The faithful are ecstatic and hopeful. Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV — formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost — is savoring the moment along with his admirers and family.
When the euphoria over the new pope dies down, he faces a challenge like that of all other heads of state large and small: Donald J. Trump.
Trump yesterday hailed the election of the first American pope on May 8, 2025 as a sure sign that America is on the path to greatness once again.
"Congratulations to Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who was just named Pope. It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope. What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our Country. I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!"
Will the new pope be influenced by the world's most powerful leader with cosmic skill in persuasion?
Is he a globalist as signaled by his retweeting of those condemning the Trump Administration's border policies or will he show some sympathy for the populist — and Christian — fervor now sweeping Europe and the United States?
And just how American is or was Robert Prevost?
"Pope Leo XIV spent so many years abroad in service to the church that both La Repubblica and the Italian national TV network RAI took to calling him 'il meno americano tra gli americani,' meaning the “least American of the Americans,” reported the New York Sun. After all he lived and worked for two decades in Peru, where he took citizenship, before being appointed a cardinal by Francis in 2023.
An immediate challenge was telegraphed two days before his selection. The Wall Street Journal published a major report, 'The Vatican Financial Mess Pope Francis Couldn’t Fix,' which delved into the church's financial crisis which hung over Francis as his earthly life ebbed away:
[I]n the final weeks of his life, advisers were filtering in and out of his austere reception room, presenting the details of a microstate awash in priceless treasures but tumbling deeper into debt. The budget deficit had tripled since the Argentine took office, and the pension fund faced up to 2 billion euros in liabilities it wouldn’t be able to fund. ...
The Vatican was increasingly relying on museum ticket sales to fund its civil service, its worldwide network of embassies and the Papal Swiss Guard, a small army paid in Swiss franc pensions. The city-state serves seven million visitors a year and a global flock, without collecting taxes.
After more than a month of discussion, Francis settled on one solution: Ask the faithful for more money. On Feb. 11, he signed a chirografo, or papal directive, to boost donations. Three days later, he was hospitalized with double pneumonia. On April 21, he died, leaving his soon-to-be-chosen successor with a similar economic puzzle to the one Francis himself had inherited.
However, the real crisis confronting the Catholic Church and its new head is, ironically, one of morality.Its desperate financial straits are due in large part not only to mismanagement by faithful men and women unaccustomed to business realities but to the pressures of responding to worldwide accusations that priests sexually abused minors. Such responses not only involve massive financial settlements but have also eroded the willingness of parishioners to remain faithful and tithe.
The new pope is even directly implicated by such scandals.
"Prevost also faced criticism for not having opened a formal church investigation into alleged sexual abuse carried out by two priests in the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, which he led from 2014 to 2023," according to a Daily Mail report which also explored his handling of similar scandals in his hometown of Chicago.
"Staying silent is a sin. It's not what God wants us to do. Jesus wants us to stop these things, not make a heathy garden for sexual abuse to grow," Lopez de Casas of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), told the newspaper.
"SNAP and other groups say they had made the 135 eligible cardinals who selected him well aware of Prevost's alleged inaction on the allegations," the Daily Mail reported.
Such are the issues swirling around Pope Leo XIV as he faces new realities and the inevitable arrangements for a meeting with President Trump.
