For the first time in United States history, there is an American pope, Pope Leo XIV. He is “American” in the full sense of the word: He comes from both North and South America. He was born and educated in the U.S. but spent many, many years of his life as a priest working in Peru — a beautiful country (I’ve been there) where 45% of the population is Indigenous and 37% is Mestizo. The country’s population is 80% Roman Catholic. Of course, he is totally fluent in English and Spanish. On his mother’s side, he is descended from Creole “people of color” in Louisiana.
This is significant because “creole” was/is a legal term for people of mixed racial background: European, African and/or Indigenous descent. They were not “white” and with the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, they officially lost their right to vote — they were placed on the Black side of the color line, even though many physically appeared “white.”
All this means that Pope Leo understands and has experienced all the main “racial/cultural communities” of this hemisphere: white and “almost white” people, Spanish-speaking people, Indigenous people, as well as Mestizo and white South American people. He is truly an international and multicultural individual.
Pope Leo has been a dual citizen of the U.S. and Peru for many years. However, the State Department of the U.S. has rules that say it “may actively review” the citizenship status of any American who “serves as a foreign head of state.” The pope is the head of the Vatican state, which is a fully recognized nation state under international law — it is not only a church or a denomination.
This legal point may become an issue since it is likely Pope Leo will continue to criticize the U.S. government under Trump and the Israeli government under Netanyahu, especially regarding Gaza. Leo has sharply corrected JD Vance on his statement there is a descending order of love, making reference to the “ordo amoris” concept in Catholic tradition. Pope Leo responded: “J.D. Vance is wrong. Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
Another issue is bound to arise and this is the long-standing difficult relationship between the Vatican and the modern state of Israel. At the very beginning, in the planning stages for the creation of Israel, the Vatican was opposed on various grounds. It was very concerned about the need to establish a clear “right of return” for displaced Palestinians. This turned out to be a very valid concern because after the Arab Israeli War of 1948, there came to be some 700,000 Palestinians who had been driven from their homes. Also the Church was concerned about the fate of Christian holy sites, the Christians who lived on the land in question, and the Christians who wanted to be able to visit and make pilgrimage there.
Being a 2,000-year-old institution highly aware of world and Middle East history, the Vatican had long been unconvinced of the “historic right of the Jews to return.” The Apostolic Delegate to Washington, D.C., wrote to President Roosevelt in 1943, “… there is no axiom in history to substantiate the necessity of a people returning to a country they left 19 centuries before.” This statement, which may seem shocking to us today, remains exactly at the center of the problem between Palestine and Israel even today. Jewish people from the world over have the “right of return” to move to Israel, but the displaced Palestinians and their descendants have no such right.
The Vatican has never been in favor of Zionism per se, and we need to remember almost all the original leaders of the Zionist project for Palestine were secular (and atheist) Jews who wanted to establish a socialist state there. That is another part of the context. In 1973, Pope Paul VI met with Golda Meir, one of Israel’s founders, and strongly criticized Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.
The war in Gaza caused Pope Francis to condemn Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. He called the IDF killing of two Christians, mother and daughter, in front of the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza, an act of terrorism. Pope Francis called for a two-state solution over and over. In 2024, he called for an international inquest about Israel’s war in Gaza constituting genocide against the Palestinian people under international law. Popes have had guts on this issue.
The new Pope Leo has called for peace and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and if the past relationship between the Vatican and Israel is a guide, we can expect harsher words in the future. It is relevant that Leo spent many years in Peru, a country with a very large Indigenous population, so he has seen a better way to handle issues concerning settlers and Indigenous people. In Peru, the Indigenous population received full voting rights in 1979. The situation in this regard in Peru is not perfect, of course, but it is far, far better than what is happening in the West Bank and Gaza.
The position of pope still carries a high stature — not only among the world’s Catholics, but also among many of the world’s other denominations, and even among the world’s secular populations. Catholicism is the largest and oldest Christian denomination on Earth, with 1.3 billion members — with a presence in almost every country in the world. The Holy See (the Vatican) has a permanent observer state seat in the United Nations — the only religion to have a formal membership in the U.N. and the Holy See’s representative has the right to attend all sessions of the General Assembly, Security Council, and the Economic and Social Council.
The Religion News Service on June 6 published a piece by the well-known Presbyterian minister the Rev. Jennifer Butler titled “Why MAGA Christianity should Fear the New Pope.” As Butler puts it, Pope Leo’s “worldview directly threatens the Christian nationalist engine behind the rising authoritarianism of our time” and “the election of Leo XIV signals that not all global religious institutions are capitulating.” Butler goes on to say “Pope Leo’s election offers hope, because he reminds the world that religious conviction need not serve nationalist power. It can, instead, call us to global responsibility — to protect the vulnerable, honor the dignity of every person and resist tyranny in all its forms.”
Pope Leo’s life and career has made him well-versed in all of the above issues. He has seen up close, in two countries, how dangerous religious fervor, especially when mingled with nationalism, can be. He is not going to be silent on this issue. Nor is he going to be silent on Netanyahu’s deadly, racist, apartheid policies against the Indigenous Palestinian population, who make up 57% of the people living under Israel’s control — in Israel, the West Bank, and in Gaza. See “Jews now a 47% minority in Israel and the territories” in the Times of Israel (30 August 2022).
American MAGA Christian backers of Israel are, I expect, going to be in for some criticism from this first American pope. I very much hope because he was born here and he is now pope, his words will have some serious impact. This MAGA redefinition of Christianity, with its seething hatred of Muslims and Palestinians and all “foreigners,” has to be stopped. It will destroy the world.
I have a confession: I don’t pray for myself much, but I pray for others, and I pray for peace. Right now, I pray that Pope Leo will find the strength to be the first pope to publicly call out the United States for being the biggest supplier of aid and weapons to Israel. I pray this pope will call out the horrifically un-Christian policies of the Trump administration and the current GOP. And I pray that the new pope will ask all Americans how they can allow things to go on as they are, and still call themselves Christians. He has a right to ask.
Pope Leo, please remind us (often) of our responsibilities to each other, to our country, to our world, and especially to our faith.
John Nassivera is a former professor who retains affiliation with Columbia University’s Society of Fellows in the Humanities. He lives in Vermont and part time in Mexico.