Aged 69 when elected, he is the youngest pope since John Paul II, who was 58 when he became pope in 1978. Leo is in good health, keeps himself fit, and should be around for quite some time.
By nature mild mannered and reserved, it is likely the world would not have witnessed so soon the depth of his moral convictions, or his courage in expressing them, but for Donald Trump; a bombastic American to Leo’s quiet American.
In a world where few leaders have publicly taken an unequivocal moral stance against aggressors such as Trump, Leo has done so without qualification, holding to account powerful personalities as they behave with impunity in imposing their will brutally and without regard to norms of decency and civilised behaviour.
Some will say it is easy for Leo. The Vatican does not have to worry about issues such as tariffs. But he could have remained silent, as other popes did in times past as similar leaders behaved with cruelty or impunity because they could.
Another factor that could have contributed to his remaining silent is his background. On Leo’s election last year, the late conservative influencer Charlie Kirk wrote on X: “He’s a registered Republican who has voted in Republican primaries when not living abroad. Our data shows he’s a strong Republican, and he’s pro-life.”
No one doubts that Leo is pro-life. He is the pope, but he is one who has reminded people that being Catholic is about much more than a single issue – a matter of particular significance in the US, where a majority of Catholics have voted for Trump in the recent three presidential elections there because he presents himself as pro-life.
Speaking to journalists at Castel Gandolfo last September, Leo pointedly noted: “Someone who says I’m against abortion but is in favour of the death penalty is not really pro-life.” He added: “And someone who says I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
Last November, he said that every country “has a right to determine who and how and when people enter”, but that it was also important “to look for ways of treating people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have” when enforcing immigration policies.
His so-called Republican affiliation in the US is not at all certain, despite the assertions of Kirk. Records in the state of Illinois show he took part in Republican primaries in 2012, 2014 and 2016 and Democratic primaries in 2008 and 2010. But the Illinois State Board of Elections points out that when voters participate in primaries, they are not formally registered to any party.
And, even before becoming pope, Leo was critical of Trump’s policies. In April of last year, just a month before his election, as Trump was planning to deport migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador, Leo reposted a comment on X addressed to Trump: “Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed?”
On July 4th, the USA’s 250th birthday, Leo will visit Lampedusa, south of Sicily, where thousands of African migrants first make landfall in Europe, often having survived a treacherous journey across the Mediterranean. It was also the first place outside Rome visited by Pope Francis, on July 8th, 2013.
The timing of Leo’s visit to Lampedusa could hardly be more pointed. Similarly his appointment earlier this month of Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, a formerly undocumented immigrant from El Salvador. In 1990 he was smuggled to the US in a car trunk. Now he is bishop of Wheeling-Charleston diocese in West Virginia, a state where Trump won the last three presidential elections.
Trump may even have done Leo some service, though hardly intended. He has forced into bold relief what looks to be a defining characteristic of this new papacy. Leo has overtly taken up Francis’s compassion for the poor and those on the peripheries as a central theme of his papacy, even if this may have happened sooner than planned because of the egregious activities of Trump at home and abroad.
He chose the name Leo out of respect for another predecessor, Leo XIII, whose social encyclical Rarum Novarum, published on May 15th, 1891, asserted the rights of working people to a decent wage and emphasised the obligations of money/capital as the industrial revolution spread across the world.
It is expected Leo XIV’s first encyclical will be on similar themes, but in the context of the AI revolution.
Within the Catholic Church itself, he has made it clear his priority is unity, even if that may mean leaving aside contentious issues such as women in ministry or formalising blessings for couples in what are called “irregular unions”.
Blessings may continue for couples who are civilly married, unmarried, or same sex, but the couple will be blessed as individuals, not as a couple.
Last year a Vatican Commission found that women could not even become deacons in the church. It’s likely to be left at that for now.
On the flight back to Rome from his trip to Africa last month, Leo told reporters “unity or division of the church should not revolve around sexual matters”.
“We tend to think that when the church is talking about morality that the only issue of morality is sexual. And in reality I believe there are greater and more important issues such as justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion that would all take priority before that particular issue.”
That probably sets the template for his papacy. In this way, he can also foster, unimpeded by such divisive issues, the church’s continued growth in Africa and South America, both socially conservative regions of the world.
In Europe and more liberal US, he is still likely to attract support among those who share his passion for social justice and related issues, even as they remain disappointed at the absence of women priests and the slowed embrace of gay people.