The Pope from Chicago

Leo XIV and the Struggle for Faith

It was the moment when history and the present met. From the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, a man looked out at the crowd - a man who had taken the name Leo XIV. Robert Prevost, born in Chicago, a missionary who had dedicated his life to the people of Peru, now stood before the world as the first pope from the United States. A man who held the power of the Church in one hand and the spirit of a missionary in the other.

“Peace be with you,” he said - a greeting that sounded like a promise, like a bridge between times. The red mantle of the papacy, which Francis had once set aside, now rested heavily on his shoulders. Leo XIV spoke in Italian and Spanish, not in English, as if he wanted to leave the American accent behind. But history could not be hidden.

George W. Bush and his wife Laura were “delighted,” as they put it. An American pope - a historic moment for the Catholic Church and the United States. Marco Rubio spoke of “sacred responsibility,” and even Donald Trump, speaking at the West Wing door, called it “an honor for our country.” But Leo XIV was more than an American figure. He was a man who bridged two worlds - the North and the South, the powerful and the forgotten.

When Pope Francis brought him to Rome in 2023, it was a strategic move. The man from Chicago, who had been bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, was appointed head of the powerful office of bishops. He, who had lived in silent prayer with the poor of northern Peru, now became the invisible hand that decided who would become bishop and who would not. A guardian of purity and power.

And now he was pope. A man who chose the name Leo XIV, a reference to Leo XIII, the pope of the social encyclical Rerum Novarum. The pope who once tried to heal the rift between the Church and modernity. But Leo XIV enters a divided church, especially in the United States, where progressives and conservatives eye each other in a quiet war.

In Peru, his second home, the bells rang. In Lima, Isabel Panez, an elementary school teacher, stood before the cathedral when the news was announced. “It is a pride for us Peruvians,” she said. And in Chiclayo, his old diocese, Father Fidel Purisaca remembered the man who said his prayers every morning and then had breakfast with the other priests. A simple man who has now been elevated to eternity.

Leo XIV spoke of peace, of dialogue, of mission. But it is a peace that must be fought for, a dialogue that must be led between opposing sides. An American pope - a rupture, a symbol, a promise. And the world watches as this man, who comes from the world of the poor, now leads the rich and powerful.