Cardinal Robert Franics Prevost made history on Thursday when he was chosen the first American pope of the Roman Catholic Church. As Pope Leo XIV, he will lead a global communion of 1.4 billion. Photo by Alessandra Tarantino/AP Photo

Voices & Opinion

The Catholic Church Elects Its First American Pope: What Should He Do First?

Boston University Catholics and experts offer takes on what Pope Leo XIV’s priorities should be

The Roman Catholic Church made history in Rome on Thursday when the College of Cardinals elected Robert Francis Prevost pope, the first American to be chosen to head the Church. As Leo XIV, the Chicago native will lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. 

Now 69, Prevost is an alumnus of Villanova University and Catholic Theological Union. He was ordained a priest in 1982 at age 27 and later received a doctorate in canon law from Rome’s Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. Before his papal election, he was head of the Church’s Dicastery for Bishops at the Vatican, a powerful position supervising the selection and management of bishops worldwide. (He was appointed to the post by the late Pope Francis in 2023). 

A dual citizen of the United States and Peru, where he served for two decades as parish priest, missionary, teacher, and head of the Order of St. Augustine, the new pope was named archbishop of Chiclayo before being made a cardinal by Francis in 2023 and brought to Rome. 

Church watchers consider Leo a moderate. Like Francis, he has been a strong voice for marginalized people, and in his first public remarks as pope, he called for a Church “close to those who suffered.” But he has also been a defender of Church teachings on matters such as opposition to women deacons. In a 2012 talk, he deplored Western culture’s “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel,” specifying “homosexual lifestyle” and “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.”

Yet in those public remarks, he struck a note of unity, calling for congregants to be at peace and “to be a single people.” All of which leaves as an open question the path his papacy will take.

 BU Today reached out to several members of the BU community who study Catholicism with one question: What is the biggest challenge facing the Church that the new pope must address?

Phillip Haberkern, College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of history, who teaches the Reformation, Renaissance, and Catholic/Christian history, and the author of Patron Saint and Prophet: Jan Hus in the Bohemian and German Reformation (Oxford University Press, 2016):

A significant issue is how some of Francis’ decisions will affect the Church over the next generation. The globalization of the College of Cardinals, for instance, will undoubtedly have an impact on the direction of the Church’s missions and the composition of its hierarchy. It’s difficult to know what that might look like. 

It will be interesting to see how the new pope responds to Francis’ efforts to push the Church on issues like communion for divorced people, the blessing of same-sex unions, and the liturgical roles that are opened up to women. 

I was struck by Leo’s repetition of the word “dialogue” in his oration. This feels aligned with Francis’ priorities. I also found his emphasis on charity—which I read in a more Latin sense as “caritas,” brotherly love for members of the community in need—inspiring, and his repeated references to the Church’s need to meet people in their suffering and offer them love.

I love when we get a glimpse of the individual pope’s formation as a Christian. For Leo, there was so much about his experience as a missionary and educator and Augustinian. He referred to his desire that “we can all walk together toward that homeland which God has prepared for us.” This calls back to St. Augustine’s idea that a Christian’s life on earth is a “peregrinatio,” a pilgrimage, and that we ultimately should live as citizens in the “City of God.” The fact that Earth is not our ultimate home does not mean that we merely pass through it, but that it is our responsibility to try and make it correspond more closely to divine will. Through his emphasis on love, charity, mission, and dialogue, I see Leo laying out this Augustinian injunction as a blueprint for his pontificate.

Phyllis Zagano (COM’70), Hofstra University senior research associate-in-residence and adjunct professor of religion, practicing Catholic, and author of Just Church: Catholic Social Teaching, Synodality, and Women (Paulist Press, 2023):

Different cultures see different problems in the Church, but overall, the biggest challenge facing the Church that the new pope must address revolves around how the Church speaks of, and treats, women. While the Church’s words about women are many and laudable, the fact is that the hierarchical Church, the “management” if you will, does not always speak of, or treat, women equally.

At the macro level, the Church recognizes that it is women who most suffer the ravages of war and poverty and states that all persons are made in the image and likeness of God. However, the Church has argued that women cannot be restored to the ordained diaconate—well documented in history-—because they cannot act or be “in persona Christi servi” (in the person of Christ the servant). To say women cannot be ordained to an office they have already held signals to the world that women are lesser beings, not worthy of equal respect.

At the micro level, women are often unpaid or part-time workers in parish and diocesan workplaces. All over the world, the Church is diminished by its repeated ignoring of the talents of women and the failure to accept its history of ordained women deacons.

Both directly and indirectly, women around the world endure this treatment. More are leaving [the Church], bringing their children, husbands, and checkbooks with them.

Regina Hansen, College of General Studies master lecturer in rhetoric, practicing Catholic, and editor of Roman Catholicism in Fantastic Film (McFarland, 2011):

There are so many challenges, but the one that may encompass them all is the challenge to ground the Church in the Beatitudes and the Works of Mercy, to speak and act for those on the margins, those who suffer.

This is what Francis wanted, I think. But there are many people throughout the world, including here in the United States, and including people who identify as Christian or Catholic, who actively reject Jesus’ call to love our neighbors as ourselves. Honestly, it will be a challenge for all of us to maintain mercy and compassion and love in the world as it is right now. The new pope just has a bigger platform.

Kari Pacyniak (STH’15), a priest in Roman Catholic Women Priests, a breakaway movement whose clergy are excommunicated by the Vatican:

The Church today faces many challenges, including economic injustice, a legacy of sexual abuse, a growing climate crisis, an increase in war and violence, and gender inequality. Amidst all of these, the pope must address how the Church is to be a symbol of Christ’s love and peace in the world: carrying on the work of the Synod on Synodality, listening to the needs of the people, and working towards full equality in the Church for all people regardless of gender, sexuality, race, or class. 

The Church has a rich tradition of social justice and standing with those who are marginalized, and the Church has the opportunity to center social justice in its global presence with the papacy of Leo XIV.