His election Pope Leo 14th It marks a new era for the Catholic Church, at a time when world politics is polarized and social challenges are high. For the Catholics, the Pope is the Holy Father. For the world, it is a strong voice, the New York Times says in their analysis today.
The new Pope Leo has already begun to express his place for a number of critical issues, such as artificial intelligencethe poor and the immigrantsand the ongoing global conflicts and expose his own perspective on how to lead the Catholic Church. Like his predecessor, he intends to embrace the poor and the marginalized.
He wants to continue Francis’ attempt to open the Vatican doors and hear many voices outside the ecclesiastical hierarchy. And in a clear indication that this pope is deeply aware of the greatest tests of the modern age, he said that the church would deal with the challenge that artificial intelligence sets for “Human dignity, justice and work”.
Franciscan’s energy and leadership may be a model but Leo seems to shape his own way. While people are changing, the new Pope will face challenges and expectations that go beyond the border of the Catholic Church.
As a leader about 1.4 billion cathedral, A population group equivalent to the size of China or India, the words of Pope Leo 14th are important for nearly 1 in 6 people in the world. It also has a strong global headquarters, so the topics it chooses to focus on can resonate far beyond the Catholic flock.
Francis’ energy, gift and compassion reminded not only Catholics but also to those who belong to other religions or are in secular circles, that a pope can be a public voice in moral life.
Francis assumed the role of defender of the poor and of their migrantas well as the urgent need to respond to climate change. He was a man with strong movements – gestures, such as his first official visit to Lampedusa, the small island of the Mediterranean where thousands of desperate refugees and immigrants tried to enter Europe, or his visits to prisons to kiss the feet of prisoners.
Shortly before being admitted to the hospital in February, he criticized President Trump’s massive expulsion policies, describing them as a violation of the “dignity of many men and women, and entire families”.
Pope Leo 14th takes over the papal post in a hectic period. Wars are raging on many fronts, political sphere in many countries is polarized, economic inequality is growing and people are trying to create basic human connections through a sea of ​​misinformation and misleading messages on social media.
“We are at a time when the moral forces of the world and the religious forces of the world have a deep responsibility to say that they do not have to be so,” Father Dr. William J. Barber II, Protestant priest and founder of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at the Yale Theological School.
Each pope uses his worldwide influence to emphasize certain issues. Pope John Paul II played an important role in the collapse of the Soviet and European communism, planting the seeds of the Solidarity Movement in Poland when he made his first visit as a Pope to his homeland.
Millions of people came to hear him, acting independently of the communist government, which strengthened them to protest against their authoritarian leaders.
OApas Benedict He was a conservative scholar who attempted to bring the Church back to its authentic teaching, he became a critic of the Iraq war and a supporter of environmental protection.
Pope does not always embody moral integrity. The most characteristic example is the deep judgment sexual abuse that has hit the Catholic Church, seriously undermining its credibility. Survivors and critics blame successive modifish for insufficient or incorrect handling.
Scholars continue to discuss whether Pope Pius Iv knew about the Holocaust and did not resist Hitler, or if he remained publicly silent because he secretly regulated or at least allowed local Catholics to save Jews from the Nazis.
The Pope’s global recognition allows him to speak with unique force. As a personality that goes beyond national interests, may affect political leaders to act for the collective good, notes the post.
Pope Francis, for example, in 2015 wrote the first papal circular focused on the environment, describing climate change as a threat, whose greatest consequences affect the poor. The same year, 195 countries signed a historical agreement in Paris And at least 10 world leaders mentioned the Pope’s words during their speeches at the UN Climate Conference.
The influence of a Pope, however, has its limits, is subject to changing policies, cultural battles and major economic turmoil. And one of the most fundamental principles of Catholicism – to support peace – is often the most difficult goal to achieve.
Pope Francis said he was on a “secret mission” to stop the war between Russia and Ukraine, fell on his knees to kiss the feet of the leaders of South Sudan and his opposition and, in his last speech on Easter before he died,
As a single voice on the stage of the world, the ability of a Pope to organize changes depends on the international political context. Francis became a Pope at a time when there were natural allies such as former President Barack Obama in the US and former Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany who supported his message in favor of immigrants. When Franciscus died, people had shifted in a more right direction, with President Trump in the US, Victor Orban in Hungary and Georgia Meloni in Italy.
In some issues of the cultural war, activists on both sides may wish to claim the new Pope as … their own. The Liberals will embrace his defense for the oppressed, the Conservatives will press Pope Leo to remain faithful to the current Catholic teaching on issues such as marriage between people of the same sex.
In the United States, where the new Pope was born and raised, some hope that Pope Leo 14th will continue Francis’ work as a counterweight to anti-immigration policy.
However, as the Nightit’s still too early to show how Pope Leo will use his voice and influence beyond the boundaries of the church.