demanded by the Gospel. U.S. bishops, for example, are both deeply opposed to abortion and committed to care for migrants and refugees, a combination that neither Democrats nor Republicans can readily accept.

In fact, many Catholics in America do not even try to hold to church teachings on core issues. During the 2024 election, Catholics in swing states favored Donald Trump by 5 percent. (White Catholics voters favored him by 16 percent.) Catholics on both sides of the political aisle in swing states were more likely to support their chosen candidate because of the positions that were most out of line with church teaching, with Trump voters motivated by his immigration policies and Kamala Harris voters motivated by her commitment to protect abortion access. Yet many voices, both within the church and outside it, are still eager to tell Catholics that church teaching dictates for whom they must vote.

Under Leo XIV’s pontificate, this kind of partisanship is likely to become an even more untenable position for American Catholics than it already is. Preaching from the most significant pulpit in the world — and when he wants to in English, with a Midwestern accent — this pope will be a constant reminder to the church in his home country of a broader Catholic perspective that confronts and challenges our current divisions.

I expect American Catholics will feel torn between a natural affinity for a native son and a frustration as his moral teachings contrast with their own views. For example, even though American Catholics remained largely positive about Pope Francis, over the course of his papacy their attitudes toward him started to mirror their political identities. As his criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration and other policies became more pronounced, perhaps it was no accident that the share of right-leaning American Catholics with an unfavorable opinion of him shot up from 2 percent to 35 percent. When similar contrasts happen with Leo, whether over immigration with the right or abortion with the left, it will not be as easy to dismiss him as someone who does not understand American culture or politics, as has happened with past popes.

Despite the tensions within the U.S. Catholic Church, there is also an appreciation in Rome for the gifts American Catholics bring, literally and figuratively. Donations from the United States have long helped sustain the Vatican’s shaky finances, and the appointment of a competent and efficient American bishop under previous popes has often been seen as a way to help break up logjams in the Vatican bureaucracy. They may think of Pope Leo that way on a grand scale.

He represents another dimension of American generosity in his missionary vocation in Peru. As a bishop there, Leo was reportedly very effective in moving the diocese from reliance on foreign missionaries to the local community to nourish the life of the church.

That effectiveness was based not only in his own competence but also in his cooperation and identification with his people. During his first papal blessing, he quoted St. Augustine, saying, “With you I am a Christian, for you a bishop.” As he begins his papal ministry he will offer American Catholics an example of what their Christianity can look like on the world stage — and the world will be waiting to see how we respond.