Haunted by Papal Ghosts

I was recently asked, "Do you have any optimism left for Leo?" I responded that I'm cautiously optimistic. I refuse to fall into the errors mentioned by Mr Lucas.

From Crisis

By Adam Lucas, MTheol

While it is understandable and even laudable to be excited about the recent election of a new pope, those feelings should not be based on who we think he will be or not be.

Papal conclaves are a big deal. The one that elected Pope Leo XIV was only my third, as it was for everyone just shy of 50 years old. And, barring tragedy for either Pope Leo or myself, I only have maybe two or three more.

A papal conclave is the kind of major event a person only experiences a handful of times in their life. Such experiences take on a special significance in part because of the meaning of the event itself—but especially because of their rarity.

Hence the grand excitement over the election of Cardinal Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. I confess, I have been caught up in it as well. The magnitude of the moment; the election of an American; the name—all of it felt historical, and it’s made being Catholic feel more fun than it has been since perhaps the last conclave.

But I’ve also looked askance at some of the celebrations within my own religion. It’s been a while since the last conclave, sure, but this one seemed a bit different somehow, in ways that often just felt weird.

For one, there was the immediate and gushing praise for the new pope before he even said a word. It’s what The Pillar called a Leonine honeymoon. As the lovely folks at The Pillar pointed out, it’s not a bad thing. Honeymoons are a natural and wholesome part of a budding relationship. A quick acceptance of our new leader, a rush of filial warmth for our new papa, and a curious desire to know the man under the tiara are all wonderful signs of the Holy Spirit within the faithful. And, to my mind, they are proper manifestations of such a “honeymoon” love in ecclesial life.

Nevertheless, I’ve perceived something off in these jubilations (even if only anecdotally). Warm joy is one thing. But many are celebrating how “providential” Leo’s election is—deeming him the man who is perfectly suited to lead us in this upcoming era—based only on the superficial factoids of our first glimpses of him. We take the fact that he’s American to mean he’ll be a good governor of the Vatican; or that he is a polyglot to show that he’ll unify a polarized Church; or even his choice of wardrobe to mean a departure from his predecessor.

Indeed, all these things are hopeful signs that Leo’s pontificate will progress in the direction that I, and many Catholics, think the Church needs to head at the moment. But these kinds of assertions seem shortsighted at this point in his reign. There seems to be a pent-up jubilation over whatever in Leo is different than Francis. He speaks different languages. He’s a different nationality. He wears different clothes. He’s not Francis—thanks be to God’s Providence! 

But I can’t help but notice that Pope Leo hasn’t really done anything yet. Yes, there have been some early decisions that seem to make a statement about his intended future. But he has yet to make a really meaningful decree in his governance of the Church. And only after a body of such real work will we really be able to tell what “kind” of pontificate Leo will bring. We may find that he still is very much like Pope Francis.

Which is the other source of Pope Leo’s early praises. Just as many seem to be celebrating that our new pope isn’t Francis, many have already declared him to be in perfect continuity with his predecessor. Sure, he has worn silly red clothes and comported himself more toward the reverence of the office. But in substantial things, they say, he will be Pope Francis the second.

Both jubilations are grasping at straws. Pope Leo may depart from Francis; he may continue Francis; or he may forge a new, third path. I’m old enough to remember the election of Pope Francis and the predictions of his pontificate based only on his name and white cassock. Time proved some of them true and many of them false. There can be value in such predictions; but celebrating them as if they are guaranteed is a recipe for disappointment.

This leads to the other problematic path for those (like me) who are a bit more jaded. It’s a “wait and see” approach, which withholds the celebration or even full religious submission to the new pope until we know he’s in line with our preferences. Let’s see how his curial appointments shake up; what he does about Rupnik; what he does about the Germans. Then we can celebrate him as our new pope, or declare him to indeed be my pope.

But this is also wrongheaded. Leo XIV is the pope right now; and as such, he is owed all the things we owe the pope from day one. Those things don’t include frothing praise at decrees he has yet to give, but they do include respect, ready submission, and good-hearted gladness that the Church, once again, has a successor to Peter on the throne.
Which brings me at last to the larger point. We are haunted by the ghost of Pope Francis. But we are haunted not only by the ghost of Francis but, also, the ghosts of popes down to Leo XIII and beyond. We look to our popes either with an ultramontanist, extreme deference or a quiet, resenting rebellion. Spurred on by modern mass media, we follow everything they say, everything about their personality, and we feel compelled to pour forth praise (if we’re good Catholics) or judge bitterly (if we’re really well-read or whatever).

The reality is that the pope is a flawed man holding a holy office. He governs the Catholic Church, protected and founded by God Himself. These things don’t change whether Fr. Jim Martin steps out onto the balcony as Papa Matthew Shepard or Cardinal Burke proclaims himself Pope Traditional Latin Rite I. And these are the things worth celebrating immediately, regardless of who is named as the next Bishop of Rome. God has once again not left His Church without a shepherd, and He is still supplying His grace and His guidance to the faithful and the world.

Of course, the pope can have a profound impact on the globe and our experience of the Faith. And it may turn out that any particular pope, shepherd though he be, is not a very good one after all. It is against these realities that the predictions, analysis, news, and Vatican hangers-on give a valuable and important function in the Church as a whole—and in the internal politics of papal governance itself.

But this is not the present moment in the Church. We have a new pope. We can get caught up in the excitement of it all and try to make our guesses about the future or the quality of the new pope. We can have reservations from ways we were hurt by prior popes. We can—and should—care about it all. 

To be clear, it’s not wrong that we’re invested. It’s perfectly fine, even, to have some fun with the excitement of all the news and changes, to be optimistic about this next pope, and even to venture some cautious predictions. It’s the way we engage these things that I believe can be problematic. 

We shouldn’t look to the pontiff as the entirety of the Church—as the be-all and end-all of how the Holy Spirit will move in the upcoming years; as someone we need to “figure out” before we follow or obey; or as someone we need to even pay that much attention to, in the grand scheme of things.

For most of us, our vocations are unaffected by what Pope Leo’s room looks like, or what his clothes are, or whom he appoints as undersecretary to the undersecretary to the Vatican Dicastery for Culinary Arts, or whatever other minute point all of us—whether conservative or liberal—have gotten into a habit of overanalyzing these last 12 years. 

Catholic and secular media, during the reign of Pope Francis, harped on all of these things as being of enormous consequence, leading the Church either toward one’s preferred future or terrifyingly away from it. But the Church, Peter’s office, and the world spin on regardless of what you think of them. And your thoughts on what the pope in Peter’s office does has little bearing on your important work of loving your family, engaging with your local church, and working in the world. Everything the pope does matters, in a way. But only very little of it matters to you.

This is, ironically, what I hope for most from these early days of Pope Leo XIV. I hope we can largely forget about him—not because he and his office are unimportant but because we can make them important in outsized and incorrect ways. As far as I have evidence, Pope Leo seems to be aiming for that as well. The papacy, ultimately, isn’t about the pope. It’s about Christ. Our engagements with the papacy—our predictions, concerns, celebrations, and obedience—should also be predicated on Christ. It is Christ who keeps the Church—and the pope, if he consents—on the right path. And thanks be to God for that!