Pope Hope

Is the new Pope an Influencer?

There are 1.5 billion Catholics in the world. In America, 20% of our adult population is Catholic - that’s 53 million people.

I am not one of them, but I have thoughts.

To be honest, I wasn’t paying much attention to the Papal Conclave. I didn’t even know what that was until watching the popular movie, Conclave, with its delightfully satisfying O. Henry Ending. But Catholicism and I have bumped into each other my whole life.

I was raised in the Episcopal church, and later we raised our kids in the same Lutheran church where Steve was baptised and confirmed. Both denominations formed as a direct reaction to Catholicism, and that history was thoroughly ingrained. As a tween I experimented with the Charismatic Catholics (who isn’t intrigued by a display of glossolalia?) until things got weird with some of the adult men in charge of us kids.

One of the first paid church jobs I had after moving to New York City for grad school was on Good Friday at a Catholic church in the Bronx. The singers were tucked up in the balcony overlooking the action. The mass started in silence. Several clergy in full regalia processed solemnly to the altar, then lay face down on the hard, cold marble, their bodies forming a cross.

I was stunned and quite moved by such extravagant theatrics. These people understood dramatic value.

Eventually I scored a regular church job in a Catholic church in Gramercy Park. The fine organist (an Episcopalian) was a budding conductor, which meant we both developed our chops there with the works of Mozart, Verdi, Schubert, Haydn, Monteverdi, Pergolesi, Bach, and so many others. It was an artistically formative time for which I’ll always be grateful. As a bonus, I was schooled by the ever-present contingent of very Irish-Catholic church ladies: as a non-Catholic I wasn’t really a Christian, they explained, and therefore was forbidden to take communion in their, or any, Catholic church.

Church was always about music for me, I realized, and that’s what I paid attention to. When I learned much later how much of the enduring classical oeuvre was commissioned and preserved by The Catholic Church, I offered a humble prayer of thanks. One thing that did sink in from both my Episcopal and Lutheran experience was that we had nothing to do with the Pope; the very concept of an intermediary was foreign.

Other things I remember about church was that we Episcopalians expected the sermon to last no longer than 10 minutes, and the whole service an hour, tops. Longer than that made resentful congregants. Also, communion happened at every service, and everyone sipped wine from the same ornate chalice. Communion was always just before the final Benediction, so that we had to stay until then, but those who dared could use the milling about as cover to leave early. The Lutherans held communion only one service per month, with a much tastier (fresh baked!) host, and individual tiny glass cups. Disconcertingly though, services always included breaking the fourth wall with a brief period of hugging nearby semi-strangers. Some even left their pews to cross the aisle!

Once in a conversation on the topic of abortion, an aquaintance - very proud of her Irish Catholic identity though she was from Chester, PA - helpfully explained that since I was not Catholic I was simply less moral. I patiently countered that beliefs were just what we were repeatedly told to think, and brought up the example of transubstantiation. After awkwardly having to explain this foundational tenet of her professed religion, the aquaintance accused me of thinking that all Catholics must be stupid to believe such a thing.

Eventually I caught on that all modern religions are an expression of Patriarchy and I am now old and bold enough to not pretend that this works for me - or anyone - save the beneficiaries of that structure. Fortunately, the difference between controlling beliefs and genuine compassion isn’t that hard to discern: my spiritual health remains intact.

All this is to say I expected a regressive Cardinal to be elected in this absurd year of our Lord, 2025. Although Pope Francis seemed a breath of fresh air with his leanings toward ‘social justice’ - a.k.a. being a decent human - and his reality-based public acknowledgement of climate change, I had no faith that lightning would strike twice.

So on Thursday when our family text thread blew up after the Chicago-born, Philadelphia-educated Cardinal Robert Prevost emerged from white smoke as Leo XIV, I was frankly … meh. Why are a bunch of Lutherans getting so excited, I wondered? So I read up and saw that the newly minted spiritual leader of 1.5 billion people had recently re-tweeted this:

“Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?”

Huh. First of all, it’s news to me that Popes tweet! (Three Popes, actually, since 2012!) Secondly, since this was a condemnation of the illegal deportation of a U.S. resident, I began to pay attention. This was much more interesting than his Chi-Town or Philly roots. Objecting to people deliberately causing the suffering of others, and then publicly correcting the VP of the USA on his distorted and dishonest presentation of ordo amoris most definitely gives me hope. An aside: Do you notice how Vance and his ilk constantly tell others how they think and feel? This is called gaslighting, and it is just more mendacity. Finally, the new Pope's adopted name and first speech emphasized peace, building bridges, and social justice, indicating a desire to heal divisions and foster unity.

Steve and I taught singing at a program in Italy a few summers ago. When we knew we would fly out of Rome, my life-long Episcopalian mom absolutely insisted that we see the Sistine Chapel. It had been a highlight on her one and only trip to Europe to celebrate her and my dad’s first 25 years of marriage, and so I took her word for it. Verily I say unto you it was 100 degrees the day we visited the Vatican (FYI: I’m fairly sure there is no air conditioning or ice in Italy). We were packed in like sardines in the newly post-Covid era, so my principal memory of Michelangelo's famous ceiling is that the space was relatively cool and quiet.

But when we walked into St. Peter’s Basilica I was caught off guard by my own emotional overwhelm. The thousands of artists who created the magnificence of the Basilica for the Glory of God - and probably to feed their families - was what I found so moving. When people come together with the best of themselves, miracles happen. The colors, glittering gold, inlaid stones and jewels, shafts of sunlight, paintings, and sculptures are literally awe-inspiring. As non-Catholics we really don’t ‘get’ the Pope worship thing (so many Pope statues and crypts on display in the Basilica) any more than this American can grasp how Brits still go mad for the monarchy and its trappings. But did I feel the Spirit of Humanity in that place? You bet I did.

I did feel for the Basilica guards that had to stand around in this get-up all day.

What we all know right now, what we all feel and see and hear everyday, is that this era of lies and graft and cruelty has nothing to offer anyone. The profiteers cannot possibly utilize the amount of power and wealth they seek, and pointlessly living in a constant state of greed and hate and harm is just another form of suffering. And so, if one man has the ear of 1.5 billion of the world’s people - 53 million Americans - maybe he will help us all remember the Golden Rule. Wouldn’t that be a blessing?

And just for fun:

“He ate our hot dogs”

May you live in ease and kindness, with a free heart.

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