The announcement that vice -president JD Vance would participate in the inauguration mass of Pope Leo XIV included a simple line.
“Pope Leo XIV is the first American Pope. Vice -president Vance is the first Catholic convert to serve as a vice president,” said the notice of the White House.
It was neutral, yet telling. The first American Pope holds the San Pietro headquarters at a time when the conservative Catholicism has a political force in the United States, incorporated into the man first in line with the presidency. The relationship between the two will be one of the most observed developments of the papacy of Pope Leo.
The selection of the cardinals of Pope Leo tests the relationship between the bishop of Rome and the American right wing. Only four Sundays ago, Mr. Vance has brought his hand to a Pope who had publicly chastised his theology and his position on immigration and who faced the longtime frustration by traditionalist Catholics. This Sunday comes to greet a leader who seems to share many of the opinions of his predecessor, including the criticisms directed to Mr. Vance in an account on social media now canceled associated with his name.
The main conservative American Catholics often claim not to personally know Pope Leo. However, while some had several first choices for the papacy, Pope Leo began by positioning himself as a conciliatory and moderate force. Some conservatives are finding points of commonality in its administrative theology and pragmatism and even caution that their relationship with Rome can restore.
“It seems to be a man of profound prayer and reflection who believes in the service to others and loyalty to the doctrine of the Church and constant teaching,” said Ashley McGuire, an elderly member of the Catholic Association. “I am optimistic that it can bring unity to the Church through a clear and compassionate leadership of the faithful”.
Some activists note that they love the symbolism of the coat of arms of Pope Leo, with his message of unity and communion in the Church. He also invited the leader of Opus Dei, a Catholic group with strong conservative support, for a short meeting, “in which the Pope expressed his closeness and affection”, said the group in a note.
Pope Leo's attention on the dignity of the worker in the modern world and the indications that will focus on work and on society can be points of particular connection.
Pope Leo and Mr. Vance share a hero in Sant'Agostino, if they can sometimes interpret it in divergent ways. The day on which Mr. Vance converted to Catholicism through the study with the Dominican friars, he chose Agostino as his patron, after finding inspiration in his treatise of the fifth century, “City of God”, who challenged the dominant class of Rome. “Our society is more than the sum of its economic statistics,” said Vance later.
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who joins Mr. Vatican Vatican, previously indicated the Treaty of Pope Leo XIII, the 19th century Treaty Rerum Novarum, who faced the needs and dignity of the workers, as a basis for its opinions on the economic reform.
When Pope Leo met the ambassadors on Friday, he invited governments to “build harmonious and peaceful civil societies”, and then mentioned a line of that 19th century text that seems similar to some of the economic populism of Catholic law.
“This can be achieved above all by investing in the family, based on the stable union between a man and a woman”, a small but genuine society and before all civil society, “he said. But he immediately followed him with the reminder to respect the dignity of the unemployed,” citizens and immigrants “.
His attention to the dignity of the worker appeal through political divisions.
“The fact that it focuses on technology and the IA, Issues of the day, says a lot,” said John Cannon, founder of mayor, a network for Catholic corporate leaders, who was in Rome for the events of the America's week before the conclave.
For some traditionalists, Pope Leo is unique because he is a strong administrator and a missionary. “The fact that you both have in a person is very rare,” said Cannon.
The representative Riley Moore, republican of western Virginia, introduced a resolution to the congress to honor Pope Leo, saying that he had exemplified “humility and courage”. (Before Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost became Pope, his account on social media shared criticism on the positions of the Trump administration on immigration. Last month, the Moore representative published a photo of him with two inches on the on -up while he was in front of a cell crowded with prisoners in the notorious Czech prison of El Salvador, where the Trump administration had sent the administration. Deporttees.)
A Bipartisan group asked the Mike Johnson's speaker to invite Pope Leo to face the congress. “An address of his holiness would be a powerful reminder of our shared commitments for peace, service to others and moral leadership,” he wrote.
Some conservatives that were openly contrary to the elections of Pope Leo softened their approach. Days before the white smoke, Catholic Vota's arm of the media suggested that liberal and conservative media had coordinated a campaign to push for the Cardinal Prevost.
“I'm certainly not a fan of this boy,” Josh Mercer said in a podcast, who founded the Catholic vote with Brian Burch, the candidate of President Trump to be an ambassador of the Holy See, in a podcast. “Obviously, the reason why it is pushed is because it seems to be a little more an attractive liberal that could carry on what Francis is doing.”
But several days after the elections, Mercer noticed in an essay of opinion with Steve Cortes, a former councilor of Trump, who seemed to be subscribed to Pope Leo to “principles of the economic agenda of patriotic populism”.