One of the biggest news stories of that past week was the selection of the new head of the Roman Catholic church, Pope Leo XIV. aka the former Cardinal Robert Prevost.
Leo XIV is the first American pope. This was long thought would never happen, so this is a big deal. Born and raised in Chicago, he’s spent most of the past 10 years in Peru and has dual citizenship. He also has a degree in mathematics from Villanova University and speaks 5 languages. It has been speculated that this ability may have helped him become pope because of the sheet number of cardinals he would have been able to make connections with during the conclave. He’s also a White Sox fan, which is apparently very important to some people.
But what is really fascinating to me are the folks who decided Leo XIV was “woke”. Imagine being so full of yourself that you actually think you know more about Catholicism – or Christianity in general – than someone who has been studying it their entire lives! Yes Leo XIV has a degree in math, but he went to a Catholic high school, became a friar in 1977 and a priest in 1982 with a Master of Divinity. It’s safe to say that he knows an awful lot about all things God related and certainly more than your average MAGA keyboard warrior. Even more absurd, a huge number of these folks knew NOTHING about the man other than he was from Chicago and knew the former Pope Francis. And the most absurd- many of these morons aren’t even Catholic!
Full disclosure- I’m not a Catholic either. I’m a Methodist who was raised Lutheran. So while it’s interesting to read about the new pope and I really liked a lot of what Pope Francis had to say, at the end of the day I’m not really impacted by who the pope is.
Then again, neither are most of the people complaining about Leo XIV. They just read somewhere that this new pope shared the old pope’s belief that ALL people should be treated with dignity and that was an insult to their homophobic, racist, generally elitist world view and therefore they hate him.
Remember when the WWJD bracelets were popular? What Would Jesus Do? I am pretty sure He would be on side the of Leo XIV and not the supposed “good Christians” who have the audacity to think they understand the Bible more than a long-long servant of the Word. The good news is that Leo XIV will be praying for them.