Viva il Papa

My mom is watching news coverage of the papal conclave. So far, there have been four rounds of black smoke since the thing got underway yesterday. Rumor has it that we might get a Korean Pope. Or an African Pope. Or an American Pope (not Cardinal Dolan, I hope). We’ll see. 

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I was scoffing as I wrote that last part. I fully expected a non-European Pope (and it’s long past time) but I never ever expected an American. My whole hometown is claiming Pope Leo XIV (formerly Robert Cardinal Prevost) as their own, because he went to Villanova. My mom texted me the now-famous Villanova yearbook photo of young Robert Prevost, looking like the WJM mailroom boy who would have had a crush on Mary Richards. Her high school classmate’s much younger sister was his classmate at Villanova. Or so she says. Pretty soon, every Catholic in Philadelphia between the ages of 50 and 75 will find some Villanova association with the new Pontiff. Catholic New York and New Jersey and Boston and Providence and New Haven are all right now looking for their own Prevost connections. Meanwhile, every Catholic in Chicago is going to be insufferable for the entire term of this papacy. 

And good for them. As much as I’d have enjoyed seeing a Pope from the East Coast (again, not Dolan), Chicago seems like the most American place for an American Pope. New York and Boston and Philadelphia started as colonial settlements, remnants of the old world. Chicago grew out of American expansionism and exceptionalism. No other place could have produced Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton and the Second City and John Belushi and Bob Newhart, not to mention Jimmy McGill and Carmy Berzatto. No other place has the same American Century energy. Anything can happen in Chicago. 

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I have to admit that it’s very exciting to have an American Pope. And I am not the only person with Pope-mania. My mom has been sharing Prevost trivia for the past three days. We went to dinner last night and she reminded me a few times that she needed to be on the couch in front of the TV by 9 PM to watch an ABC News special about the new American Pope. My son sent me a video of then Bishop Prevost at the 2005 World Series (the Holy Father is a White Sox fan). Even my non-Catholic husband and friends are on this bandwagon. 

The whole country is on this bandwagon. The White Sox video has gone viral, and the White Sox organization is rubbing it in the Cubs’ faces. The yearbook photo is all over the internet, and the Pope’s brothers are all over the news. Donald Trump is out in these streets claiming that the College of Cardinals would never have chosen an American if he hadn’t been in the White House - never mind that they went out of their way to choose an American who is different from Trump in every way. Pope Leo XIV is the anti-Trump. 

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I’ve been at odds with the Church lately, mostly because I think that American Catholicism bears quite a bit of responsibility for Trumpism. But this Pope seems unafraid to confront MAGA. As a Cardinal, he even smacked JD Vance down on Twitter. And if the Swiss Guard is wise, they’ll keep JD out of the Vatican because that guy leaves a trail of destruction in his wake everywhere he goes. I’d travel with Tom Hanks sooner than be in the same room with JD. Meanwhile, right-wing Catholics (that should not be a thing but it is) online are apparently losing their minds about yet another “liberal” Pope. And if they keep calling this guy a woke socialist Friend of Francis, they might actually get me back into a pew on Sunday.  He's even a Wordle player. Viva il Papa.