Is the brand new Pope on the aspect of “bizarre folks” – as he mentioned when conducting his First Mass – or is he solely blowing (white) smoke?

Pope Leo XIV is an historic anomaly – the primary American Pope. Born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago in 1955, he spent a few years in Peru as a missionary and, because the BBC has identified, Prevost is taken into account as a lot a cardinal from Latin America due to the numerous years he spent as a missionary in Peru…He has Peruvian nationality and is fondly remembered as a determine who labored with marginalized communities and helped construct bridges.

He’s criticized the present administration for its detestable anti-immigrant stance and its hateful interpretation of varied tenets of Christianity however has been criticized himself for his muddled statements regarding LGBTQIA+ points.

So who is that this newly-chosen Pontiff, the person who’s now the religious chief for over one billion Catholics world wide?

Prevost is 69 years previous. In selecting the identify Leo, he has consciously aligned himself with Pope Leo XIII, who was often known as “the Pope of the employees” for his critique of Capitalism and help of the working class.

To date, so good.  However so far as LGBTQIA+ points, not so good. Folks, quoting the New York Instances, informs us that in 2012 Prevost mentioned he was pained that Western media and society created “sympathy for beliefs and practices which are at odds with the gospel,” the Instances reported, particularly referencing the “gay way of life” and “different households composed of same-sex companions and their adopted youngsters. …

[H]e pushed again on a plan by the Peruvian authorities to show about gender in faculties, the newspaper reported. “The promotion of gender ideology is complicated, as a result of it seeks to create genders that don’t exist,” he instructed a neighborhood outlet, based on the Instances…Francis, his predecessor, was largely seen as being extra progressive and actually shocked the world when he requested, “Who am I to guage?” after being requested a query about homosexual folks in 2013. 

Earlier than we give the late Pope Francis his “Get out of The Vatican Jail Free” card, Folks additionally mentions that Francis signed off on a doc stating “that transition surgical procedure and gender fluidity immediately opposed human dignity.”

Additionally troubling are claims made by the group Survivors Community of These Abused by Clergymen (SNAP) that Prevost mishandled allegations of sexual abuse by monks in Chicago in 2000 and in Peru in 2022. From CNN:

The group mentioned that as provincial supervisor in Chicago for the Augustinian order in 2000, Prevost allowed a priest accused of abusing at the very least 13 minors to dwell on the Augustinian order’s St. John Stone Friary in Hyde Park, half a block from St. Thomas the Apostle Elementary College…“The college was by no means notified,” mentioned SNAP spokeswoman Sarah Pearson. In 2002, after the US Convention of Catholic Bishops tightened their insurance policies, [the priest in question] was moved from the priory and faraway from public ministry. He was faraway from the priesthood in 2012.

 In response to The Pillar, three Peruvian ladies who say they’d been abused by a priest “declare that Prevost failed in 2022 to open an investigation into the accusations of sexual abuse courting again to 2007. They are saying that any documentation which will have been despatched to Rome was purposely designed to look insufficient in order to forestall motion on the case.”

The Catholic Church is an antiquated establishment that badly must replace its responses to the modern world. This may take time, as establishments of any sort are as reluctant to vary as they’re sluggish about doing it. Pope Leo XIV has the authority to make some much-needed modifications. Will he do it?

God solely is aware of.