Leo XIV’s historic VE Day election

As a priest ordained in 1982, four years into the papacy of St John Paul II, Pope Leo XIV knows how transformative the office can be. The former Cardinal Robert Prevost’s choice of papal name is probably a pointer to his thinking. His most recent namesake, Leo XIII, who served from 1878 to 1903, turned the Vatican’s attention to the wider world. His legacy included the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, on capital and labour. The landmark document was a significant step in church social teaching. It defended workers’ rights including a just wage, sufficient to support workers and their families with something left over for saving; the right of workers to form trade unions; the value of enterprise and the right to own private property, and the importance of the economy serving the needs of all, including the poor. Social teaching has been part of church life ever since. John Paul II updated Leo XIII’s document a century later in his own encyclical, Centesimus Annus, in 1991.

In so far as social teaching brings church and political leaders into conflict, Leo XIV’s social media posts as a cardinal show he was no shrinking violet, taking on US President Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance. Pope Leo shares Francis’s focus on the needy. In his speech from the balcony of St Peter’s he called for the church to be close “especially to those who are suffering”. But as The Wall Street Journal noted, “it’ll help if he isn’t hostile to free markets, as the best way to alleviate poverty and much suffering. Francis seems to have believed that the corruption he saw in Argentina was called capitalism.” As the first American pope, Leo will blaze an important trail. His engagement with the world will need to extend well beyond slugging out contentious issues, such as immigration, with the White House.

He has wide scope to engage in issues relevant to church teaching on faith and morals: young people accessing transgender services; controversies and religious repression in China and other dictatorships; the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which falls far short of qualifying as a just war. Inter-religious relationships, especially in the Middle East, between Christianity, Judaism and Islam, will challenge his spiritual and diplomatic skills. Inside the Vatican, major spiritual, liturgical and financial problems await. His choice of top lieutenants will matter and test his judgment. The evil of clerical abuse is far from resolved.

The US, where Leo grew up in Chicago, and Peru, where he has spent much of his life as a priest, a bishop and teacher, should be a source of support to him, as Poland was to John Paul II. Likewise the Augustinian order, founded in Tuscany in 1244, which he joined as a young man. It runs parishes and schools in 50 countries, including Australia.

In his first appearance on the Vatican balcony after his election, Leo was more formal and traditional in his dress, style and message than Francis 12 years ago. He emphasised building bridges, and faith in Christ and the gospels. When Leo XIII was elected in 1878, English churchman John Henry Newman declared: “There never was more for a new pontiff to do than there is for Pope Leo.” It is no less true today.