He has been pope for nearly two months now, and this is my honest assessment so far. I’ll try to keep this brief, as it is too early to make any kind of definitive assessment.
Pope Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost, is an American by birth and raised in the United States. He is from the Chicago area, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1982. He was consecrated a bishop in 2014, and made a cardinal in 2023. A typical “American Mutt,” he is of French, Italian, Spanish, and Louisiana Creole descent. He has two older brothers, Louis Martín and John Joseph, both are still alive and living in the United States. He is the first “American Pope,” and was elected against conventional wisdom that popes cannot be made from superpower nations. Thus, his election was unusually historic.
As a young priest, he did missionary work in Peru from 1985 to 1986, before returning to the United States, where he was elected vocations director and missions director for the Midwest province of the Order of Saint Augustine (Our Mother of Good Counsel), based in Chicago. He returned to Peru for ten years from 1988 to 1998. He then served as prior general of the Order of Saint Augustine, based in Rome, leading the worldwide Augustinian order for two consecutive terms from 2001 to 2013. In 2014, he was appointed by Pope Francis to serve as apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, and named titular bishop of Sufar. In 2015, he was appointed bishop of Chiclayo by Pope Francis. It was around this time he became a naturalized citizen of Peru, holding duel citizenship both in the United States and Peru. In 2019, he was appointed a member of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy, and in 2020, he was appointed a member of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops. Then, in 2023, he was appointed by Pope Francis as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. He was made a cardinal that same year, and made a member of many Vatican dicasteries. On May 9, 2025, he was elected by the college of cardinals as Pope Leo XIV.
I remain cautiously optimistic about Pope Leo XIV, having been traumatized by the Francis pontificate for twelve years. As a convert from Evangelical Christianity, with a brief stent in Anglicanism before being received in the Catholic Church in 2000, the Francis pontificate turned out to be overwhelming for me. I know many converts who seriously questioned their conversion during the Francis pontificate. Taking the position of a papal minimalist is the only thing that got me through it. I maintain that position, as it has served me well, and I apply it to Pope Leo XIV also. That said, the outward signs he has given so far have been very encouraging to me, and it would appear (for now) that Pope Leo is taking the Church in a more reasonable direction. His frequent use of sung Latin, along with his taste for a more traditional appearance, both in liturgy and vestments, is very encouraging. Many of his public comments, both currently as pope, and previously as bishop, are also very encouraging. His oldest brother, Louis Prevost, is a political conservative and staunch MAGA supporter (my kind of guy). While brothers are not clones, and the political views of one do not necessarily indicate the political views of another, it does give us a little insight into the social temperament of the Prevost family. It would probably not be wrong to say they “lean to the political right” while recognizing that some may lean more than others, and each may have his own particular way of expressing that, not necessarily matching the others. Louis Prevost has publicly stated that he believes his younger brother (Pope Leo XIV) is probably not as politically conservative as he is, but at the same time, he said it would be highly unlikely to see such things as female clergy or LGBTQ-issues coming from him. Again, this is encouraging to me, as these were two of the biggest fears that arose from the Francis pontificate.
To be honest, however, I have been disappointed with his episcopal appointments so far. Yet, I realize that many (if not all) of these appointments were already in the pipes (so to speak) during the Francis pontificate. Leo is just finishing Francis’ pontificate for him. It’s been less than two months, at the time of this writing, and I admit we probably won’t see the real Pope Leo materialize until later this year, maybe in the fall or early winter. I suspect, in my opinion, that Pope Leo XIV probably won’t start revealing his own agenda until 2026, though we may get small hints ahead of that.
His choice of the name “Leo” is interesting, and simultaneously encouraging. Leo is the name of strong popes who have done great things for the Church, and always indicates a religiously traditional directive. The last one, Leo XIII, from over a century ago (1878 — 1903), gave us the St. Michael Prayer, the prophecy of the 75 to 100 year persecution by Satan in the 20th century, and most importantly the encyclical Rerum Novarum. The latter is the document from which all Catholic social teaching is formed. It is neither “liberal” nor “conservative” in the American sense, but staunchly “traditional” in a Catholic and European sense. Pope Leo XIV has indicated this was one of the main reasons for his choice of the name “Leo,” and the previous Leo’s handling of the Industrial Revolution gives us some indication of how the current Leo will handle the Technological Revolution now underway. Since I am a Catholic Integralist, I subscribe to some of the ideals of Distributism, which was formulated based on the teachings of Rerum Novarum. I can see how some of these principles can apply to the Technological Revolution, so I’m looking forward to see how Pope Leo XIV handles this. Since I believe that politics is just religion by another name, I would expect an approach that is neither “liberal” nor “conservative” by modern American standards, but resolutely “Catholic” (as opposed to Modernist) in its approach. Since the greatest danger to our modern world is the Cult of the Omnipotent State (like we see in China and North Korea, now creeping into Europe and the Anglosphere), a strong Catholic answer to this, that is more moral in approach, and doesn’t follow typical American capitalist jargon, is sorely needed.
Beyond this, it becomes difficult to speculate on Pope Leo XIV, because we just don’t have much information. So we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. As I said, I remain cautiously optimistic and I have enjoyed the “new vibe” in the Vatican coming from him.
Shane Schaetzel is an author of Catholic books and he is an Evangelical convert to the Catholic Church. His articles have been featured on LifeSiteNews, The Remnant Newspaper, Forward in Christ, and Catholic Online. You can read Shane’s books at ShaneSchaetzel.Com
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