The new pope was raised about three miles from where I was living as a teenager. So, although an atheist, I feel a sense of affinity toward him. The tough, hardscrabble industrial south suburbs of Chicago not the tony North Shore.
Given the number of “firsts” that Leo ticks (first North American, first us citizen, first Peruvian citizen, first pope with black African heritage, etc), I don’t think it’s quite accurate to call him “average”, even if his views (insofar as we know them) are decidedly unremarkable.
Worth noting that a lot of MAGA figures responded preemptively based on what they assumed conservative Catholics would think. They were somewhat wrong. Taking the name Leo was the papal equivalent of calling oneself a Kennedy Democrat. Tradcaths love him even if he was nominally progressive. Which is probably the category Prevost will try to fall into if he wants to unite the US church
The new pope was raised about three miles from where I was living as a teenager. So, although an atheist, I feel a sense of affinity toward him. The tough, hardscrabble industrial south suburbs of Chicago not the tony North Shore.
Given the number of “firsts” that Leo ticks (first North American, first us citizen, first Peruvian citizen, first pope with black African heritage, etc), I don’t think it’s quite accurate to call him “average”, even if his views (insofar as we know them) are decidedly unremarkable.
Worth noting that a lot of MAGA figures responded preemptively based on what they assumed conservative Catholics would think. They were somewhat wrong. Taking the name Leo was the papal equivalent of calling oneself a Kennedy Democrat. Tradcaths love him even if he was nominally progressive. Which is probably the category Prevost will try to fall into if he wants to unite the US church