By Mathias Risse
The views expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy or Harvard Kennedy School. These perspectives have been presented to encourage debate on important public policy challenges.
In historical perspective it is extraordinary that a man born in Chicago would be elected pope.
The United States of America has a new presence at the global level, a new global face. In fact, the country now . In historical perspective it is extraordinary that a man born in Chicago would be elected pope. But given what we know about Robert Francis Prevost, a new voice is likely going to represent something the U.S. has also always sought to be: an empire in the service of the world. The Statue of Liberty captures this stance, and the UN system is sensibly interpreted as global adaptation of the American New Deal from the 1930s, when under Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s leadership the government grew considerably to bring economic security and fairness to the people. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was crafted by a commission under leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt. Now Robert Prevost adopted the papal name Leo XIV to put himself into the tradition of Catholic social thought created by the last bearer of this name, Leo XIII, in the late 19th century. It is too early to judge, but in a fast-moving world it is worth noting that all this is very good news from a human-rights standpoint.
Seventy-five years ago, Henry Morton Robinson’s novel The Cardinal captured readers with the fictious tale of Stephen Fermoyle, an American priest who eventually becomes a Prince of the Church. Now the illuminates the story of Catholic America. But why would it be so unusual for an American to become pope? Eighty percent of popes came from the Italian peninsula. It might seem odd that a global organization would have been run predominantly by people from the extended neighborhood. The Catholic Church is also an intensely Roman institution, however, embedded into complexities of regional politics and administrative possibilities. For much of history that was decisive. But now four non-Italians in a row have been elected: John Paul II (elected in 1978) was Polish, Benedict XVI German, Francis Argentinian, and now we have Leo XIV. One reason it is per se odd for an American to be pope is the same reason it would be odd for an American to run the UN. The U.S. is a superpower, and having Americans in such positions might create imbalances of power and make global organizations appear too closely aligned with American interests.
The historical context also matters. After the bloody European religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, Protestants and Catholics reached a modus vivendi of sorts, though often Catholic politicians were seen with suspicion in Protestant countries. The suspicion always was that, if push came to shove, Catholics would take cues from the Vatican regardless of national interest. Paradigmatically, John Locke’s 1689 Letter Concerning Toleration not only excluded Catholics from the eponymous toleration but was written against a variant of Catholicism that saw Catholic doctrine as overruling everything else. English colonization of North America started with Pilgrims and Puritans in Massachusetts, Protestant dissenters for whom the Protestant king of England, Charles I, was too close to Catholic doctrine. They would rather cross an ocean and take other people’s lands than live under him. Over time there was a great deal of Catholic migration, and now the U.S. is a Catholic powerhouse. But only two American presidents have been Catholic (Kennedy and Biden). And while this is less and less the case, it still tends to attract commentary if Catholics are in high office in a country with Protestant roots. That an American would lead the Church, one might say, captures the ultimate normalization in the relationship between the Church and the U.S.
There are also issues around cultural differences and specifically American perspectives, however, that seemed to make Americans odd matches for the highest office in this exceedingly traditional organization. The U.S. has an informal culture at odds with the Vatican's highly ritualized culture. Moreover, common American positions on questions such as income inequality and religious freedom – as well as anything connected to a self-understanding of American exceptionalism – might not be well-received by the diverse global Catholic community.
He is not only the first pope from the United States, he is also the first from Peru, a man who can easily be seen as embodying Panamerican unity.
It is anyone’s guess whether Robert Prevost is such an unusual American that these reservations do not apply to him, or whether it is something about global politics that right now made it seem sensible to the cardinals to have an American at the helm of this mighty organization. It is not lost that an American pope, and specifically this American pope, presents a contrast at the world stage to President Trump. That Trump’s cabinet and that the president on White House social media makes the contrast more vivid, as does the fact that the new pope of the Trump administration, especially its policies around migration (on which topic see my recent posting, and also my previous commentary on the arrest of Rumeysa Ozturk). That the election of this pope is a challenge for the Trump movement is They point out that this pope does not “put America first.” Though of course he might well be said do just that: except it is the America represented by the Statue of Liberty and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is the America represented by the fact that Rober Prevost – a man – did extensive missionary work in Peru, served as Bishop of Chiclayo until 2023, and became a dual citizen with Peru. He is not only the first pope from the United States, he is also the first from Peru, a man who can easily be seen as embodying Panamerican unity.
What is also striking from a human rights standpoint is that he would take . “Leo,” lion in Latin, is among the most commonly used papal names. Note in passing that the first of that name famously stood up to Attila the Hun in 452 and persuaded the man not to invade Italy. More importantly, the most recent holder was Gioacchino Pecci, who reigned as Leo XIII from 1878 to 1903. As far as papal achievements are concerned, he is recognized for three things in particular. Most significantly, he is known for offering a Catholic social philosophy, in his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. This encyclical was formulated against the ever-increasing hold capitalism had on the modern world, at a time when large corporations were increasingly powerful. Rerum Novarum was also written against the spread of the Marxism as a political philosophy that, in its various versions broadly captured under the heading of socialism, increasingly drove working-class resistance to capitalism.
Leo XIII understood that the Church needed to formulate a response – also because the socialist movement had very little use for the Christian Churches and saw them mostly in cahoots with capitalism – and did so by spelling out what the dignity of workers amounted to. Rerum Novarum addresses topics the Church had never explored systematically, including social and economic inequality as a subject of social justice, and the rights and duties of both capital and labor. Workers had rights to a fair wage, to safe working conditions, and to the formation of trade unions, matters that all reappeared later on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is fair to say that the Church’s protective stance vis-à-vis workers did not resonate in the U.S. at the time, where in 1905 the infamous Supreme Court judgement in the Lochner case invalidated efforts at regulating working conditions. Still, Leo XIII also affirmed the right to property and free enterprise. Leo’s signal to the working class was that they did not need to turn to a revolutionary doctrine like Marxism to find their key concerns secured. The signal to capital was that it needed to take the concerns of the working class seriously lest capital find itself at odds with the Church and face a political opponent that would clamor for more change than captured by Rerum Novarum.
There are two other things worth mentioning about Leo XIII. After the unification of Italy, he was the first pope who came into office without ruling over the Papal States. To this day, the Vatican counts as an independent nation-state. One aspect of the deeper history here is that the popes over many centuries ruled over large parts of central Italy as worldly princes. That came to an end under Leo XIII’s predecessor. It fell upon Leo to renegotiate the relationship between the new entity the Vatican had become and the rest of the modern world. He was celebrated for a constructive foreign policy that led to friendly new beginnings with many countries around the world. And finally, Leo XIII also firmly endorsed the coexistence of Church doctrine with modern science. It was his stance that research and teaching should take their course, and that it was inappropriate for forces outside of science and scholarship to make prescriptions.
Graham Greene’s 1958 novel Our Man in Havana is a black comedy. Greene makes a mockery of the operations of cold-war spy agencies. The title refers to a vacuum cleaner salesman in Cuba who gets recruited by the MI6, a British spy agency. Things do not go as intended. The human rights movement has good reason to think of Leo XIV as our man in Rome in a less facetious sense. The alliance between human-rights concerns and Catholic doctrine even under progressive popes like Franics and Leo is of course . But there is considerable overlap, and that matters profoundly. Robert Prevost did not call himself Francis II, presumably as an expression of humility vis-à-vis his predecessor. But the choices of names speak volumes. Jorge Manuel Bergoglio selected “Francis” to follow St. Francis of Assisi, who embodied love for the vulnerable. In this regard both Francises were recognizable human rights figures. Leo XIII’s social doctrine gave a concrete shape – adequate for the needs of the industrial age – to this love for the vulnerable. By choosing “Leo,” Robert Prevost signals strongly which set of traditions in the Church he endorses, and he already The various concerns that drove Leo XIII are very much present again in 21st century versions. In particular, AI poses similar challenges as the industrial revolution to which Pope Leo XIII responded.
Note one last thing, a few days after the passing of distinguished International Relations scholar Joseph Nye. , Nye argued that the current administration was damaging U.S. soft power – America’s ability to get things done in the world by being an attractive place. Robert Prevost’s election is a win for human rights. It is also a win for American soft power. In this sense too Leo XIV is our man in Rome. It is striking that we can say this from both angles – as human rights defenders and Americans. But we can indeed, and we must hope that a broad coalition of Americans will embrace Robert Prevost, Leo XIV, the fourteenth lion, as a global spokesperson for their values.
Mathias Risse, Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights, Harvard Kennedy School
