William Lindsey 
Because commentary about the new pope continues (though it will quickly die down), and because no matter what any of us think about religion or Catholicism, the Catholic church exerts global influence that affects us all, I'm capturing more excerpts about this topic today.
Francesca Fiorentini tells Wajahat Ali that even though Americans foolishly imagine everything revolves around us and the choice of a new pope isn't about Americans, there's a Trump effect happening in the world now, and it may well have played into the papal election. She says,
"The Trump effect in the year 2025 is in the reverse of what it was in 2016, empowering authoritarians."
#LeoXIV #pope #Trump #Vance #RobertPrevost
/2
https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/white-smoke-for-the-new-woke-pope
White Smoke for the New Woke Pope
Francesca Fiorentini joins me to discuss the significance of Robert Prevost being the first American to be elected as Pope & how his support for immigrants can setup a showdown with MAGA and fascists.
"That still exists, but more so you're seeing institutions, countries that believe in some semblance of democracy or religiosity or, you know, whatever it is, turning their backs on that authoritarianism. And I do feel like the Vatican choosing this Leo XIV guy from Chicago who has openly criticized J.D. Vance is their way of beckoning America's better angels to existence."
Wajahat Ali agrees:
"What you're witnessing is a response, right? You're seeing the global community say, 'We've seen how America has completely destroyed itself and we want a different path. So they could have chosen a conservative pope to ingratiate themselves with J.D. Vance and Donald Trump. And they went the other way, Francesca."
Jonathan V. Last cautions against thinking the papal election is all about things American. But he notes that right before Robert Prevost was made pope, American big-wig MAGA priest Robert Barron said, "until America goes into political decline, there won’t be an American pope."
"Barron is one of America’s MAGA priests, so naturally he could not imagine that anyone else in the world might view America as being in decline."
#LeoXIV #pope #Trump #Vance #RobertPrevost
/5
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/seven-things-to-know-about-the-american-pope-leo-xiv
"But we are [in decline] and it’s obvious.
It’s obvious to the people of Canada, who just elected a prime minister exclusively on the grounds that the American century was over.
It’s obvious to the Chinese, who are planning to step into the vacuum and establish their own world order.
It’s obvious to our European allies, who are now making plans for a future in which America is toothless, lazy, and impotent."
"And maybe—just maybe—this reality was obvious the College of Cardinals, too.
Maybe they looked at America and realized that it was no longer a colossus bestriding the globe. No longer exceptional. Not just in decline, but deluded about its reality.
Maybe Robert Prevost was elected pope because the Church realized they no longer needed to be concerned about America power."
"Catholic cardinals on Thursday elected a new pope—and it's not Donald Trump."
~ Emily Singer
#LeoXIV #pope #Trump #Vance #RobertPrevost
/8
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/8/2321234/-Trump-loses-another-election
"[The cardinals] were intensely lobbied by MAGA with $100 bottles of wine and promises of massive donations.
But after just two days of voting, the Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals spurned pressure to install a Trump-friendly pope. Instead they voted for one in the mold of Pope Francis—and an American at that, who has already been a public critic of Donald Trump."
~ Janna Brancolini
#LeoXIV #pope #Trump #Vance #RobertPrevost
/9
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cardinals-humiliate-maga-with-social-justice-warrior-pope-leo-xiv/
As Rogue DNC reports,
"During 'America Week,' wealthy Catholic donors hosted VIP events in Rome, with promises of $1 billion in donations if the 'right pope' was elected. Groups like the Napa Institute, a MAGA-aligned network, led the charge."
"This wasn’t their first attempt: back in 2018, Napa’s founder Tim Busch helped fund the 'Red Hat Report,' using former FBI and CIA agents to dig up dirt on progressive cardinals seen as potential successors to Francis, particularly regarding abuse cases.
This year, similar smear tactics surfaced, with Trump’s former Vatican ambassador Brian Burch reportedly backing a false health rumor about Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a leading contender."
"But the strategy collapsed. Cardinals ultimately united around Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, who helped push Francis’ historic reform adding women to the Vatican’s bishop-nomination process."
"'The election of an American Pope, the first American Pope … there’s a signal here that the church is taking a side in what’s happening around the globe,' said Steven Millies, a professor at Catholic Theological Union. …
'We are watching authoritarianism swell in all parts of the globe, but is fueled most visibly by the Trump administration in Washington, D.C.,' Millies said."
~ Jack Jenkins
By electing Pope Leo XIV, some see Vatican making very American political play
(RNS) — ‘The election of an American Pope, the first American Pope … there’s a signal here that the church is taking a side in what’s happening around the globe,' said Steven Millies, a professor at Catholic Theological Union.
“The election of an American pope, the first American pope … there’s a signal here that the church is taking a side in what’s happening around the globe.”
"Prevost has chosen to be known as Pope Leo XIV. This is an important nod to Pope Leo XIII, who led the church from 1878 to 1903 and was the father of modern Catholic social teaching. He called for the church to address social and economic issues, and emphasized the dignity of individuals, the common good, community, and taking care of marginalized individuals."
~ Heather Cox Richardson
#LeoXIV #pope #Trump #RobertPrevost #workers #SocialJustice
/15
"MAGAs responded to the new pope with fury. Right-wing influencer Laura Loomer, who is close to Trump, called Pope Leo 'another Marxist puppet in the Vatican.' Influencer Charlie Kirk suggested he was an '[o]pen borders globalist installed to counter Trump.'”
#LeoXIV #LeoXIII #pope #Trump #RobertPrevost #workers #SocialJustice #CommonGood #EconomicJustice #solidarity
/16
"[Leo XIII] was very pro-working man. He was very pro-labor. He was a good Pope. So the fact that the new Pope took that name, I take as a very good sign."
~ Greg Olear
#LeoXIV #LeoXIII #pope #Trump #RobertPrevost #workers #SocialJustice #CommonGood #EconomicJustice #solidarity
/17
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/ramble-on-welcome-pope-leo-xiv-video
The new pope's brother John Previost says,
“I know he’s not happy with what’s going on with immigration. I know that for a fact. How far he’ll go with it is only one’s guess, but he won’t just sit back. I don’t think he’ll be the silent one.”
#LeoXIV #pope #Trump #Vance #RobertPrevost #immigrants #immigration
/18
Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network, says that he expects Leo to “follow the path that Francis set to build a more inclusive and transparent Church."
"'The selection of the name of Leo XIV is a special acknowledgment of the need to support the poor and workers,' LeCompte added."
~ Angela Giuffrida, Harriet Sherwood, and Sam Jones
#LeoXIV #LeoXIII #pope #Trump #RobertPrevost #workers #SocialJustice #CommonGood #EconomicJustice #solidarity
/19
"Leo XIV supports the rights of migrants to be treated with dignity and humanity—rather than as criminals or fugitives. Indeed, many in MAGA world were quick to criticize Pope Leo XIV because he has tangled with JD Vance over the issues of immigration and the need to love everyone equally (rather than ranking them by family, community, nationality, etc.)"
~ Robert B. Hubbell
#LeoXIV #LeoXIII #pope #Trump #RobertPrevost #migrants #immigrants
/20
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/an-american-pope-a-sign-of-hope
"These Conservatives don’t despise Pope Leo, as they had never heard of him before his election. They don’t hate him, they hate his Jesus."
~ John Pavlovitz
#LeoXIV #LeoXIII #pope #Trump #RobertPrevost
/21
https://johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/no-the-right-doesnt-hate-the-new
As Charles Pierce notes, a cloud hangs over the new papacy due to Prevost's actions in shielding a sexual abuser of minors in the past:
"Those clouds never will part. Leo XIV will have to live with them over his head for the rest of his life. So will the church he now leads."
Survivors of sexual abuse by pastoral authority figures are already — and rightly so — speaking out about this. They won't and shouldn't stop doing so.
#LeoXIV #Vatican #SexualAbuse
/22
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a64718265/new-pope-robert-prevost-pope-leo-xiv/
Noting that Leo XIV's first address echoes Pope Francis’ call for people to build bridges not walls and to seek peace and justice, Kristin Du Mez says,
"At a moment when the world seems spinning out of control, when hate is called righteous and lies mascarade as truth, the head of the Catholic church is pointing the global church to deeper truths, to a centuries-long tradition of Christian charity and respect for the dignity of all."
#LeoXIV #PopeFrancis
/23
"The new pope, who served in the Vatican as a close ally of Francis, is known to share his predecessor’s deep concern for immigrants. And Leo XIV echoed the late pope’s message of liberal inclusiveness in his remarks from the balcony, calling for 'a united Church searching all together for peace and justice, working together as women and men, faithful to Jesus Christ.'”
~ John Nichols
#LeoXIV #PopeFrancis #immigrants #immigration #inclusivity #justice #peace
/25
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/pope-leo-xiv-name-meaning-social-justice/
Writing in his weekly emailed newsletter to Nation readers (there's no online link I can share), Elie Mystal says that he's a lapsed Catholic interested in the new pope:
"The reason I care, the only reason I care, is that religion, if it has any use, should be a balm to the poor and marginalized. I want the pope to be an advocate for those who have been cast out and cast off."
"I want the pope to be critical of rapacious capitalism (which Leo XIV appears to be). The white wing in this country uses religion as some kind of prosperity gospel for the well-off, telling them that they deserve to stockpile their wealth while justifying their cruelty toward others. I can’t exactly say that’s a twisted view of faith, since faith is often used to shield the wealthy. But I’d like the pope to be a global counterweight to all that."
As Nate Tinner-Williams notes, not only is Leo XIV the first American pope, but he's also "the first of African descent since the fifth century."
"Multiple genealogists, including the Louisiana Creole expert Jari Honora, traced Prevost’s ancestry to the Black community of New Orleans. His maternal ancestors lived in the Crescent City before migrating to Chicago in the early 20th century."
#LeoXIV #pope #Trump #Vance #RobertPrevost
/28
https://www.blackcatholicmessenger.org/pope-leo-xiv-ancestry/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
"When the cardinals in the conclave were looking for someone to lead the Roman Catholic church at its highest level, they appear to have confirmed Francis’ judgement when he chose chose Prevost to head the Vatican office charged that recommends who should be named a bishop and where bishops should serve:
"As Francis might have put it, in Prevost, the cardinals selected a shepherd who smells like the sheep."
~ Peterr
#LeoXIV #RobertPrevost #PopeFrancis
/29
https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/05/09/cardinal-cody-cardinal-bernardin-and-pope-leo-xiv/
"Cardinal George of Chicago famously declared, 'Until America goes into political decline, there won’t be an American pope.'
And now here we are."
~ Jay Kuo
"This appointment obviously comes at a crucial time in our country's history but also in this moment of a global authoritarianism and to have a pope, the head of the Catholic Church, who seems poised to offer a strong moral and theological stance in opposition to um abuses of power and abuses of people to stand for the dignity of all, for immigrants, for the poor — these are kind of basic Christian teachings — man, we need that right now."
~ Kristin Du Mez
#LeoXIV
/31
Pope Leo XIV, the first in history from the United States - Our thoughts...
"The last pope named Leo, Leo XIII, issued the first social encyclical, Rerum novarum, in 1891. In it, he argued for the rights and duties of workers in the context of the Industrial Revolution, including the right to work, the right to a just wage, and the right to form unions.
Nobody expected the Church at that time to do that."
~ Ruben C. Mendoza
#LeoXIV #LeoXIII #pope #Trump #RobertPrevost #workers #SocialJustice #CommonGood #EconomicJustice #solidarity
/32
https://www.ucanews.com/news/pope-leo-xiv-and-the-possible-direction-of-his-papacy/108919
MėMėNTō MōRi📍🇪🇺🇩🇪@wdlindsy 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
From an evolutionary point of view, we ALL come from a primordially human Eve and a primordially human Adam. This can be shown by tracing mitochondrial DNA (maternal lines) and Y-chromosomal DNA (paternal lines). The genetic Adam and Eve were Africans (200,000 years ago).
The colored lineage of a white person is a nice example of the complete nonsense of all racism.
People like Trump, Vance, Musk and that unfortunate Loomer are a dying breed, a dead end of intellectual evolution.
From an evolutionary point of view, we ALL come from a primordially human Eve and a primordially human Adam. This can be shown by tracing mitochondrial DNA (maternal lines) and Y-chromosomal DNA (paternal lines). The genetic Adam and Eve were Africans (200,000 years ago).
The colored lineage of a white person is a nice example of the complete nonsense of all racism.
People like Trump, Vance, Musk and that unfortunate Loomer are a dying breed, a dead end of intellectual evolution.
Nicole ParsonsThe fossil fuel industry estimates 1 billion famine deaths due to climate change.
There will be an estimated 1.2 billion climate refugees.
Fossil fuel billionaires are funding fascist movements globally to thwart a fossil fuel phase out and an accelerated transition away from fossil fuels.
Billions were spent on US elections to thwart climate action & taxes on the rich.
Fossil fuel industry ecocide is a crime against humanity. Trump shields & enables those oil oligarchs.
Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE@wdlindsy But were there ANY candidates, indeed any cardinals, who had never had dealings with sexual abusers in the church?
@TimWardCam I honestly can't answer — I don't have enough inside knowledge to answer. But we've known since the abuse crisis and cover-up in the Catholic church broke wide open with a media report when the US bishops were meeting in Dallas in 2002 that 2/3 of US bishops had sheltered or covered up for an abuser. I suspect this is par for the course for hierarchy worldwide. And, of course, subsequent reports re: other religious bodies including Southern Baptists and Mormons show a similar pattern