Pope Leo XIV is still keeping his cards close to his cassock, but people who have observed him over the years are beginning to help fill in the picture of what characteristics are likely to shape his pontificate.
Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Teaching and Public Life hosted a panel discussion about the new pope and, specifically, the connection between his election and the promotion of Catholic social teaching.
Redemptorist Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, said that he thought the single most important thing people should know about the new pope is that “he has a good grip on the Catholic identity, and Catholic in the sense of not simply a series of norms or rituals but as a universal, a global perspective. And he’s lived that and the church is going to be enriched by that.”
Tobin recalled that, before the conclave, the cardinals focused on the needs of the church and that the quickness of the election was in part the fact that then-Cardinal Robert Prevost checked so many boxes: He has experience of pastoral ministry, he has been to the peripheries, he worked closely with Pope Francis, and he has knowledge and experience of the church in multiple countries.
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With thanks to the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) and Michael Sean Winters, where this article originally appeared.
