Some say that the new Pope, Leo XIV, is liberal. Others say he is a conservative. However, Vice President JD Vance expressed it better: “It is very difficult to place a 2,000 -year -old institution in the policy of 2025 America.”
Yes, the vicar of Christ transcends the course of blue red. This is true even for the man who is the first American Pope of the Church. Even so, they are often asked for potatoes to pass judgments on matters that are shed in politics.
Such judgments begin with the pontifical name taken by the new guardian of the keys; The name points to the papal predecessor who wants to emulate. In the first direction to the Cardinals College, the man born as Robert Prevost explained: “I chose to take the name of Leo XIV. Rerum novarum He addressed the social issue in the context of the first major industrial revolution. ”
That 14,000 -words encyclical Rerum novarum—The title is Latin for “new things,” almost exactly 134 years ago, on May 15, 1891, when the previous Leo could see that the industrialization of societies risked in the midst of the collisions of labor vs .. capital. The fear of Wormer’s merciful, on the one hand, and the fear of the Wormer revolution, on the other, was coming.
Pope Leo XIII (1810 – 1903), around 1880. (London Stereoscopic Company/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
In fact, even before his ascension to the throne of St. Peter, Leo XIII had his leg applying his powers of the Church to the cause of Social harmony when he was the bishop of Perugia. In the words of a biographer:
When Bishop or Perugia [from 1846 to 1877,] He legalized the establishment in his diocese or societies that tended to raise and benefit the material condition of artisans and workers. They urged the bands together in employer and employee organizations in order to organize beneficial conditions for both, and the promulgation of laws that lead to their mental, moral and physical development.
Such efforts, a part of what is known as Catholic Social Teaching, sought a midpoint in economic matters that firmly rejected socialism and communism, but also opposed the libertism of Laissez-Faire. As this author recalled for Breitbart News, Leo XIII wanted Both Businesses and labor to have rights and be treated with justice.
Inspired by the Lones de Leo XIII Catholics formed political parties worldwide, style as Christian Democrats, seeking to harmonize divergent and conflict forces in a penny program.
James Gibbons (1834-1921), archbishop of Baltimore and the senior prelate in the United States, proved to be an effective champion of this integrative vision; He firmly defended the Knights of Labor, an Early Union.
In the twentieth century, the “working priests” or were with union organizers and other activists. The result was the emergence of an urban Democratic Party, strongly Catholic, focused on the blue -collar concerns of wages, hours and occupational safety.
The US priests greet the US flag as the newly chosen Pope Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost, after arriving for the first time in Loggia or the Basilica of San Pedro, on May 8, 2025. (Andrea Mancini/Nurphoto through Getty Images)
The newly chosen Pope Leo XIV addresses the crowd in the central lodge with a view to the Plaza de San Pedro on May 8, 2025 in the city of the Vatican. (Francesco Sforza – Vatican Media/Getty Images)
The remarkable democratic leaders in those days included Al Smith, the governor of New York and, who, in 1928, was the first Catholic to receive a nomination of the festival for president. Another was Senator Robert Wagner, also or New York; It was the main author of the National Labor Relations Law of 1935, the so -called “Magna Labor”. And, of course, John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, elected in 1960 as the first Catholic president.
In general, these figures were economic but social conservatives. Obviously, they never questioned the teaching of the Catholic Church about the sin of abortion. And as for anything to do with the transgender, Fuhgeddaboutit. (Back in those days of meat and potatoes, no democratic official dreamed that the transgender would be another thing than a possible excuse to evade military service, to the Cabo Klinger on the television program “m*a*s*h”)
In addition, the old Catholic democrats, such as Senator Pat McCarran or Nevada, were strongly anti -communist. They had seen what had happened to their fellow believers behind the iron curtain of Stalin; The fate of Cardinal József Mindszenty of Hungary was closely observed. Here at home, McCarran and others worked to make sure that communist immigrants are never allowed to enter the United States.
However, in the 1970s, this patriotic and solidarity Catholicism was under a fierce attack of the new left. The hinge arrived in 1972, when George McGovern (a Protestant) was running for president on a platform focused on social issues, summarized as “acid, abortion and amnesty.” McGovern lost the general elections in a landslide and, nevertheless, the McGovernITES He took over the Democratic Party, marching to his current positions on abortion, immigration and, or the course, the transgender.
In response, Catholics became more republicans. In 2024, most of them voted for Donald Trump, and if we examine the votes of those who attend the Mass frequently, Trump’s percentage is equally high.
The Catholic nuns are in front of a sign of “Make America Great Again” while waiting for the arrival of President Donald Trump Duration in Waterford, Michigan, on October 30, 2020. (Emily Elconin/Bloomberg through Getty Images)
However, in any part where they are, Catholics insist on protections for workers and their families. Happily, that is a message that most Republicans are adopting. Indiana Jim Banks Senator recently described his vision of the Republican coalition: “He is a multi -regular, Union, General working class … earning on that agenda. ” [emphasis added]
Then, now Pope Leo XIV. In the same May 10 speech, he said that the time has come for the Roman Catholic Church to think of “another industrial revolution”, specifically, “developments in the field of artificial intelligence that new challens represent for the defense of human dignity, justice, justice, justice, justice and justice, justice, justice and work.”
We simply do not know what will come from all these technological changes: to the workplace, to politics, to social relations, to life itself. However, Leo is ready to look for positive responses in prayer; As he said, “the Church sacrifices everyone the treasure of their social education.” We are likely to see a new encyclical, a Rerum novarum For the 21st century, he focused once again on defending human dignity against new things.
Pope Leo XIV attends an audience with members of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation on May 17, 2025 in the city of the Vatican, Vatican. (Vatican media through Vatican Pool/Getty images)
We can have the Goths a look at that future encyclical in Leo XIVS Direction on Friday to the Vatican Diplomatic Corps. “It is the responsibility of government leaders to work to build harmonious and peaceful civil societies. This can be achieved above all investing in the family, founded on the stable union between a man and a woman,” a small but genuine society, and before the entire civil society, “he declared directly from his predecessor of his predictor. Rerum novarum.
Interestingly, another Pope Leo – Leo I, known as Leo the Great, who directed the Church from 440 to 461 extoded human dignity. At that time, a pressing question was the inherent equality of faith; How I read the great preached:
No one is excluded from this joy; Everyone shares the same reason to rejoice. Our Lord, Victor about sin and death, finding any man free from sin, came to free us all. Let the saint rejoiced when he sees the palm of the victory in question. Let the sinner slip when he recovers the sacrifice of forgiveness. Let the pagan take courage while summoning life. In the fullness of time, chosen in the unfathomable depths of the wisdom of God, the Son of God Tok to himself our common humanity to reconcile it with its creator.
At a time when slavery was common, this was a bold statement, only radical, which all Christians, or any station, could find an honest place in the kingdom of God. (And only on May 16, the new Pope affirmed the traditional teachings of the Church about human dignity: accept The “disposable culture” of abortion and euthanasia, In favor of marriage between a man and a woman).
Pope Leo I, also known as San Pope read the big one. (400-461 AD). (Print collector/getty images)
Sixteen years after the first Leo, artificial intelligence could enrich and enslave the United States, perhaps one or the other, perhaps both at the same time. Then, not Catholics should appreciate that Leo XIV is calling his church to build a strength for the free will of faith, the right of each soul to find a path to salvation.
Leo XIV will be as effective in advancing in this human social vision in the public square as Leo XIII was?
We should wait. And, if we are or a mind, we must pray.
An American flag is stirred in front of the Basilica of San Pedro ahead of Pope Leo XIV leading his first regina Caeli on May 11, 2025 (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP through Getty Images)