The New Pope’s True Colors
May 14, 2025 | 1,334 words | Papal Politics, World Economics
Having beaten the odds to be selected as the first Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church from the United States, the low-key, little-known Bob Prevost is now an object of the world’s attention, as we all wonder what he will do next as Pope Leo XIV.
Some are encouraged by Prevost’s decades spent ministering in Peru, as a parish priest and then a bishop, along with his opening pronouncements after being tapped at the conclave. The unmistakable first impression is that he will advocate on behalf of the world’s poor and downtrodden – and especially on behalf of immigrants – just as his immediate predecessor, the Argentinian-born Francis, did.
Others are heartened by how much more reserved our new Pope seems to be compared to Francis, is not as “charismatic” as some have put it, and will therefore be less inclined to rock the boat or stir the pot.
Traditionalists may be smitten by the new man’s choice of a name, since the previous Leo’s time in the big chair (1878-1903) came well before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), when they think their church took a dire turn for the worst. To such believers, anything pre-conciliar is ipso-facto good, while everything post-conciliar is questionable at best.
Then there are the savvy conservatives who were not taken in by the newly elevated pontiff’s measured tone, even for a moment. They have quickly identified the hey-I-just-got-here Leo XIV as another social justice softie in the vein of Francis, predicting he will be “just another Marxist” in the Vatican.
Of all the hot button cultural issues of the last 60 years that have divided faithful Catholics into bitterly opposed partisan camps, one might say it is the idea of ‘social justice’ that lies at the heart of all the disputes. And for me what lies at the heart of social justice is economic justice.
This connection was brought home a few years ago by a piece Christopher Manion had published in The Wanderer newspaper. Mr. Manion was holding forth in a familiar way on how too many Catholics have strayed from the straight and narrow in one well-known form or another.
In a novel twist, Manion suggested this laxness on the part of the faithful had actually been encouraged over the years by the legislative agenda of the Democratic Party, under the guise of ‘social justice.’ He traced what he saw as this nebulous, hard-to-define concept back to the 1930s and the 12-year reign of FDR, as many before him have done.
But then Christopher Manion pulled a rabbit out of his hat, and informed his readers the root cause of what he considers our contemporary dithering over social issues – at the expense of unencumbered orthodox belief and practice – actually started with Pope Leo XIII, who first introduced the concept of social justice into the lexicon in 1891, with an encyclical entitled Rerum Novarum.
That Latin translates as “On New Things,” or “On Revolutionary Things.” The document carries the subtitle “On the Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor.”
Mr. Manion is correct, of course, in citing the origin of the phrase. And, of course, Rerum Novarum is a towering work on the subject of social justice, cast in the much larger framework of economic justice. It is gratifying to hear and see this document being referenced so much again, now that Leo XIV is stepping into his new job. Even better would be if anyone was taking the time to read it.
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Dan Hitchens reminds us in The Last Modern Pope, recently published in the journal First Things, that the Catholic Church has been in an all-out war with the modern world since 1864, when Pius IX came out with his Syllabus of Errors. That Pope condemned the notion that “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.” I guess for Chrisotpher Manion writing in The Wanderer, Leo XIII made a regrettable concession in that war some 27 years later, in 1891.
But in discussing the importance of the new Pope’s choice of a name, Bishop Robert Barron offers a slightly different take: “When the revolutions in the 18th century happened, and the philosophical revolutions of the 19th century, the (Catholic) Church initially said ‘no’ to much of that. Leo XIII represented a very nuanced, intelligent engagement with modernity – not caving into it, not saying yes completely, but not saying no – using the resources of our own traditions to engage modernity creatively. That makes him (Leo XIII) a bridge figure.”
I love Barron’s perspective on this, because I think that’s what every single Pope since Leo XIII has been trying to do.
One alternative interpretation of the topsy-turvy, back-and-forth Francis years that The Last Modern Pope captures so well in its opening mash-up might go something like this:
Francis spent his pontificate trying to engage modernity creatively as did his predecessors of the last 150 years. His formal writings reflect a careful, nuanced approach. But all that nuance hadn’t gotten through. Especially when the subject is economic justice. And especially when the audience are conservatives who refuse to admit free-market capitalism has some rough edges.
In 1961 William Buckley issued a very public rebuke of Pope John XXIII on this score. Since then, the preferred tactic of Buckley’s acolytes has been to politely reframe what both John Paul II and Benedict XIV wrote on economic matters, to assure one and all that Catholicism is four-square behind the grand American Experiment in “economic freedom.”
Which brings us to Francis, who appears to have made a conscious decision to “amp up” the rhetoric. I would suggest he may have done this at least in part out of frustration, since nobody had taken the admonitions of his predecessors to heart, specifically as they pertain to economics.
An example would be his 2015 address in Bolivia. In a case of exaggeration for the purpose of illustration, Francis declared unfettered capitalism to be the dung of the devil. We are told he was quoting his favorite Bishop from the 4th century, who at that time had directed his ire more broadly at the pursuit of money, since capitalism was still a millennium away from being invented.
That remark, and many others like it, were taken as unwarranted provocations by Catholics in the United States who follow the Gospel according to The Wall Street Journal, and who are convinced the vexing problem of greed has been solved for all mankind, since it was successfully re-purposed as ‘enlightened self-interest’ by Adam Smith in 1776.
Francis did indeed have a tendency to present himself as the “scourge and critic” of conservative Catholics, as Ross Douthat described him just the other day. The man had good reason to do so, in my opinion, but a case could be made that perhaps he enjoyed the role of provocateur a little too much at times. And he did occasionally overshoot the mark. Like Mr. Douthat, I too thought the sort of last-minute attempt to cancel the Latin Mass amounted to a thoroughly unnecessary – and almost petty – gesture.
But I guess I gave Francis a wide berth on most everything else, because deep down I was convinced – even with all the unexpected twists and turns – his ultimate objective was worthy: an earnest, faithful attempt to carry Catholic principles forward and apply them to the modern world, just as his predecessors had tried to do.
Here’s hoping the new Pope will walk through the door the last Pope managed to pry open. Maybe the First World needed someone ‘noisy’ like Francis to get its collective attention. And maybe now Leo XIV can follow up with a quieter, more disciplined manner that will yield better results in getting through to conservatives regarding economics. This is what all Catholic pontiffs have been trying to do since 1891 – get through to the conservative contingent when it comes to their economic behavior.
Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
www.robertjcavanaughjr.com
bobcavjr@gmail.com
