Changing Lanes: An Execution to Be Televised Prompts a Papal Statement

Although Pope Francis amended Catholic social ethics to exclude the death penalty rather than continue to accept the punishment in cases in which no other punishment is practical or available, Pope Leo decided in October, 2026 to make a public statement of his Church’s opposition to the death penalty in reaction to the decision of the Trump administration to televise an upcoming execution live on television. That a woman had recently survived execution attempts by two lethal injections may have primed the pope’s pump, as it were. The danger is that the foray into applied ethics by leaders of a religious organization could conflate ethics and theology. That the latter transcends, and may even violate ethical principles, can easily be forgotten when a religious leader speaks out a lot on ethical issues. In the case of Pope Leo’s statement on capital punishment, a distinctly theological rationale can be found, and, I submit, should have received more emphasis, lest the religious leader be reduced to an ethical critic, or conscience. To be sure, in 2026, the world was very much in need of a public conscience, especially because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was still underway, as was Israel’s genocide in Gaza and wanton violence in the West Bank—all of this aggression was being done with obvious impunity.

Tennessee, a member of the U.S., attempted to execute Debra Johnson with two doses of pentobarbital on September 30, 2026. “At one point she was on a ventilator and her attorney did not expect her to survive. However, they said Pike woke up and began walking with assistance.”[1] This quoted passage from the media makes her recovery seem like a miracle. If it was, perhaps the distinctly Christian deity, which is selfless love (agape), saved Pike’s life out of opposition to the death penalty. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord comes from the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the deity is epitomized by compassion especially for one’s detractors and even enemies. Pray for those who persecute you, and respond to their human needs with acts of compassion. Neither prayer alone nor being compassion friends suffices. Forgiveness is implicit in being compassionate to someone like Pike, who in 1995 had beaten and stabbed one of her classmates. It is not as if she had gone a murder spree, mowing down many people with gunfire. If the botched execution could be considered to be cruel and unusual punishment, mercy in the form of a reprieve would be justified. After all, she had already spent 30 years in prison knowing that she would be executed—inflicting that expectation for three decades could also be considered as cruel.

On October 8, 2026, the U.S. announced “that the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of killing 13 people at a military base at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, would be livestreamed on 3 December.”[2] Hasan was an army psychiatrist when he “open fire with a handgun at a medical facility at Fort Hood on 5 November 2009 as soldiers waited for medical checks before deployment. He was shot by a police officer during his arrest and left partly paralyzed, and now uses a wheelchair.”[3] It would be interesting to determine whether he was resisting arrest when he was shot. If he was not, then the police employee should have been arrested and charged with attempted murder. As for Hasan, the United Nations’ office of the high commissioner for human rights warned after the Pentagon’s announcement of the public execution that broadcasting it would “breach the absolute prohibition of torture.”[4] Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. Secretary of State, characterized the televising of the disabled man’s execution as a “barbaric idea.”[5] Unlike Pike, Hasan murdered many people. Also unlike Pike, Hasan himself was shot and partially paralyzed, perhaps unjustly. Even so, airing the execution for the world to see could be considered cruel and unusual punishment. This question is political and jurisprudential, as well as ethical in nature; it is not in itself a religious question unless explicit reference to Hasan’s redemption is added.

In writing Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard makes the point that Abraham is both guilty of attempted murder and is faithful to the divine command to sacrifice his son. The negative jurisprudential and ethical claim is consistent with the positive attribution of faithfulness to the Yahweh—both are correct because they refer to different domains. The charge of attempted murder is valid legally and ethically, and the praise of Abraham obeying a divine command even to sacrifice Isaac is valid theologically. The validity of the theological claim is not invalidated by the unethical act of attempted murder. Theology transcends ethics. Were the Ten Commandments in Torah prior to Abraham, then attempted murder would have theological currency and the question would be: Does the commandment not to kill supersede the divine command to Abraham to murder Isaac? Moreover, how are we to navigate between two conflicting divine commands?

Not being Abraham, and with the Ten Commandments in scripture, both Tennessee and the U.S. faced both the ethical quandary of capital punishment and the divine, theological, decree not to kill. In responding to the debate on whether the U.S. should televise Hasan’s execution, Pope Leo reiterated on October 10, 2026, the World Day Against the Death Penalty, that capital punishment is “inadmissible.”[6] The American Midwestern pope claimed that the punishment is contrary to the inherent dignity of a human being. Human dignity is an ethical rather than a theological term, and thus is not useful from a distinctly theological standpoint. In other words, were the pope driving a car on a road, it could be said that he swerved into another lane; even though the two lanes are related, they not the same lane. Unfortunately, the pope did not use the car’s turning signal to indicate to other drivers that he was going from one lane to another. This analogy falls short, however, because the pope did not entirely leave his lane.

Although the pope wandered from his theological education in claiming in his written statement, “Effective systems of detention have been developed that protect citizens,” he stayed within his ken, and thus in the theological or religious domain, in adding that capital punishment deprives “those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption.”[7] This raises the question of whether a murderer on death row who has sought redemption could then, on religious grounds, be executed. The pope could have added that in the Ten Commandments, the commandment against killing other human beings prohibits capital punishment—that a murder carried out by a criminal does not justify yet another killing, even by a government. Two wrongs do not make a right is an ethical rather than a distinctly theological saying, and thus should not be used in a religious rationale against capital punishment. Rather than appealing to the dignity of a human being, the pope should have stuck with the theme of redemption and added the commandment against killing human beings. Rather than venture into the field of criminal justice as if he had been educated in that field of knowledge, he should have elaborated on redemption itself. It is admittedly very tempting to go beyond one’s ken to pontificate in other domains of knowledge and human experience. I will not hold this against the Pope, as he too is a native Midwesterner from northern Illinois (even though he serially sins by favoring the White Sox over the Chicago Cubs—or is his lapse merely unethical?).

In conclusion, unless an unethical act (or intent) is proscribed by a divine command or decree, or interferes with soteriology or another distinctly theological value, ethical analysis should be left to ethicists. Put another way, studying theology does not also earn a student the right to a diploma in ethics, which is a subfield of philosophy. To be sure, the two fields can be related, but this is not to say that knowledge in one constitutes knowledge in the other. Unlike theology, criminal justice and the ethics of conduct do not contain the element of religious transcendence, which, as Pseudo-Dionysius wrote, inherently extends beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility (emotions). Contrarily, to say that science still has unknowns is not to say that the empirical unknown lies inherently beyond our reach. Religious functionaries and leaders, to the extent that they are oriented existentially to the inherently beyond, and thus to interpreting other human domains of experience  in terms of the theological, radiate holiness by driving without swerving into other lanes in order to have more influence.

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1, “Christa Pike Is Discharged from a Hospital after Surviving Execution Attempt, Her Attorney Says,” APNews.com, October 10, 2026.
2, David Smith and Ariana Baio, “’Medieval’ and ‘Disturbing’: US Plan to Livestream Execution Elicits Global Condemnation,” The Guardian,  October 2026.
3. Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5, Ibid.
6, Fortunato Pinto, “Pope Leo Condemns Death Penalty, Vance Vows Not to Watch Hasan’s Execution Live,” Euronews.com, 10 October, 2026.
7. Ibid.

Pope Leo on the Ethical Dangers of AI

Speaking on his first “social” encyclical, Pope Leo said the Roman Catholic Church, whose membership stood at 1.6 billion embodied souls around the world, was “called to interpret ‘new things’ of the age in the light of the Gospel and the dignity of the human person.”[1] He was on terre firma from a distinctly religious standpoint in being anchored in the Gospel stories, which include direct and parabolic preachments by Jesus of Nazareth. Regarding the dignity of the human person, which pertains as much to a humanist as a theist, that basis is not distinctly religious and thus can occasion or permit wandering into other domains such that virtually any topic relevant to mankind could be roped in and even subjected to supervening religious criteria even over criteria native to the topic’s own domain!

To be sure, we should all be for the dignity of the human person, especially as regard dangers from the state. Even so, the utopian vision of humans living free from virtually any threat goes too far in denying the human condition, which is Fallen due to original sin from a Biblical standpoint. Just because some threat or danger exists to people prior to death does not in itself justify an overriding religious interpretation at the expense of the criteria of the domain in which the danger exists. To apply God to automobile safety, for example, would seem contrived and artificial at best. Instead, government regulators ought to be consulted.

Similarly, that the Pope “said he had heard ‘very troubling voices’ regarding autonomous weapons systems and algorithms capable of denying access to healthcare, employment or security based on unjust and prejudiced data” may be better handled by high government officials, regulators, and even ethicists rather than a religious functionary whose knowledge lies in theology.[2] The pope’s statement that words were necessary that are capable of “awakening consciences and indicating paths forward for humanity” best fits the field of ethics, which, although related to religion, is nonetheless distinct.[3] In other words, the pope’s diction belies his implicit claim that the domain of theology is most fitting for a critique of AI. Indeed, the pope even “said every great technological power must be accompanied by moral discernment and public accountability.”[4] Ethics and public policy, not theology. In stating that AI should be “freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of dominion, exclusion or death”—a statement, to be sure, that reasonable people embrace—defense policy under democratic auspices is the native domain, with applied ethics also being highly relevant so it is not simply a matter for immoral or amoral government officials.[5]

Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling correctly distinguishes the ethical from the theological in that they can conflict without either one being thereby invalidated. From the standpoint of ethics, Abraham is guilty of attempted murder of his son, Isaac, while from a theological standpoint, he is legitimately subject to a divine command to sacrifice his son. The proper place for a theologian lies with the latter, whereas an ethicist should be confined to the former; overreaching invalidates. So, by quoting Paul’s exhortation to “keep awake” (1 Thess 5:6), the pope committed a category mistake in substituting “humanity’s critical sense and moral vigilance” for being on guard for Jesus Christ’s Second Coming.[6] Overreaching onto ethics can come at the expense of distinctly religious content. Discussing “the biblical figure of Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem,” the pope presented “the image as a model for the ethical construction of the digital age.”[7] I doubt very much if the distinctly theological meaning of that figure is as an ethical model, so we may legitimately ask what of the textual meaning did the pope omit that is distinctly religious, and whether that is applicable to AI. Such overreaching onto even ethics stems from a greed of a certain sort that is also unbounded and based in self-love rather than self-regulation.

To claim as the pope did “that no one must be excluded from digital transformation and that human beings can never be reduced to ‘productivity,’ ‘cognitive performance,’ or ‘mere data’ is not to make a theological statement; a pope is not a business ethicist. John Rawls’ theory of justice applies to the design of economic systems with the priority going to the design itself being oriented to benefitting the least well-off economically. Such a theory is directly applicable to how everyone can actually be included in a digital economy rather than “a privileged few.”[8] So too is Kant’s categorical imperative that mandates that rational beings be treated not merely as means, but also as ends in themselves; human resource management could stand to take that imperative more seriously. In trying to invoke theology in stating, “The person bears within him—or herself—a freedom, an interiority, and a vocation to love and worship that no machine can replace or block,” the pope set up a red herring, for no appreciable danger from AI blocking worship existed even on the horizon in 2026, and certainly not in the workplace where productivity and performance are most relevant and where worship does not pertain. Even if AI were capable of worshipping God, presumably humans could still do so unimpeded, and people would not do it at work while getting paid for their labor.

The pope was on firmer ground in advocating a “civilization of love” as laid out by Pope Paul VI and John Paul II, yet in inviting all people to become “artisans of hope,” Pope Leo turned hope toward Augustine’s earthly city rather than to the heavenly city.[9] That is to say, the theological dimension transcends society and the workplace, government policy, and technology, rather than being oriented exclusively or primarily to them. It is precisely that dimension that was absent from the pope’s remarks that centered instead on the ethics of computer technology. Overstepping into other domains can be thought of as leaving one’s home unattended and thus undefended in its own right, under its own criteria, such that people may even misconstrue it as something else entirely.

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1. Linda Bordoni, “Pope Leo Presents ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ Calling for Disarmament of AI,” Vatican News, 25 May, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., italics added.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.

Magnifica Humanitas: On Leo the Lion-Hearted

Sometimes it pays to go behind a piece of writing to conduct a genealogy of the writer himself or herself, rather than to dive into the writing itself. On May 25, 2026, the fourteenth Pope Leo of the Roman Catholic Church spoke at the Vatican on his first “social” encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (magnificent humanity), which he had signed ten days earlier. An encyclical is known as a teaching (magisterium) instrument used by the papacy to communicate the Church’s position on a topic. In presenting his encyclical, the pope “described the current technological revolution as an ‘epochal turning point’ comparable to the upheaval confronted by Pope Leo XIII during the industrial Revolution.”[1] That pope’s emphasis on the ethical dimension of an economy, especially with regard to inequality and the related marginalization, was the reason why Robert Prevost chose the name Leo when he accepted the vote in favor of him becoming the next pope after Francis, another social-justice-oriented pope. Lions may indeed come late in the summer, or, sadly, not at all (for even willful, bullying Leos can actually be cowardly, as in Oz), but Leo XIV was already charging voraciously ahead in May, consummating his nomenclature-rationale in words that ensconced his Church firmly in the twenty-first century (in utter contrast to Joe Ratzinger’s antiquarian corrupt administration). All of the media buzz aside, however, if the previous Pope Leo (XIII) actually had had little or no normative influence on what would be harsh (even child!) labor conditions later in the first half of the twentieth century in Europe and North America, then a clear-eyed observer in 2026 could already be skeptical as to the practical significance of Magnifica Humanitas on managers and programmers in Silicon Valley going forward. Moreover, the foray of religion onto AI technology, and even ethics, the latter of which is distinct from albeit related to religion, can be criticized as an instance of dogmatic over-reaching.

Already, U.S. President Trump had dismissed that pope’s disavowal of war in the context of the U.S. and Israel bombing Iran, saying that that pope knew nothing about foreign policy (and thus should have kept his mouth shut). The same could be said of the pope’s (or any religious cleric’s) knowledge of AI. Even though applied ethics is one of my academic fields, for example, I have not written on medical ethics because I do not have a bachelor’s degree (i.e., the MD) from a school of medicine; instead, I have written on political ethics because historical political theory is one of my doctoral fields, on business ethics because I have the MBA (and BS) degree, and on philosophy (and ethics) of religion because I have graduate degrees in religious studies and theology.  Having taken only one course in computer programming in college, I assiduously avoid getting “into the weeds” in applying historical ethical theories to AI, for overreaching into any domain beyond a person’s ken would render one susceptible to the hypertrophy of one’s own ideological opinion primped up as knowledge, or worse, truth.

Moreover, the pope unwittingly opened himself up to the charge of having overstepped the domain of religion by pontificating on AI ethics. Implying that the human-God relation, which transcends even existentialism, somehow translates into a particular ethical stance on something as secular as computer technology is arguably dogmatic in the sense of being arbitrary. In the thirst to be relevant on every contemporary issue, a religious functionary can easily lose sight of the big picture, and even his own ring.

It is significant that Pope Francis chastised bishops in the U.S. for their obsession on two social issues, as if religious faith were an ideological prejudice. The opportunity cost of such a normative orientation lies in the distinctly theological alternative focus on soteriology (and Christology). In the Gospels, Jesus is silent on abortion and homosexuality, so it is strange (at best) that some Roman Catholic bishops have made those issues definitive for church memberships being in good standing (e.g., receiving the Eucharist).

What is the soteriology of AI? Even were AI computers sentient (i.e., self-aware, as to themselves as entities, and with their own motives that involve beliefs and even feelings), what would that have to do with a human being’s salvation before God? That there are threats facing us in our lives in this world is just part of the human condition, even biologically. Even were war and poverty eliminated by enlightened public governance, soteriology would remain as an issue as long as an abyss separates us from God. Put another way, even were there no threats to us in life, it would still be difficult to follow in Christ’s footsteps in responding compassionately even (and especially!) to people we detest. A cowardly lion would have utter disdain for such “weakness,” and would thus remain adamant in refusing to forgive. But as Esther, Ben Hur’s eventual love-interest, remarks in the film, Ben-Hur (1959), when Ben Hur tells her of his thirst for revenge against Messala, a young rabbi has been preaching, “forgiveness is greater, and love is more powerful than hatred.” The opposite of love is not hate, but, rather, indifference, so the seemingly solid fortification of hatred can indeed be dissipated if there is the will, and love. Even without the threat of AI, letting go of one’s hatred as well as the default assumption that making the first move at reconciliation is humiliating rather than a manifestation of strength is difficult.

Although Nietzsche claims that forgetfulness in place of memory is essential in forgiving other people, I submit that even forgetting what a past argument was about is not sufficient for a person to overcome the instinctual assumption and habit of avoidance once that is well-grooved. A few months before writing this essay, I made the first move in restoring a friendship, and having forgotten what we had argued about two years earlier was not sufficient for me to use free-will to stop when passing him to say hello, to which he reciprocated, which led to subsequent socializing. We both subsequently related this to the forgiveness, and the related “peace be with you,” which are so very salient in the Gospels. Interestingly, the experience itself of reproachment led me to consider the guy a long-standing, good friend to whom I could open up about myself even though he and I had not been on speaking terms since arguing about who-knows-what.

In this essay winding up here, have you noticed that I have not analyzed, pro or con, the pope’s teachings on AI? Besides, I am not competent to pontificate on computer technology—which I both enjoy and am frustrated by (the compound, uneasy feeling of which may be what prompts exogenous pontificating on AI by some), and I am probably going to hell anyway to be devoured by angry lions for having criticized a pope Leo who pounced on a reticent Silicon Valley in May. Lions don’t come in late summer in California, after all.

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1, Linda Bordoni, “Pope Leo Presents ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ Calling for Disarmament of AI,” Vatican News, 25 May, 2026.

Pope Leo: Poised against Plutocracy?

Poised as the “new Leonine era,” worded as if gilding the proverbial lily as if a golden ring, the installation of Pope Leo XIV reinvigorated Pope Francis’s preachments on the poor and economic inequality because Robert Prevost chose Leo in large part because of Pope Leo XIII of the late nineteenth century, whose “historic encyclical Rerum Novarum, addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.”[1] Due to “his choice of pontifical name and his mathematical and legal training, Pope Leo XIV has awakened hope and curiosity among the faithful and the more secular world about the influence the Catholic Church could exert on the economic world during his pontificate.”[2] In the exuberance of a new pontificate, it is easy to get carried away with excitement as to possibilities. Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s crime against humanity in Gaza, no one could be blamed for seeking out hope wherever it could be found. Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind just how marginal the calls of conscience can be, given the onslaught of greed not only in the present day represented by powerful corporate (and related) governmental interests, but also in greed’s institutional accretions built up over time that have a force of their own in protecting the economic (and political) status quo.

The practical impact of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, promulgated in 1891, should not be overstated. To be sure, it “laid the foundations of the social doctrine of the Church that inspired Catholic trade unionism, and, some 30 years later, the creation of the Christian Democratic parties that contributed decisively to the civil and material reconstruction of Europe after World War II.”[3] Calling “for workers’ rights without resorting to the class struggle promoted by Marxist doctrine” by instead focusing on “the balance of fair wages and equal economic relations,” Rerum Novarum can be said to have been prudent and eminently practical.[4] Even so, a focus on microeconomics can only do so much when the macro political-economy structure is left intact, and that structure, specifically in its huge concentrations of private capital in modern corporations and their economic-turned-political power in the halls of government amid elected representatives seeking campaign-reelection donations and lucrative jobs in the future, plays a crucial role in perpetuating and even aggravating huge economic disparities and the corruption of democracy by plutocracy.

“Pope Leo XIII questioned the concentrations of economic industrial power and was immediately attacked,” says Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, a banker and former president of the Institute for Religious Works, the corrupt Vatican financial institution.[5] Tedeschi attributed the anti-trust legislation in the United States to the encyclical, but he left out the ensuing fecklessness with which the U.S. Justice Department has used the Sherman Act to break up oligopolies and monopolies (e.g., Facebook, Amazon, General Motors, etc) undoubtedly because of “political pressure.” Even though the Sherman Act was passed “to curb the power of cartels that had created a near-monopoly regime with serious social repercussions” does not mean that much curbing actually took place.[6] Because “serious social repercussions” stem from anti-competitive economic industries, the staying power of the latter even decades into the twenty-first century means that even prior efforts to fortify labor unions fell short of the aims of Rerum Novarum. The proof, in order words, is in the pudding.

That Pope Leo XIV sought to build on established Catholic social teaching such as Rerum Novarum “to respond to another industrial revolution and to developments in artificial intelligence that bring new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and work” may have been putting the cart before the horse, given the social repercussions still occurring in 2025 from the gigantic economic and political power of the mega multinational corporations.[7] Indeed, “economic data” showed “growing crises and imbalances between average incomes and the cost of living” in the E.U. and U.S., which a focus on AI would not address.[8]

In the U.S., the pope’s home country, for example, the federal House of Representatives was in the midst of cutting the budget of Medicaid, which funds healthcare for the poor and disabled. Just days before the inaugural Mass of the new pope, a group of conservative Republican lawmakers blocked a bill with cuts to the program because they were not large enough, given the president’s proposed tax-cut (amid a federal budget debt at the time of $36.21 trillion). That any tax cut would even be proposed amid such a debt (with Moody’s recently having reduced the U.S.’s credit rating) defies fiscal logic and prudence. Cutting health-care for the poor without cutting military spending conjures up “social repercussions” in terms of values that presumably violate those of Rerum Novarum and thus Popes Leo XIII and XIV.

I submit that the Roman Catholic Church still had work to do on the question of human dignity, well-being, and justice in the context of human nature’s incompatibility with holding so much economic and political power in such concentrations that human nature itself may be warped as in the case of an addiction. The incarnation of billionaires who could not possibly spend such wealth in their respective lifetimes (and their survival from want is virtually assured) is something that Pope Leo XIII could not have dealt with, as businessmen such as JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller were the millionaire “titans” of the Gilded Age. Having broken up Standard Oil in 1913 (without changing the ownership) does not mean much as the U.S. Justice Department stood by through the rest of the twentieth century as more and more American industries turned into oligopolies and even de facto monopolies. The practical impact of Rerum Novarum hardly justifies moving on the AI without taking another stab at the political-economic regime that has perpetuated and even extenuated massive economic inequality and price-setting “inflation” by companies.

Just days before Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate officially began, Walmart’s chief financial manager told the media that the company “had no choice” in raising prices due to new tariffs. Were Walmart’s industry competitive rather than oligopolistic, Walmart would be a price-taker, such that market discipline (i.e., choices by consumers) could mean that Walmart would “have no choice” but to accept lower profit by absorbing some of the supply-cost increases rather than passing them all on to the consumers. As U.S. President Trump said, Walmart had made billions of dollars in 2024, and thus could afford to absorb some of the impact of the tariffs. Put another way, we have no choice but pass on the increases onto the consumer is itself not only a lie, but also an indication of the company’s perception of its industry as less than subject to competitive forces wherein consumers can vote with their wallets and purses by buying elsewhere rather than being forced to pay more at Walmart.

If anything, the economic (and related political) regime that supports excessive economic rents being paid by consumers as large corporations continue to profit greatly has endured and even prospered as the status quo since Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum in 1891. Oligopolies came to populate even the high-tech industry, including social media, at the expense of competitive markets and thus consumers as well as workers. Restructuring the underlying political-economic regime lies beyond the purview of labor unions; even the voice of Catholic conscience may be insufficient, given how the regime is fed by and feeds greed. In shifting from a strict anti-wealth paradigm to a pro-wealth paradigm wherein wealth is decoupled from greed (i.e., liberality and munificence vindicating even fortunes as camels slip through narrow places), Christianity had arguably compromised itself with respect to being a normative obstacle to greed.[9]

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1. Sergio Cantone, “How the Pontificate of Pope Leo XIV Could Influence the World Economy,” Euronews.com, May 18, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. See Skip Worden, God’s Gold: Beneath the Shifting Sands of Christian Thought on Profit-Seeking and Wealth, available at Amazon.

Bob Prevost as Pope Leo: The First American Pope

Referring to the former Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost as “Bob Provost” reflects my Midwestern roots, which Pope Leo XIV (or “Pope Leo” amongst friends) has as well, even though the media missed this vital point as to the new pope’s native culture. As if a knee-jerk reaction, the international media almost immediately sought to circumscribe the new pope’s “Americanness” by referring to “the Chicago-born Augustinian missionary” as “history’s first U.S.-born pope” as if he had left the U.S. as a young boy and had become just as South American as “American.”[1] Perhaps this is what prompted U.S. President Trump to jump on social media to so profusely congratulate the first American pope even though as Cardinal, Bob Prevost had publicly criticized Trump’s immigration policies. The contest was on to define the new pope! Of course, never to be outdone by anything American, the very British BBC referred to the “first North American pope,” just as the BBC had stated many years earlier that Prince Harry and Magen were moving to North America (rather than to California after a visit in Canada).[2] The games people play. I contend that the bias behind portraying Bob Prevost erroneously as only originally from the U.S. represents something more than mere political and ideological resentment of one of the most powerful countries on Earth.

To be clear, the new pope was from the United States—in fact, from its heartland—and thus he can indeed be said to be the first American pope, even though he spent two decades in South America serving the Church. That he gained citizenship in Peru and the Vatican does not mean that he revoked or renounced his American citizenship or that he can be relegated as having been merely born in Illinois. In fact, in 1999, when he was 44 years-old, he returned to Chicago for fourteen years to lead the Augustinian Order, so even being characterized as “born and raised” in the United States is misleading.

At 69 years-old when he was elected, Pope Leo had lived about 40 years in the United States, and all of those years but four were in Chicagoland, which covers 200 square miles and includes the city of Chicago as well as the suburbs. He lived there for fourteen years well after he had graduated from seminary there, so it is incorrect to say that he was merely born and raised in Chicago. He served the Church in Peru for only 20 years, with only eight of which being when he had dual citizenship.[3] His church service in Peru occasioned (but did not condition) his citizenship there, rather than vice versa. Therefore, it is as misleading to characterize him as “U.S.-born,” as it is to say that he is the first Peruvian pope, or even that he is the first pope from both Illinois and Peru. The false-equivalence narrative, especially in Europe, was no accident. There had been an unwritten rule in the Vatican hierarchy that no American could be elected pope.

Leading involves the use of symbol, and words are symbols. Upon being announced to the world, it was no accident that Pope Leo spoke in Spanish (as well as Latin and Italian) and gave a “shout out” to Peru and did not speak a word of English or refer to people in his homeland. Speculating, I submit that he may have been sending a message to the Church hierarchy that he would not be coddling up to the Trump Administration or, moreover, doing the bidding of the country with perhaps the most geopolitical power in the world. Both theologically and ethically, religion should act on a check on the earthly powerful. The days of the Borgia popes were long gone, and the Roman Catholic Church had shifted to a role of speaking truth to power. That speaking Spanish and explicitly mentioning Peru can be construed as misleading, the pope may have judged that this cost was worth establishing himself as independent of the United States in terms of power.

Secondly, Pope Leo may have been sending the message that he would not be in the corner of the arch-conservative American Catholic hierarchy. Even though a few American bishops held a press conference on the next morning, differences from that ideologically-oriented moralistic enclave and the moderate pope could be anticipated. Cardinal Prevost had been instrumental, for example, in Pope Francis’s addition of three women in the Vatican office that the cardinal ran from 2023 that vets prospective bishops. That Pope Leo had two women serve as lectionaries reading scripture during his first mass as pope can be read as yet another use of symbol to send a message. That is, his choice was “perhaps an indication of Leo’s intention to follow Francis’ priority to expand women’s role in the church.”[4] If Pope Francis had groomed Prevost, the former may have taught the latter how to use symbols effectively in leadership. If so, symbolic actions in social justice, especially for the poor, could be a part of Pope Leo’s pontificate. That as a Cardinal Prevost had been “critical of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration” could also rankle some American bishops.[5] Lastly, he reportedly had a role in Pope Francis’s push-back against the ideologically-conservative orientation of the American clerical hierarchy in vetting clergy for possible bishoprics in the United States. Therefore, the American expression, “Be careful what you wish for; you might get it,” could come around to bite the American Catholic hierarchy in the proverbial “behind.”

There is, however, a “but.” Revisiting the intentional use of symbol, that Pope Leo wore full papal regalia for his first address to the world after being elected whereas Francis had not done so for his first address may signal that Leo was coming into the job with some conservative leanings that would keep him from being a full-blown progressive pope, if indeed Francis could be said to have been progressive. Whereas Francis had famously said, “Who am I to judge?” regarding a gay couple who are monogamous and love each other and God, and added that it is no crime to be gay, Robert Prevost had previously said in 2012 that a “homosexual lifestyle” evinces “beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel.”[vi] As a Cardinal, Prevost abstained from assenting or dissenting from Francis’s optional blessing on gay civil unions. Bob’s brother back in Illinois told journalists after the papal election had been announced that his brother is a “middle of the road” kind of guy.

Even being a moderate could be enough to annoy the most conservative ideologues in the American church on occasion, and Pope Leo may have wanted to make clear that he would be independent of that hierarchy rather than rubber-stamping its obsession on homosexuality and abortion. He may also have been wanting to tell the European church-hierarchy by not using his native tongue in his first address that he would not be biased in favor of the United States. That he could speak Italian and that his father had significant Italian ancestry were probably more vital than we know in swinging E.U. cardinals in favor of voting for an American cardinal. Both of Pope Francis’s parents had emigrated from Italy.

In short, the bias against having an American as pope can be viewed as superficial. Just as Americans exist who oppose the values supporting the excesses of American capitalism and those undergirding the Trump Administration even in matters of foreign policy, so too have there been Catholic priests who were (or are) American and yet have resisted (or resist) the ideological reductionism of the American Council of Catholic Bishops. Superficial, prejudicial assumptions can enjoy sustained unfounded legitimacy and longevity.  Such assumptions gloss over significant cultural differences between Americans.

The most important influence on Bob Prevost, culturally speaking, was utterly missed by both American and international journalists because the intra-American culture of which I am referring does not easily fit into the E.U.-U.S. basis of comparison. Like Bob Prevost, I was born and raised in northern Illinois, though his hometown is closer to the city-proper of Chicago than mine is. Whereas he doubtlessly identifies himself as a Chicagoan, I grew up beyond the farthest suburbs. He is a Chicago Sox fan whereas I am a Cubs fan. Yet I submit that we both identify primarily as Midwesterners. The Midwest includes, roughly speaking, fifteen U.S. member-states whose combined population is around 80 million and for which Chicago is the de facto capital, at least as far as commerce is concerned. The Midwest spans from Ohio to Nebraska, and up around Lake Michigan (or, Lake Illinois, which, I say in jest, is far north of the Gulf of America). Illinois is so diverse economically and culturally, such that the southern region, Egypt, has attempted five times to “IL-exit” (which is European-speak for “secede”) from Illinois (really from Chicagoland), that were the pope and I to chat informally, we would quickly and easily nod affirmatively that we are both Midwesterners at heart even though he picked the wrong baseball team (can a layperson absolve a pope?). Such informality may seem strange or even scandalous outside of the Midwest, but I submit that the distinctive culture resonates well with Christ’s emphasis on neighbor-love as benevolentia universalis, including speaking to the poor and other marginalized people in public without talking down to them or as if they were a special case. I submit that a Midwesterner would make an excellent pope, and that the superficial bias has thus impeded the historically European-centered Church.  

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1. AP News, “Live Updates: Pope Leo XIV Calls His Election Both a Cross and a Blessing, Offers First Homily,” May 9, 2025.
2. Frances Mao, “Pope Leo XIV Calls Church ‘A Beacon to Illuminate Dark Nights’ in First Mass, BBC.com, May 9, 2025.
3. Stacy Meichtry et al, “First Pope from U.S. Elected,” The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2025.
4. AP News, “Live Updates: Pope Leo XIV Calls His Election Both a Cross and a Blessing, Offers First Homily,” May 9, 2025.
5. Stacy Meichtry et al, “First Pope from U.S. Elected,” The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2025.
6. Li Zhou, “The New Pope Faces Scrutiny on LGBTQ+ Rights,” The Huffington Post, May 8, 2025.