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Of This World is a podcast dedicated to discussing religion and politics. Co-hosts Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, a historian at Wesleyan University, and Nick Tabor, a journalist and author, talk with scholars, writers, and theologians working at the seam between faith and the secular. Across each episode they return to one question: can there be an effective religious left in the United States? A joint production with Commonweal magazine.
This is Nick Taber. I'm a journalist and author living in New York.
Speaker 2:And my name is Daniel Simons Jenkins. I'm an assistant professor of history in the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University, and this is Of This World.
Speaker 3:Hello. Welcome to Of This World. A podcast about religion and public life. I'm one of the hosts, Nick Taber. I'll be joined in this episode by my co host, Danny Jenkins.
Speaker 3:Also by a guest whom we're thrilled to have on, it's Elise Allen, a fantastic journalist and the author of Pope Leo the Biography which has just been published in English by Penguin Random House. Elise is a senior correspondent for Crooks, which as some of our listeners will know is an online newspaper that covers the Catholic church. Crooks was originally part of the Boston Globe, it's now independent. Elise is a senior correspondent based in Rome where she covers the Vatican. Before she moved there, worked with a Catholic news agency and she's done some investigative work in Latin America.
Speaker 3:And in the course of her reporting, she got to know Bishop Robert Prevost and this was well before his name was even in the running to become the new pope. So her relationship with him goes back some years and she was in the perfect position to write a book explaining who Pope Leo is and how his experiences give us some clues about what to expect from his papacy. She actually wrote the book in Spanish, with a Peruvian audience in mind, but it's now been translated. And I do wanna encourage listeners to go check it out. It's a very good read.
Speaker 3:Even if you're not Catholic and neither Danny nor I are, we all have a stake in Pope Leo's papacy. He's now one of the world's most powerful figures and of course a fascinating person. And Elise's book is deeply reported, lucidly written and it will give you a better picture of how Pope Leo was formed than anything else out there. So before we get to the interview, we just want to thank Commonweal Magazine for sponsoring this podcast. And we wanna thank our fantastic producer, Joel Myers, for all his work on the show.
Speaker 3:So with that, here's our conversation with Elise and Allen.
Speaker 1:Elise, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 4:No. Thank you, guys. Really a pleasure for me to to be with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We've been looking forward to it. You know, Pope Leo obviously has been dominating the headlines a bit lately. Everybody's been talking about him, you know, not just in in Christian or Catholic circles. But we wanted to have you on both because we think your new book is very good.
Speaker 1:Also because we thought you'd be able to maybe bring a new kind of a new dimension to this conversation about him and where the Catholic church is headed under his leadership. I know that in addition to all the research that you did for this book, you're still covering the Vatican. And, so I think you've been around Pope Leo quite a bit lately. If I'm not mistaken, you were with him on his trip to Africa recently, is that right?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. So I just got back, was home for, you know, maybe three and a half days and then flew straight to The US Uh-huh. For the launch of of the English editions.
Speaker 1:Cool. Yeah. Well, I we might have some questions about that trip later on, but but I know you also have some history with Pope Leo more than most journalists do. So our hope is that you'll be able to kind of put some of these recent events in a broader context and give us a deeper sense of who he is. So let's start by talking about how you got to know him.
Speaker 1:I I think, you first met him back in 2018. Is that right?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I was actually starting a new position at the time. I just started with the, you know, my current agency, the Crux Catholic News site. And I had been investigating previously this outfit in Peru. This community that had some allegations against it, unfortunately, it was quite a serious abuse case that came out of Peru.
Speaker 4:The scandals exploded in 2015, I've been kind of looking into it since then, but more seriously digging into it as of 2017 and the beginnings of 2018. And then I started with Crocs in August, and by December I made an investigative trip down to Peru to look into this, because I I got the sense that this is gonna be a big and important case. It was one of the biggest communities in Latin America, and of course at the time you had the Chilean abuse crisis that was happening, and Francis had just summoned all the bishops of Chile, and I thought this Peru thing could be the next wave of that. So I wanted to go down and dig deep into it. So it was nothing reporting at that point, but I had, you know, contacted the National Episcopal Conference and asked them for some meetings.
Speaker 4:One of them, you know, was the meeting with the president of the conference responded and they said, you know, we're we're happy to give you a meeting with him. His name was Miguel Cabrejos at the time. And, you know, but they told me, they said, you know who you should also meet with is Robert Privos of of Teclaio because he is head of the National Safeguarding Commission for the Bishop's Conference and he's really the one kind of pioneering and spearheading the Bishop's own investigation into this case. So I think he'd be useful for you. So I said yes, of course, I agreed.
Speaker 4:The day the meetings came, was supposed to be the two of them together And Archbishop Miguel Cabrejos, the president of the conference, was not available that day. He ended up getting tied into something else. And so he was not present. So it was just me and Bishop Cabrejos Mhmm. That had that conversation initially.
Speaker 4:And it was an off the record conversation, and he was very open, very frank. You know, I he asked, what do you want to talk about? You know, and so I asked him all the questions I had and he answered every single one of them, you know, and tried to give me as much information as possible, which I found surprising. Usually, bishops are
Speaker 1:not Yeah.
Speaker 4:That forthcoming. Uh-huh. You know, especially if the journalists they've never met on such a sensitive issue. Right?
Speaker 1:Uh-huh.
Speaker 4:So I was surprised by how frank and how open he was and how direct he was with his answers.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:And then he gave me his business card at the end of the conversation. That was it. And then I think we exchanged a couple of memals after that and then really had no contact then again until he came to Rome when Francis named him Prefect of the Vatican's dicastery for bishops in 2023. And there are just not a lot of Americans in the Roman Curia in Rome. If you're you're American, we find our way to
Speaker 1:I imagine. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So that was we reconnected at that point, you know, and and, had some connection, and my husband and I had him over for dinner actually in October 2024.
Speaker 1:Did you? Wow.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. So it's always just I don't know. It it is one of those things. But then on May eighth last year, was like, okay.
Speaker 4:Of all the of all the cardinals, you know, of all the 133 guys, you know, that
Speaker 1:were in there.
Speaker 4:Uh-huh. It was it was funny, you know?
Speaker 1:Interesting. And not to we don't need to go into too much depth about this, but the scandal in in Peru that you were investigating, could you just give a very brief explanation of what that was?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So the name of the community is the Sodalicium Christiane Vitae. It's a Latin phrase, the sodality of Christian life. Basically, it was a massive community throughout mostly Peru, Latin America. It was very widely known and very influential.
Speaker 4:Very influential group with a lot of connections like to political leadership in Peru, but also, you know, in other Latin American countries as well. And there were four different branches of it. There was the men's community, and there were two women's branches of the community, and there was sort of a lay association for families and whatnot, the Christian life movement that was attached to it. And so all of these outfits had sort of a swath of allegations. You know, it started out, as allegations, you know, of sexual abuse against minors by the founder, a man named Luis Fernando Figari.
Speaker 4:And they've been bubbling around for you know, bubbling up for a while, allegations against him, but everything again really exploded in 2015. And there were a series of reform efforts, eventually allegations, other kinds of abuse, abuses of power and conscience, physical abuse of members, you know, beyond just sexual abuse. You know, it it was really, really awful stuff, you know, that came out. Sort of this cult like group. It was really the Vatican had determined, you know, when it finally suppressed this outfit, Pope Francis suppressed it formally, of the branches in, you know, right before his death for being sectarian and its tendencies.
Speaker 4:So it's recognized, I think, as one of the most egregiously abusive groups in the church's modern history. And Francis did suppress it before his death. And Robert Privos, you know, was investigating that. He was in charge of meeting with victims, you know, and caring for the Bishop's investigation into that already in 2018. And then I think he helped out a little bit as Cardinal when he was in Rome too, you know, Francis was in the final stages of his investigations there right before its suppression.
Speaker 1:Okay. That makes sense. Think that's, yeah, helpful context. So, you know, since since since father Robert, you know, became Populio last year in America, people have loved talking about his Chicago heritage. You know, we know he's a White Sox fan.
Speaker 1:We know that one of his brothers is a Trump supporter. I was thinking yesterday about a meme that I saw like the day it was announced that had a picture of a deep dish pizza and a bottle of Malort and it said the body and blood of Christ. But anyway, so I do feel like his his years in Peru are like people know he was down there, but I think those years are not so well understood, at least in The US. And that's a part of his life that you deal with in quite a lot of depth in the book. So I'd rather focus on that for the next little while in this conversation.
Speaker 1:So maybe you could start by just telling us how he landed in Peru in the first place and and what it was about the country that made him wanna stay there.
Speaker 4:Well, you know, he had always felt this call to be a missionary. Was one of the reasons he wanted to be part of the Augustinian order versus like a diocesan priest or something, or any other religious order because, you know, the Augustans were missionaries, and he always had this draw to to go someplace and to to serve, you know, elsewhere. And so he finished his canonical studies in Rome. You know, he finished, you know, his university studies, you know, was ordained in Rome and, you know, finished his canonical studies there after four years of study of the Angelicum, you know, the Pontifical Angelicum University or the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, We call it the Angelica the Angelica Angelica it's known. So he finished that, came back to The States for just a couple months in 1985.
Speaker 4:And then as a young priest at 30 years old, his very first pastoral assignment was off to the Northern Plains of Peru in this rural mountainous region, Lumbayek, and he went to the town of Chulcanas. Mhmm. And that was his first pastoral assignment. And I think these are the most fundamental years of his life, and I don't think you can understand who he is if you don't understand what's going on there at this time. And and that's why I I'll just say in in the biography, that's why I dedicated an entire chapter.
Speaker 4:The second chapter really digs deep into this context, and and that's intentional because I don't think you can understand anything that comes afterwards if you don't understand that setting. So you're talking about, you know, Peru had been trying to find its way out of dictatorships for decades. And so it was kind of grappling with democracy, trying to move forward in that direction, it was very unstable, the situation was. Politically, the situation was extremely unstable. There was widespread poverty, it was a huge economic crisis.
Speaker 4:You had terrorism. The shining path was active, and another group, the MRTA was really active as well. So you had just widespread violence, bombs going off everywhere, you know, and people were really just they had nothing and they were terrorized.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:You know? And and so this is a situation that he walked into, extreme poverty, even the missionaries themselves, you know, didn't have a lot. And so he he really walked into the situation and his first year there, I think was this culture shock. You know, in my conversation with him for the biography, you know, he said, he stepped into Peru and was sort of looking around saying, God, where have you brought me?
Speaker 1:Uh-huh. It's
Speaker 4:just like, woah. You know? It was a really intense moment for him, huge culture shock. And I think he describes, you know, being sick with typhoid that first year and being in this clinic, you know, like he had to drive two hours on this bumpy road, you know, in the eighties, trying to go to the nearest clinic, to their house, and spent the night there, and it's really primal conditions, you know? At that time thinking, okay, this is what the deal is.
Speaker 4:Uh-huh. This is what I've I've been asked to do, and I'm gonna do it. And he said from that point on, he never looked back, and he just went forward. And and he really embraced that call to serve there, and and really made a commitment with the people to go out to to find their needs, to meet their needs the best that he could. And so he he went back, that was 1985.
Speaker 4:And that was also that I'll just add that that first year, the missionaries themselves, foreign missionaries were receiving a lot of threats from the shining path.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:They were most active in rural areas. So some of these mountainous rural towns where the missionaries, Yoga Sidians were active and other orders, you know, had to withdraw from the rural areas. Mhmm. You know, these towns, you can only get to by horseback, you know, and concentrate in the bigger cities. And there was this debate whether they should evacuate or not.
Speaker 4:They're talking to the province that oversaw the mission territory in Chicago, Our Lady of Good Council Province oversaw this area in Peru. And they were debating, should we evacuate our foreign missionaries there? Because the situation is becoming quite dangerous. A few, you know, foreign missionaries in the weeks, you know, and months of that year have been kidnapped, some had been killed, and they collectively made the decision to stay. He said, this is what, you know, we came for.
Speaker 4:We didn't come to help the people then run, you know, we came to help them in their situation and this is what it is and we're going to stay. And so that was his really first Yeah. Really intense first year. And then he went back to The States for another year and a half to finish his Canton Law degree, then he returned to Peru. They wanted to send him to Chicago again to be head of formation there, but the Peruvians said we need him here.
Speaker 4:Uh-huh. And so he went back to Peru and ended up in Trujillo leading the Augustinian formation house there and two parishes. And that's when he he really saw the people through, again, further political and social turmoil, you know, the the really controversial years of Alberto Fujimori and his, know, they called the Fuji shock, you know, of his economic policies that really had a huge impact on the population. A lot of people ended up in desperation, you know, and of course, all the allegations about human rights abuses. He was very active in telling the people, you know, the young Augustinian people were going out on the streets, they're demonstrating, they're calling, you know, for the truth and reconciliation commission, which is eventually established, right, to investigate human rights abuses and under Fujimori's leadership.
Speaker 4:And, you know, he would really support those who wanted to go out, you know, the young Augustinians themselves, they would talk about these issues, you know, in community. And, you know, he would really say, you wanna go out, go ahead, go participate in the marches and demonstrations, but not as an exercise in partisan politics. It's not what we're here for. What we're here for is to be with the people and to help them advocate for their own voice and their own rights. So he's very clear about that being a pastoral exercise and he never wanted them to get into the battles.
Speaker 4:He said that's not what they're there for. They're there for to company the people, you know, is what it was about. So I think in synthesis, you know, that's just a glimpse at like the situation that he walked into, you know, in in the eighties and nineties, you know, they called the eighties lost decade in Peru. It was really a desperate Mhmm. Time.
Speaker 4:And then, you know, you can get into his time as bishop, you know, he was gone for another twelve years and then came back as bishop. And then there were still, you know, it's same the old story, more political problems Mhmm. More protests against the president at the time and a lot of natural disasters that he helped the people through. So he was really very hands on and very committed with the local population.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That that was certainly my sense from reading it. You know, Danny and I were talking yesterday about an observation that the historian Greg Grandin has made. He writes a lot about Latin America. Danny and I both like his writing a lot.
Speaker 1:He said that there's something about social reality in Latin America that tends to radicalize people. And I felt like that chimed with the book. One of my takeaways was that Pope Leo or father Robert, that he was he's a very practically minded person. He's definitely not an ideologue and and and certain and certainly was not one when he was growing up. I mean, he was a math major in college.
Speaker 1:And my sense, I don't know this for sure, my sense is that he was not a super political guy when he was younger, but then he was sent into this hyper politicized environment where, you you just couldn't really escape. Political reality was kind of imposing itself on his life and his ministry in all sorts of ways. So it was not a situation where he could just sort of say, well, it's not my job to worry about politics. I just deal with the church because the politics in some ways were inescapable. And so I'm curious, well, could could you say a little more about how the the conditions that he lived through and that, you know, his years in ministry there kind of shaped his understanding of like what the church should what its role should be in relation to politics and shaped his his I mean, he's been talking a lot lately about war and peace, immigration.
Speaker 1:How do you think it shaped his sort of social conscience?
Speaker 4:I think it shaped it enormously. I think he already had a very keen social instinct. I think the Augustinians as an order broadly are committed to social projects and and social justice issues. So I think he already had that instinct in him. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:But when you go into a situation like that, and and and this is where you have to serve. I mean, think his basic instinct, yeah, you can't stay neutral in a situation like that. He never took sides politically, but he did get involved in the discussion in the sense that what was he there for? For him and for his community, I think their mindset was we're here for the people and to meet their needs. We're on their side.
Speaker 4:Mhmm. You know? So it doesn't matter politically where they stand, what are their needs, and how can we meet them, and how can we make sure that the political leadership is held to account, you know, that they're doing things or moving forward projects that are not just for the benefit of one party or or private interests here. You know, I think it's no secret that the levels of of corruption amongst, you know, Peruvian leadership are through the Yep. Yep.
Speaker 4:I think I I don't know if you count on two hands the number of recent presidents who have been in prison, Tina. And most governments don't last, I think, more than eighteen months. Mhmm. So, you know, there there are new elections right now. We'll see how that goes, you know.
Speaker 4:But, you know, what gets lost oftentimes is, okay, the political wheel will churn and it'll do what it'll do, you know, and sort of the political classes will run around in circles sometimes having their in fights, you know, but what gets lost are the development of the people projects. How do you develop society? How do you make sure that people are not living in rampant poverty? You know? And how do you meet those needs?
Speaker 4:And in the case of the Fujimori years, when you had all these allegations of human rights abuses, you couldn't remain silent in a situation like that. So their stance was, no, let's make sure that these are being investigated. If this is happening, it needs to be clarified. It needs to be investigated. We need this commission so we can get to the truth.
Speaker 4:And so those responsible can be held to account, you know? And there's this famous moment where later, you know, obviously, Fumoy was later charged, and but then pardoned, you know, for And his when he received that pardon, and many people thought it was unjust. It happened around Christmas time, which was seen as in poor taste. And, Robert Prevost at the time had said, well, his apology, he came out and part of the deal is that, you know, Fleury Moore makes his apology, right? And it was sort of seen as sort of a watery, unsincere, you know, I'm sorry if I've offended some of you.
Speaker 4:Think I Priebus was like, maybe you said you should apologize to each and every single one of your victims. Right. You know? Yeah. And so he was really clear.
Speaker 4:I mean, he's he's somebody that does not jump into a political debate necessarily, but he's not afraid to say what needs to be said when he when he thinks it's necessary.
Speaker 1:To to a politician or anyone else.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Exactly. And and he sees it be you know, he does so because he thinks there are bigger values at stake. Right? He doesn't do it for the sake of politics per se.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:The church has to be involved in the political discussions. And I think he understands and especially as bishop when he stepped into that role in Chiklaio in 2015. There was political infighting there. One of the mayors was the local mayors or governors was arrested for corruption. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:You know? Mhmm. And then a couple years later, another one was.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 4:You know, kind of the norm. So this is the situation you're dealing with. And in the middle of that, you have to try to bring people together and say, how can we at least move forward projects so that the city develops, that, you know, people have resources and we can move things forward. Not everything is just stalled because I think that's part of the crisis there is political processes just get stalled because of corruption or infighting and nothing ever moves forward. And it leaves the population and issues, the social issues at stake festering.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:And I think when you see that happening, you can't not make a commitment if if you're in his position, you know? So I think that really solidified his commitment to social action. Mhmm. Especially on issues of poverty, of of justice, of and he talks about inequalities, you know, in the, you know, the distribution of wealth. That's something you can apply broadly throughout the world, but also migration, you know, in Peru had its own migration crisis.
Speaker 4:And he was at the forefront of that. He volunteered to help with that when migrants came in from Venezuela in the hundreds of thousands, you know, and we're sleeping on streets and in parks, trying to get them food and shelter, trying to help process them and make sure they had proper documentation, trying to move the ball on that so nothing got clogged and people were not just sitting around in a park with nothing. So that really did, I think. I think the social instinct was already there, but those years really solidified it. And I think crystallized sort of the vision that he has, the pastoral vision that he had.
Speaker 4:When his own name, you know, Leo XIV is an homage to Pope Leo XIII.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Right? Who wrote the encyclical, this magisterial text, you know, which is the church's modern social doctrine. So in his DNA, in his mindset, in his very name, is this commitment to social realities.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Interesting. I
Speaker 2:just have a question that's more at the level of theology that's connected to this. If I'm not mistaken, during his time in Africa, during an interview, when asked about immigration, he said, well, maybe the global North should ask itself the question, why are all these people from the global South immigrating? What are the economic conditions that the global North are implicated in that are causing this immigration of which they're so concerned?
Speaker 1:I found it moving when I saw that comment. I sent it to some friends and said, thank God for this pope.
Speaker 2:So, you know, that sounded to me like a kind of dip what's called dependency theory in in economics. And I I won't make this too intellectual, but the liberation theologians were very much into thinking this way. And, of course, Gustavo Gutierrez, kind of the leading liberation theologian, is from Peru. And there was this kind of liberation theology moment in Latin America that was decimated during the nineteen eighties in certain ways. I guess I'm wondering, as this is a podcast that's interested in a kind of progressive take on religion, and there's lots of people on the left, whether they're religious or not, that are inspired by Leo.
Speaker 2:Is it just Augustinianism all the way down? Or is he inspired by these liberation theologians who were influenced to one degree or another by Marxism? And of course, at that time in the eighties, there was a crackdown even by the church on that theology because of its connection to Marxism. To what degree when he went there, do you think maybe he was it's more than just this the Augustinianism, although it remains key, but also perhaps shaped by liberation theology or not?
Speaker 4:No. That's a really good question. I'm glad you asked it because that is really important because this is one of the things that I explore in that chapter two of the book is a political, social, culture, cultural context of Peru in the 80s and 90s, but also the theological and ecclesial context because it was after the Second Vatican Council, right? So Latin America, the whole church is trying to implement Vatican II reforms. And, you know, Latin America had a very specific application of the council.
Speaker 4:You had the preferential option for the poor. And out of that is where you see, you know, bubbling up this liberation theology. And if you were in Latin America at that time, just up and coming as a Catholic, but even not, were influenced by this to some degree. If you were a foreign missionary, there certainly you were influenced by liberation theology. It was one of the biggest movements, theological movements happening at the time.
Speaker 4:And so you had several sort of interpretations of what that was. And Leo and I actually spoke about this in our interview, and he was really clear in saying the intent of liberation theology, you know, and there was this back and forth, right, with the Vatican and they, you know, the founder of liberation theology is broadly seen as Gustavo Gutierrez, his Dominican priest who has now passed. But, you know, he was summoned at the Vatican and they they had this back and forth. And the Vatican never officially squashed out liberation theology. It asked him to correct some things in his texts, which he did that lent themselves to Marxism, a Marxist interpretation of liberation theology.
Speaker 4:And what Leo said is, at its core, it's really trying to understand the world, the gospel, the world through the eyes of the poor. So you look in the eyes of the poor, and and how do you understand through that, through that specific perspective, if you will, the world and God. And how do you relate to each other and God through that eyes and the perspective of the poor? How do you understand the world and what's happening? And that's what you try.
Speaker 4:You try to frame what you do in that context. And so it's very centered on the person, on, you know, for Gutierrez, right, that the poor are the ones that Jesus came to to minister to to be with, to help, to save. Right? And from that, you can have deviations that veer into Marxism, you know, and sometimes liberation theology with a Marxist interpretation was used to justify violence in those instances. And Lee was very clear at saying, look, these are not necessarily correct interpretations.
Speaker 4:And I think the real interpretations of liberation theology are more so centered on what is the experience of the poor. And from that experience and that perspective, what does it mean to be pursuing a just society? And and that's very different. You know? So I think when he talks about what can, you know, the the North do, this distribution of wealth is is huge for him talking about the 1% that he continually brought up.
Speaker 4:And he mentioned that in speech to authorities. I don't remember if it was Angola or Equatorial Guinea. I think it Angola where he brought it up very clearly. In governments that are authoritarian and and seen as broadly corrupt, where you have partnerships with foreign powers and, you know, foreign extractive industries and companies that come in and take the resources, the local leadership, and these companies end up pocketing the resources and the population is left with nothing. And so when he's talking like that, he's sending a message to these powers or these organizations, these entities that will come in and do that, but also the local leadership too.
Speaker 4:Know? So it's saying, if you don't want migrants, let's talk about the underlying causes. This is something that France has talked about too oftentimes. If you always talk about going to the root and trying to get to the underlying cause to solve the problem, that's a much more complicated question. Trying to put in, you know, border laws, and impose those is putting a Band Aid on the situation, sometimes not a very good one, often a very ineffective It doesn't stop the bleeding.
Speaker 4:And so I think Leo's approach too is let's fix the underlying social problems that are causing this to begin with, And then we can start to move forward to more just policies.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Yeah. Thank you. Well said. You know, thinking about kind of what he's been up to in the last year since he became the pope.
Speaker 1:You know, I have no doubt that he's a straightforward person that he's totally honest, as you say that he has a, you know, an instinct for transparency. At the same time, if you're the pope, you have to be kind of an operator. You have to think about strategy. You have to think about what you're going to say in public. You have to think about, you know, how what your priorities are and then how you're gonna go about achieving those.
Speaker 1:And so I'm hoping that you can talk a little bit about that side of him and how he's approaching this leadership role. In particular, one way that I've seen some people describing him is that he's maybe friendlier toward conservatives, theological conservatives in the church than Pope Francis was when it comes to matters of ritual. He's taken kind of a middle position on the Latin Mass. If I'm not mistaken, he's not overturned restrictions that that that Pope Francis put on on the Vulgate Mass, but he's he's also like giving dispensations to bishops who wanna keep celebrating the Latin Mass who ask for them. And I so I think that's kind of characteristic.
Speaker 1:I'm just using that as an example. He seems to be trying to avoid culture wars and you know, to kind of prioritize unity above everything else. But you know, he's also he probably has some some views that that well, of course, that not not everybody in the church agrees with. He was kind of in the Francis camp and and a lot of conservatives reviled Pope Francis. So so how do you think he's approaching this role when in terms of his strategy?
Speaker 4:You know, I think he's approaching it. Number one, I think he's adjusting still. You know, he is somebody that had a very low profile before. He was never really in the public eye in any meaningful way. And now he he from one day to the next, is sort of thrust into the the global spotlight.
Speaker 4:So I think he's adjusting, I think he's still learning what his strategy is at this level, and how to use his office, and how to use the platform that he has, and how to use his voice as Pope. I think he's learning, and I think we saw in Africa, he's learned, Mhmm. And this has developed a lot over the last year. He's learned the impact that his voice can have and he's learning how to use it. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:You know, so I think this is still in development. But I think you're right in saying that his initial instinct is one of unity. Mhmm. He's not somebody you can easily categorize as right or left.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:Was he in the Francis camp? Yes. But he he differed from Francis in many ways. I I think especially in areas where Francis was accused of being ambiguous on like the moral issues, whether you're talking about the church's stance on on, you know, homosexuality or LGBT issues. Francis liked to be ambiguous for his own reasons.
Speaker 4:You know, as a Jesuit, he didn't want to impose things. He wanted to leave the discussion open as if we the church wants to have a discussion, then we should have a discussion and see what comes out of it. And let people make their own discernment from there. Let's discern, it's this discernment of spirits thing, know, the Jesuits have. And I think as Pope Francis was never gonna make a change, he never intended to do that.
Speaker 4:Because he and his discernment, if you will, judged that there was too much ideology involved in these discussions. I think Robert Privos has a much different take. I think he's just much clearer, you know, in saying things, okay, no, this is what the church teaches. We're not gonna do that, you know? Yes, no, yes, no.
Speaker 4:He's gonna be much clearer and he, I think, is willing to hear everybody out, especially when it comes to, you know, issues like the Latin Mass. The liturgy is something that he understands is something that needs to be talked about. He, you know, he had his first consistory of cardinals, his first big meeting of the world's cardinals, in January, and he gave him four issues to talk about. The liturgy is one of them, you know, and he asked them to pick two because time was limited. And so they picked two and liturgy was not one.
Speaker 4:So he said, we're putting it aside for now. It doesn't mean we're not we're going to ignore it. We're we'll come back to it. But these are the priorities that we want to focus on now. So he said he's going to listen to the Cardinals.
Speaker 4:That's what they wanted to focus on for the next couple of years, you know, issues of synodality is, you know, this mysterious buzzword in Yeah. Just a collaborative a more collaborative style of, yeah, of governance, but also being church, you know, just more collaboration between pastor and lay people. But also the church as a missionary, you know, and it was something that Francis had had really opened up as a theme, and and, you know, they wanted to discuss that. So I think Leo's instinct is let's look for what unifies. Let's not focus on the issues that divide, you know, and he's really trying to navigate a highly divided and deeply sensitive and polarized society, you know, and of course also the church is afflicted by that.
Speaker 4:But it's something he and I spoke about at length in our conversations, you know, for the book. He really is concerned about this polarization in society and sees it as his role to try to bring back a sense of unity and stability. And that's one thing the cardinals and the, you know, the preconclave meetings had talked about, is they needed somebody who could bring back a sense of the church being one. You know, we're not divided into camps. And I think the churches over the last few decades become incredibly tribalized.
Speaker 4:Know, everybody has, you know, if you're social justice Catholics, you have the pro life Catholics, you know, have the Latin mass Catholics, you have Mhmm. Everybody has the boutique interests, you know, they sort of look with suspicion on the others. Right?
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:And I think, you know, the Cardinals have realized enough of that. You know, we need to remember we're all part of we're all under one umbrella here. This is the Catholic church. We all belong to the same place. And I think Leo is trying to usher people back in, in that sense, like, back into a mentality of we're all number one children of God, but we're all Catholics.
Speaker 4:You know, we all have space here and and let's see how we can, in spite of differences of opinion, that they might be legitimate, like, find a common home, you know, I think that aspect of bringing people back into a sense of unity and communion as part of one church is very important to him. I think he sees that as well as peacemaking as sort of his biggest strategies right now, his biggest tasks. So how is he moving forward? What is his strategy? I think right now, he has things he wants to do internally.
Speaker 4:You know, I think there are things he needs to continue to, know, there's some appointments he still needs to make. He needs to get his internal team formula, you know, finalized still. There are financial reforms he needs to carry forward. Other reforms at the Roman Curia, he needs to, you know, carry forward. Other projects, discussions he wants to have on AI, right?
Speaker 4:He's gonna have an encyclical soon on on sort of an anthropological encyclical about sort of the meaning of humanity, but in this gaze of artificial intelligence and what's real, what's not, what's truth, but from the gaze of what is human. So he wants to have these discussions, but in terms of decision making, caring for these discussions, you know, at a highly sensitive time with diverse opinions and trying to move forward with structural reforms and sort of the bigger, broader vision that he has. He's trying to do so slowly, step by step. He's not a guy in a rush. He is slow, he is reflective, he is methodical, and he's gonna make these decisions with a sense of ease because I think he's found that that lends itself to more stability and more cohesion in the end.
Speaker 4:And so his style and his strategy is one of walking slowly, not rocking the boat too much. Let's do things little by little and let's try to build cohesion along the way. And so whatever the decisions are, there's going to be a greater sense of calm, I think, when they're made, because he's made that path before, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:It does. It also sets me up for the next thing I wanted to ask about, which is what you make of his relationship with American bishops who, I mean, seems to feel like it's going pretty well so far. You know, some of them did not care for Pope Francis very much. Pope Leo recently said, maybe we shouldn't worry so much about sexual morality, like maybe that shouldn't be our top priority, our biggest focus. And we have a Catholic culture in The US where a lot of bishops do kind of make that their chief focus.
Speaker 1:And at the same time, I feel like he's been able to avoid alienating them when he had this scrape with Trump. A lot of American bishops kinda took his side and not sure that it would have played out that way with his predecessor. So how do you how do you think that relationship is shaping up?
Speaker 4:Leo has been able to, if not bring everybody on board on the same page, you know, I don't know that that's possible. But what he's been able to do, I think, is at least establish a relationship with, the bishops and get them on the same page with certain issues, like immigration, for example. Or I think, you know, even if they have private opinions that differ publicly, they've all kind of sort of maintained the same line on the war in Iran, for example. They're taking their cues from him. And I think that has to do with personality.
Speaker 4:You know, Francis could be very bold and almost combative in his style.
Speaker 1:He was kind of a kind of a bomb thrower. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah. He liked that was his style, for better or for worse. You know, he just would chuck it. And he had no problem seeing that explode. And in many ways, I think he wanted to rock the boat.
Speaker 4:And he saw that that was necessary. That was his style. Leo is the opposite. And I think just his sort of measured personality, you know, and his sense of of calm and balance is helping calm emotions there. That in itself, I think, bringing back a sense of cohesion that was lacking.
Speaker 4:And I think that there are a lot of bishops in The United States who remain deeply divided, you know, in terms of ideology. There are a lot, I think, who would like to focus more on sexual issues. But this is something that even in our conversation, you know, Leo had told me speaking during, you know, the Synod of Bishops that had happened in Rome, you know, and there's this big gathering of bishops that unfolded over, you know, several it was a several year process. And it culminated in two Rome gatherings with bishops from around the world and lay people, you know, presided over by Francis in 2023, 2024. And one of the things that Leo had told me is that in one of those conversations, one of those meetings, you know, he was conversing with a bishop from like another region of the world entirely, you know, that said, you know, you guys in the West are just completely obsessed with sexuality.
Speaker 4:You know, like, we're dealing with, you know Yeah. You know, you know, completely different issues, you know. You're dealing in some ways with poverty or migration. If you're in the Pacific, you're dealing with rising sea levels. And that's a reality of people being forced out of their homelands because the rice fields are water and they can't make a living anymore, you know.
Speaker 4:So climate migrants as you'd say, you know, are becoming more common, you know, and if you're in Africa, either polygamy is an issue or depending on the country like sorcery is an issue, you know, mixing that with, with, you know, the Catholic faith. And so they're trying to figure out these issues. I said like, look, we just need to figure out like some basic stuff. Our needs are completely different. So it's a tendency.
Speaker 4:And if you look at the numbers of the church now, I mean, the majority of Catholics are not in the West. The United States makes up, I think, 3% of the global Catholic population. Wow. So we are but we like to think because we have the money. We could dictate the agenda, you know, for the rest of the world.
Speaker 4:And I think the rest of the world is saying we're not gonna take it anymore. Like, we wanna focus on other issues. And I think Leo understands that instinct, having spent so long in other parts of the world, in Latin America, but also as prior general of his order traveling extensively throughout Africa, throughout Asia. He also lived in Rome for, you know, twelve years as prior general and for, you know, a couple since before that as a student collectively, maybe twenty years before his election, you know, and and traveled also throughout Europe. So he knows the world very well.
Speaker 4:And I think if he's saying, look, there are other issues that are more important to talk about right now that are more important to the world's Catholic population. That's coming from his own experience as well of this really truly global 360 degree, you know, view of of the world. So I think in terms of The US bishops, I think there is this tendency still to focus on niche issues. Mhmm. Because I don't know how many of, you know, the bishops get around and get out to to some of these other places, you know, but we're all a product of our own society, right?
Speaker 4:If you don't ever leave or eat it, it's hard sometimes to see beyond your own circumstances. And so I think that's part of it too. But Leo, think is slowly trying to guide them. He's trying to do it gently. Think he does not the kind of guy to really reprimand or just wag his finger.
Speaker 4:He'll be clear and firm when he needs to be, but I think he's trying to guide them to a place of understanding of what his vision is, of what he's all about, and of where he wants them to be, you know, as as a conference, you know, and as the pastors of Catholics in The United States right now.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. Well, before we get to the Africa trip, which I I do wanna talk about a little, I also wanted to ask about his dealings with Opus Dei because my sense is that that might be kind of an exception to this pattern where he he kinda feels like there's room for everybody. He wants to try to get along with everybody. It seems like he has been a little bit aggressive toward Opus Dei as Pope Francis also was. And I know they have a long history in in Peru.
Speaker 1:So what has that relationship been like?
Speaker 4:Well, don't know that they have I don't know that he's been aggressive with Opus Dei. I mean, I think when he I mean, he has he inherited reforms that were called for by Pope Francis. And he now has to make a decision on them, I don't think he's ready to do it. You know, he's again, he moves slowly. He's trying to study and and gather information, I think, before he makes a decision.
Speaker 4:Opus Dei is obviously a big movement. It's been quite controversial if you're a Dan Brown fan, you know. The Da Vinci Code, it became this, you know, mysterious thing. I I think people recognize that Opus Dei is very unique. Canonically, it has a structure in the church that nobody else has, which is a personal pre literature.
Speaker 4:You know, meaning it's priests are really tied to the pre literature, not to a geographic location, you know, and it's it's sort of unique, and a lot of people don't like that. But I think some of its internal culture has been criticized, you know, being too authoritarian or or some people call it cult like. And like any modern movement in the church, it's had its allegations of abuse as well. But also its style is just very different, I think, than what Leo's instincts would be. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:So I know when he arrived to Chiklaio, for example, for the previous forty years that diocese had been run by opus dei bishops. Mhmm. And so the opus dei is is more of, it is more of a, it's a conservative movement. It's it's not unfair to say it leans, you know, more to the right. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:And that can cause, think, and and obviously Leo, I think, would be seen as what we describe as more of a progressive figure. Mhmm. So that fact can give the perception that there are tensions, you know, between them that just maybe aren't necessarily there. I think that, I mean, were many movements in Peru, many communities at the time, you know, when he arrived there. I mean, in in The United States, for example, after the Second Vatican Council really called for this renewal of of parish life.
Speaker 4:And you know, The United States is one of the only places where that actually happened, you know, where the parish became this bubbling hub of community life and really the center of the community and people are really active in their parishes leading different commissions and projects. You have lay people on, you know, financial boards or whatever. That didn't happen to the rest of the world So what you haven't said are movements, you know, and ecclesial communities. You have way, you know, you have Opus Dei, you have, know, groups like the Sodaletium that came in. You have a ton of these little outfits that are present and people belong to them.
Speaker 4:You know, Opus Dei is one of them. You know, some are on the right, some are on the
Speaker 1:left, you
Speaker 4:know, it's just they all have sort of their own take in their own, you know, way of doing things. And Opus Dei is, you know, a community that their way of doing pastoral outreach, if you will, you know, they're they're focused very much on I would say they're not as socially minded. Mhmm. So their focus is really on the sacraments. What is the Opus Dei Bishop supposed to do?
Speaker 4:Ensure the sacraments. Opus Dei priests are very, very concerned about making the sacraments available to people. So leading masses, presiding over liturgical feasts and celebrations, hearing confessions, you know, that's their big emphasis. And they're not going to be the bishop you see out on the streets doing a bunch of social work necessarily. It doesn't mean they don't do it, but it just means it's not their biggest interest.
Speaker 4:And that was Leo's interest. I mean, he's a more socially minded guy. So he came in and kind of gave the social agenda of the church much more attention, and it was really very hands on, very involved, starting a lot of social projects. And and was not, I mean, it's not that he didn't focus on the sacraments. He, you know, he led liturgical celebrations.
Speaker 4:He'd go out to all these, you know, little popular devotions, shrines and sanctuaries that are popular and and they mean a lot to the people who go out and celebrate there. But one of the biggest differences I think was in that caused tension, you know, when he arrived, is a difference of opinion or vision on the role of lay people in the church. For Opus Dei, it's really, you know, lay people should not be working for the church or in the church. They shouldn't be on part of church commissions or running things in the diocese, you know, or the parish. Lay people are supposed to be out in the world, you know, evangelizing and Christianizing banks and schools, universities, whatever their job is.
Speaker 4:They're supposed to be out and evangelizing at that level. And church people, you know, clergy, religious do the work of the church. And it's, that's their take. You know, for Leo and for Francis, this is also the case. I mean, Leo came in and started putting lay people in charge of commissions and putting them in charge of, you know, pastoral projects.
Speaker 4:He, you know, laming them head of Caritas, naming, you know, his pastoral vicar in Ciclayo was a layman. Putting women as directors of universities. That's just something Opus Dei wouldn't do. So there was a huge change in style that caused friction at the beginning and some disagreement. And that was very real.
Speaker 4:And I think some said there were some nasty comments made by the priests or the priests didn't want to listen to the lay people he put in charge. But the perception was that over time, little by little, having conversations, meeting with the clergy, having one on one meetings, that there was a problem, that he was able to kind of calm the situation down. And I don't know if everybody came on board, but most people did. And I know that he worked well with Opus Dei bishops inside of the National Bishops Conference, for You know? So it was not this open war, you
Speaker 1:know Okay.
Speaker 4:Between them. I think there were some very real tensions, mostly related to a difference of style and and pastoral leadership and and, the pastoral vision, you know? Mhmm. But that was it. And I don't think he has any specific problems with Opus Dei per se.
Speaker 4:Now, that doesn't mean that are not the the criticisms against Opus Dei are not founded in some way. And that, you know, Francis called for this reform for a reason. I think he personally was suspicious and his canonical advisors were suspicious of the idea of, you know, canonically of a personal pre litur. Mhmm. And they wanted to reexamine the structure.
Speaker 4:So I think it's a structural change that they're hoping would lend to some reforms, if you will, of an internal mentality. But that was ordered by Francis and now that's in the hands of Leo. He has to decide what he wants to do with it. They made their proposals. They've given them to him and he is gonna read everything and he's gonna make a decision when he's ready.
Speaker 4:I don't think he has any, you know, specific bias against them. Okay. But I he understands that perception and I think he wants to be very careful and very cautious about that with whatever he's gonna do. So I don't know that we can expect a decision on that anytime soon. Again, he takes his time with this kind of thing and does a very thorough investigation first.
Speaker 4:So he'll make a decision when he's ready. But
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I I think he understands the problems, but I wouldn't say there's this aggression.
Speaker 1:Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, so I suppose it's a slightly more tempered view than I had before. So to wrap up, do want to ask about your experience travelling with him in Africa. Were you with him the entire, whatever it was, ten or eleven day trip? 14 countries?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. So we it was eleven days, four countries. We had he had 18 flights. We had 16.
Speaker 4:Okay. We had a flight every day. You know, two flights every day there, you know, to one place and back every day. Was probably the most grueling and dizzying papal trip I've ever done. You know, we were on the flight with him, you know, so we're part of the papal entourage.
Speaker 4:Mhmm. I've done maybe a dozen of them. And this is like, yeah, This was something else. So, I would say this is really exciting. This is a trip where I think we really saw Leo come into his own.
Speaker 4:Mhmm. Because, you know, he told us on the way over that this was the trip that he wanted to make first. He'd wanted this to be his first trip. But of course, wanted to honor Francis and Francis' desire to visit Turkey and Lebanon. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:Which is a trip that had been planned and scheduled a number of times but had to be called off several times because Francis was too ill. You know? So Leo really wanted to honor that desire and made the visit to Turkey and to Lebanon last November and, you know, December.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:And so that was sort of him getting his dipping his toe, I think Okay. Into Mhmm. The pond, you know. He, you know, we saw him sort of towards the end of that trip becoming more confident in in that role as pope on that kind of that kind of level. And I think Africa, he just felt at home, you know, again, he's traveled to many of these nations before as prior general.
Speaker 4:He's very familiar with the issues. I mean, he's he's less familiar with the Middle East and the issues there because he has less experience there. But he was very involved, you know, traveled extensively throughout the African continent, you know, so he really knows this is his terrain. And he was just a pastor with his people, you know, and you could see the missionary in him come out. You could see, the pastor in him come out, you know, you could see the passion, you could hear the passion in his voice when he was talking about the issues that are present, the challenges on this continent, you know, and for each of these countries specifically.
Speaker 4:And I think everybody sort of woke up when he was in Bamenda, you know, in Cameroon. This flash point for the Anglophone crisis there, you know, when he used this strong language, you know, saying the world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants and woe to those who make war. You know? Yeah. It's, he really came on fire that day and all of my colleagues, you know, were like, woah, where did this come from?
Speaker 4:You know? Where's our meat and the leer? Interesting. And I was telling people, was like, I told you like there's a lot underneath the surface. Is it just wait?
Speaker 4:You know, he'll let it shut. He'll let it come out when he's ready. And we really saw it come out and you know, I think he came into his own in Africa. I think this marks a definitive point for him in terms of the kind of tone we're gonna see from him going forward. And so he is very much at home there.
Speaker 4:It really tapped into his roots. It tapped into what he's all about. And it was, you know, he really found his voice there as pope. Think, again, I said earlier, he's trying to find his voice and then find out how to use it in this role. I think he used it.
Speaker 4:He found how to use it there. And I think we're going to see him only increasing in strength and tone from here on.
Speaker 1:Really? Okay. So you see this trip as kind of a turning point in that way, like something clicked when he was over there?
Speaker 4:I do. And I think it also clicked because he was challenged the day before he arrived. Know, of course, that there was this, you know, social media post, obviously, that was very critical by, you know, president Mhmm. Donald Trump, you know, kind of going after Leo first foreign policy and whatever, you know, kind of analyzing him like a a political leader. Right?
Speaker 4:And so I think whether, you know, Leo did not invite that. He's not one to pick a fight, but he won't back down from one. And if anything, it only increased his resolve, you know, to continue Mhmm. Saying what he thinks he has to say, you know. So I think that also emboldened him a little
Speaker 1:bit. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. I hadn't heard it, you know, described from that perspective, but I can see it.
Speaker 1:Alright then. Well, Danny, is there anything else? I know we don't have a lot of time here.
Speaker 2:No, just superb. I mean, I think I was extraordinarily proud to be, I'm not really ever proud, that proud to be an American, but when he became Pope, I felt a great deal of pride in that and solidarity. And the Africa trip, I think just was revelatory for me and I've become even more of a fan. And, you know, it's good to have a Pope who is willing to, you know, clearly to use a cliche, but true nonetheless, speak truth to power. So I presume that he will continue to do that.
Speaker 2:And it was so great to hear how important that Africa trip was. I didn't quite realize that until you said it in terms of his coming into his Well,
Speaker 1:thanks so much for joining us. This has been a great conversation, even more than I hoped for.
Speaker 4:I'm glad.
Speaker 1:So we'll be continue following your work as you as you cover the Vatican for, you know, the years to come.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much. No. Thank you, guys. Thanks to you both. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Best of luck with everything in the the talks and travels.
Speaker 4:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 1:That's all the time we have for this episode. We wanna thank CommonWeal for sponsoring the show, and we'll see you next time. Thanks for joining us.