The newly elected Pope Leo XIV – Chicago-born Robert Prevost, a member of the Augustinian non secular order who spent a lot of his life ministering to Catholics in Peru – is “a real servant of God,” who lives his life in response to St. Augustine’s “core values of reality, unity, and love,” a former protégé who has recognized him for many years informed The Unbiased.
In a cellphone interview on Thursday, Fr. Rob Hagan, who was mentored in his earlier years by Prevost, stated that he at all times referred to the 69-year-old Pope as “Bob.”
Now, he stated, “referring to him as Pope Leo XIV is simply an honor.”
“We’re so humbled and grateful for the individual that he’s, and has been,” Hagan went on. “He’s extremely vibrant, he speaks a number of languages – he served a big a part of his ministry exterior of the U.S., helping the poor and other people on the margins. He has an actual approachability and heat, a twinkle in his eye, he’s actually a present to the church and to the world.”
Hagan stated that whereas Prevost, a dark-horse candidate, was chosen to be the first-ever American-born Pope by the Faculty of Cardinals, members of the Catholic neighborhood “additionally imagine that the holy spirit may be very a lot guiding the method.”
“For [him] to have emerged as Pope, it’s our perception that this was the need of God,” Hagan stated. “It’s simply fantastic, the peacemaker and unifier that he’s.”
St. Augustine was known for his empathy, and the order facilities its work on the right way to finest take care of the neediest.
As an Augustinian, Prevost will naturally carry a considerably progressive outlook, comparatively talking, to the papacy, in response to Hagan. As an American, Hagan expects Prevost to carry the perfect of what the US has traditionally stood for, he stated.
“Do we’ve issues? Sure. Are we flawed? Sure. But when you consider the values upon which this nation was based: justice, peace, alternative for all individuals, I believe Leo XIV will embody what’s finest about American values and actually serve in such a method that these values might be lived for all individuals, of all international locations,” Hagan continued. “And that everybody will really feel that they’re part of the flock, and that it is a shepherd who’s for all of the individuals.”
Prevost’s predecessor, Pope Francis, made some extent of focusing his papacy on those considered outsiders, such because the poor, the incarcerated, and the LGBTQ+ neighborhood. Francis, a Jesuit who served as Archbishop of Buenos Aires earlier than changing into Pope in 2013, will “forged an extended shadow” over Prevost’s upcoming tenure, in response to Prof. Erin Galgay Walsh, a scholar of historical and late vintage Christianity on the College of Chicago Divinity Faculty.
Prevost labored very carefully with Francis, and each males had been college students of Latin American liberation theology, with a robust dedication to the poor, Walsh defined.
The tenets of St. Augustine are sometimes “about ensuring that every individual is taken care of, and has what they want,” Walsh informed The Unbiased.
She stated she thinks Prevost will carry ahead Francis’s devotion to the excluded, which he could mix with facets of Pope Benedict XVI’s popularity as an mental. When Walsh first heard that Prevost had been elevated to the papacy, her thoughts “instantly went to Pope Leo XIII.”
Leo XIII, who died in 1903, “is understood and remembered for critiquing the excesses of capitalism, and in addition socialism, and actually selling the welfare of the employee,” Walsh stated, including that Catholics can doubtless count on the identical from Prevost.
“An necessary message that Catholicism teaches, as we face AI and different challenges, is the dignity of labor,” Walsh stated.
She sees one thing very poignant in Prevost’s ascension to Pope as an American who later turned a twin citizen of Peru, particularly now that we dwell “in an age of rising nationalism and [in] a really polarized society.” Walsh thinks Prevost might function “a counterpoint” to the type of insularity dominating politics in lots of locations at this time.
“I at all times emphasize to my college students that the Jesus motion was multilingual and multicultural from the very starting, and embraced residing amongst others,” Walsh stated. “[Prevost] has performed that, he embodies that, and maybe provides People another mind-set about what it means to be an American.”
Raúl Zegarra, a Peruvian-born assistant professor of Roman Catholic theological research at Harvard Divinity Faculty, referred to as Prevost “fairly a exceptional determine.”
He additionally expects to see “a way of continuity” with the legacy left by Pope Francis, emphasizing Prevost’s concentrate on peace throughout his first handle as pontiff.
“The primary sentence was about peace, it was the phrase he stated essentially the most in his allocution,” Zegarra informed The Unbiased. “You can’t hear that with out excited about the truth that there are a number of wars happening proper now, and as a significant non secular chief, the reiteration of peace is especially highly effective. I believe which will sign among the work he could need to pursue.”
Additional, Zegarra stated, “the emphasis on a superb that lives inside all of us, with out limits or situations,” was additionally very Francis-like.
“It sounds lots like Francis, and frames the church as one that’s open and welcoming, a church for all, a church that builds dialogue, that builds bridges,” Zegarra maintained.
He stated will probably be “unimaginable” for a lot of to keep away from making comparisons between Prevost and U.S. President Donald Trump, however that “we’ll inevitably see radical factors of distinction.” Whereas Trump and different right-wing leaders are “sort of closing up and never keen to concentrate on the wants of essentially the most weak,” Prevost will supply a well-defined different, in response to Zegarra.
Trump himself welcomed the brand new Pope with a Fact Social put up writing, “Congratulations to Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who was simply named Pope. It’s such an honor to appreciate that he’s the primary American Pope. What pleasure, and what a Nice Honor for our Nation. I look ahead to assembly Pope Leo XIV. Will probably be a really significant second!”
On the identical time, many in Trump’s orbit had been considerably much less enthused concerning the 267th Pope.
“WOKE MARXIST POPE,” far-right conspiracy theorist and alleged Trump concubine Laura Loomer posted on social media following the announcement that Prevost had been elected.
“After all he’s anti-MAGA and WOKE,” she ranted in a separate post. “One other Open Borders Pope. Gross.”
In a TV look final week, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon denigrated Prevost as one in every of “essentially the most progressive” candidates for the papacy, cautioning that he wouldn’t be a pal to the MAGA motion.
As MAGA influencer Vince Langman tweeted after Prevost’s choice was made public, “In case you are questioning why they picked an American to be a Pope for the primary time in historical past… He is a WOKE By no means Trumper liberal. That is why!”
Conversely, to Fr. Hagan, Prevost is somebody he “at all times regarded as much as,” and an individual he “has at all times had quite a lot of respect for.”
Prevost “modeled a lifestyle” that Hagan might aspire to, and has “at all times been sort to me.” Now, as Pope Leo XIV, Hagan is aware of his life might be very totally different any further.
His message to his onetime mentor?
As Hagan informed The Unbiased, “I actually simply supply my congratulations and my prayers.”
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