Transcript

Welcome back to Shameless Popery.

I'm Joe Heschmeyer.

And Cardinal Robert Provost of Chicago, Illinois was just named today the new pope, Pope Leo XIV. He is the first American pope, and this comes literally one day after on Lila Rose's show I said, Well, he was the most likely American to become pope.

There probably wouldn't be an American pope this time around, and he was probably unlikely.

What are the odds that we get an American pope?

I would say very low but not zero.

Okay.

Um, Provost is the name that I sometimes hear thrown around as a possibility because of his work with the Congregation for Bishops.

He knows a lot of the cardinals.

If you had a percentage you would say Cardinal Provost is gonna be the next pope, this American cardinal, what would you give it?

I would put it in the low single digits.

Okay.

So mea culpa.

He did indeed become pope.

I said it'd be someone unexpected.

And on that count at least, I was right.

So what do we know about the cardinal?

As you can imagine, this is gonna be a little more informal.

Uh, I'm in John Wayne Airport.

There's music and people walking by, but I wanted to make sure to get something out just because people are asking me, What do we know about him so far?

We know a little bit.

We don't know a ton.

Uh, he actually only became a cardinal in 2023, so he is somewhat of an unknown, I think even to the other cardinals.

But here's what we do know.

First, his papal name is a really fascinating choice, Pope Leo XIV. Uh, this, this seems to be a nod to Pope Leo XIII who was pope from 1878 to 1903.

That coupled with his more kind of traditional looking papal garb is telling an interesting sign.

He didn't feel the need to be John Paul III or Francis II or anything like that.

Right now I think a lot of what you're gonna be hearing are just rumors or speculation or things that aren't very, uh, based in fact.

Uh, but the Catholic Herald last week put it like this.

They said, Provost is something of a cipher when it comes to many of the contested issues in Catholic life.

In terms of, of where he stands on matters such as the ordination of women deacons or the blessing of persons in same-sex unions or the Latin Mass, he's played his cards awfully close to his chest.

So he's not someone who's, like, known for having strong maybe doctrinaire positions in either direction.

Uh, he has a reputation, if anything, of maybe being something of a centrist, uh, which could be very interesting.

We just don't know, and so I would avoid anyone claiming to know more than we have information to support.

On some issues, you know, the black and white issues like women's ordination to the priesthood, he's been perfectly clear.

But a lot of the other issues seem like they just have not come up in a way where he's had to address them, and so we, we're just guessing what he would do in those contexts.

Uh, so he As I say, here's a little bit of what we know.

He was born in Chicago.

He's the first American pope.

He was born in 1959, so he's 69 years old.

He actually went to Villanova for college where he studied math.

He then joined the Augustinian religious order.

Uh, he then The Augustinians sent him to Chicago Theological Union where he got his M.Div.

He went on to Rome to my own alma mater, the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, better known as the Angelicum, uh, where he got both his license and his doctorate in Canon law.

And I think this is actually really interesting.

His doctoral thesis was on the role of the local prior in the order of St. Augustine, the Augustinians.

Now, I suspect that's gonna actually be an interesting dimension that'll play out, uh, in his pontificate.

Pope Francis talked a lot about the synod on synodality and this concept of synodality, but the critique was, what do you mean by this?

Like, this, this term seems amorphous.

What does it actually mean to talk about the Church in a synodal sort of way?

So to have someone who's actually got a doctorate level background in looking at what are called intermediate structures, you know, what role Y- you've got, like, the, the whole religious order.

What's the role of the local authority in, uh, those kind of middle levels?

That's really important.

That's, that's really good to, uh, have a sense of.

So he might bring a lot to the table in terms of that, but we'll see.

Um, since 1985, so basically my entire life, he's spent a lot of his life e- essentially as a missionary in Peru, although he had some stints in the US as well as, uh, particularly in the last few years in Rome.

Sorry for the airport announcements and everything else.

In Peru, uh, he taught canon law, he taught patristics, and he taught moral theology in the seminary, so he has a wide range in terms of what he's taught on.

Additionally a wide range, he's got a lot of languages that he speaks, English, Spanish, Italian, and French and Portuguese, and he can also read German and Latin.

So he is, uh, well-prepared for maybe the international dimension of the papacy.

Uh, and he has a reputation among those who know him as being both good at listening and asking really incisive sort of questions.

Uh, so I expect what seems to be a humble leadership style, but who knows?

I mean, people change when, when they're given the kind of executive roles.

Uh, so in Pope Leo, I think we see a blend in terms of his background as a missionary, as an executive, you know, h- in his role in the Augustinian Order, uh, and seminary professor, as an administrator, as a bishop of the diocese in Peru, and, uh, since 2015, as the prefect for what's called the Dicastery for Bishops, which is the Vatican what was a congregation that determines, uh, affairs involving bishops, like who bishops are gonna be in certain contexts.

And, uh, they have a, an important role to play in serving the pope.

I suspect, also related to this, you're gonna find a lot of criticisms for things the Dicastery for Bishops have done where, you know, uh, whether that's Provost's fault or, or his responsibility or whether he's just doing something Pope Francis told him to do, those kind of things.

Keep that in mind as you're hearing these things.

You know, for instance, Provost is the one who, after meeting with Pope Francis, uh, removed Bishop Strickland from his diocese.

But pretty clearly in those cases, he's doing what he's meant to do as someone serving the pope.

So my advice for everyone who is, uh, taking in this news is wait and see.

You know, don't have your guard up immediately regarding the pope and, you know, I'm sure he's gonna have his shortcomings.

All of us do.

But I think he's gonna also have a lot that he can offer us if we're willing to receive it.

So I'm excited to see what this pontificate holds and, uh, I'm eager in seeing, yeah, what, what comes next.

Well, what comes next for this channel, I've got two more, more videos coming up next week.

So I will talk to you then.

So for Shameless Popery, I'm Joe Heschmeyer.

God bless you.