A Pope for the 21st Century

This morning my latest essay, “A Pope for the 21st Century”, was published online on the Acton Institute’s website. It was a feature in the Fall 2025 issue of Religion & Liberty.

The essay is a look back on the papacy of Pope Francis and a look forward into the papacy of Pope Leo XIV:

The election of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who took the name Leo XIV, on May 8, 2025, was greeted the world over with nearly universal acclaim. Pope Leo XIV, born on Chicago’s South Side, is the Church’s first American pope and has since greeted delighted crowds by wearing a Chicago White Sox cap to an audience and signed baseballs for the faithful. It is not unusual for a pope to be popular, as he is, according to the Church’s own understanding, “the perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity of both the bishops and of the faithful” (Lumen Gentium §23).

Pope Leo XIV’s immediate predecessor, Pope Francis, was also popular. A few months before his passing on April 21, 2025, the Pew Research Center found that 78% of American Catholics expressed a positive view of Pope Francis; such high favorability ratings are the envy of temporal authorities. Yet Pope Francis had many critics, as did his predecessors—and as will his successor Pope Leo XIV. Toward the end of his earthly life, Pope Francis suffered from ill health and endured several surgeries and hospitalizations. In the months after an intestinal surgery in 2021, Pope Francis visited with some Slovakian Jesuits. One priest asked how he was feeling, and Pope Francis replied, “Still alive, even though some wanted me dead.”

How to reconcile these contraries?

Find out how by reading the full essay available here. Enjoy!