Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is a scholar of Catholic thought. Christopher White is associate director of Georgetown University's Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. Prior to that he was an award winning reporter for the National Catholic Reporter. He's with me today because he's written a new book. It's a new book on the new pope, it's titled, "Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy". Christopher, welcome to the program, congratulations on this book.
Christopher White: Thank you, Grant. It's good to be with you.
GR: I appreciate you making the time, so. Well, I want to start actually not with Pope Leo, but with the person who preceded him and that's Pope Francis, obviously. You've spent a lot of time following him, watching him, reporting on him. But if you could answer this question briefly, what do you think Pope Francis’ legacy is, at least at an early reading?
CW: Yeah, I think Pope Francis will be remembered as a pope who really saw it as his mission to open the Catholic Church up to the modern world. And he did so in large part by shifting some of the church's major priorities. You had two popes back to back John Paul and Benedict, whose focus (was) primarily on issues of sexual morality, family ethics. And Francis pivoted away from those issues. He didn't disagree with them, but he really focused primarily on issues concerning the poor, the marginalized, the environment and reshifting some of the Catholic Church's global priorities. And in doing so, bringing it I think into a perhaps a more engaged conversation with the world around it.
GR: Okay, thanks. And so let's talk about this process that chose Cardinal Robert Prevost as the new pope last May. As you note in your book, most people with any real impression of the process probably have their knowledge from the movie, “Conclave”. But my first question is, comparing it to that I guess at least, was there that much intrigue and behind the scenes maneuvering, even in a process that is itself behind the scenes?
CW: Yeah. I mean, conclaves always get a tremendous amount of attention because they are, in fact, the most secretive election process on earth. And so there's just a lot of palace intrigue. This year, it felt particularly, the stakes were heightened by the fact that this Hollywood film had come out a few months prior and everyone seemed to have seen the film and had something to say about the process and wanted to follow it closely. The film, I have to say, got a lot right about the actual process. They got the rubrics of the conclave correct. I think it was overhyped in terms of the backroom politicking that's involved. But what it did get right is the fact that it is both the spiritual process where the electors are engaged in prayer and discernment, but yet it is also a deeply political process. And there are serious conversations taking place. And, you know, money isn't being traded or anything of that sort, but there is a sense of you're assessing candidates. And that's where the film absolutely got correct.
GR: So what were the major fault lines or were there major fault lines that emerged in the process that chose Pope Leo?
CW: Well, in a sense, every conclave is a referendum on the pope who came before. And so what the cardinals were doing in the roughly two weeks between the time of Pope Francis's death and the time they enter the Sistine Chapel they were having, you know, honest conversations behind closed doors about what the last pope did well and what is needed in the new pope. And what I argue in the book is that this conclave was really a referendum on Francis's reform efforts to shift the Catholic Church's priorities away, as I mentioned earlier, to a more outward focus and also his overall efforts to make the church more welcoming, more participatory, so less concerned with just the role of the priest or bishops. But where all the Catholics can have a say in the life of their church. And that excited a lot of people under the 12 years of Francis's pontificate, but it certainly alarmed others. And that's what the 133 men who went into the Sistine Chapel were effectively asked to do is say, do we want to continue on this path that he initiated, or is it time for a course correction?
GR: Okay, and I want to talk to you a little bit later about whether you anticipate that there will be some kind of course correction. But let me ask you this different question. You already mentioned that there are politics necessarily in this process. One thing that we have seen in recent decades when it comes to the selection process for Supreme Court justices is a desire among presidents to try to nominate relatively younger candidates if possible. And the reason for that is they want to extend the time of their influence on the court and therefore public policy. And that trend well predates President Trump. I mean, Justice Clarence Thomas is a great example of this, for instance. Were there any similar desires among the conclave regarding that? Let's find a pope who's going to live a long time, in kind of a, relatively speaking, younger pope. I mean, you've got people in there well past 80 that are voting.
CW: Yeah, it's one of those things where there's, no one says this out loud, but there's effectively a sweet spot they're looking for. They want someone young enough to do the job that can keep up with the demands of the office, which in the modern era has included a lot of travel. Popes tend to become jet setters after they take office. They're managing a huge bureaucracy, a 1.4 billion member institution. But as you know, it's a lifetime appointment. I mean, when Pope Benedict resigned in 2013, he was the first pope to voluntarily do so in 600 years. So for the most part you're looking to name someone who's going to be in there till they die. And so, most popes though, most cardinals who vote for popes are reluctant to give that assignment, that job to someone that's going to be in the position for too long because it's hard to have a regime change when you know someone's going to be there for life. And you know Pope John Paul II, who was pope for almost 30 years. And for many people they say perhaps that was a bit too long. So you're trying to look at someone who can, where is that sweet spot? And in the election of Cardinal Robert Prevost, who is 69 years old, they certainly aired younger. So you're looking at probably, you know, if he remains healthy at least a 20 year papacy. So they certainly didn't allow his youth to be held against him.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Georgetown University religion scholar Christopher White. He's the author of, "Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy". So with the relationship between popes and politics more generally is a complicated one, but it's inherent because of the things you've already said. You know, it’s 1.4 billion members, you have this high profile. Were there any concerns in the conclave about choosing an American as pope, given that many parts of the world right now have a problematic impression of America? And it's only that whole concern, I imagine, would have only been underlined by the fact that President Trump entered into the process of this decision making through his social media messaging. So were there concerns that you would detect about choosing an American?
CW: Yeah, I'd say for a long time the conventional wisdom has been that no American is going to be elected pope, you know, and that was for a few reasons. One, there was a sense that among the College of Cardinals, which is a diverse body of over 70 countries of, you know, men from over 70 countries, that America already has enough power in the world as it is. You know, it's a superpower, and they don't need the papacy and the presidency that's just too much, that would be a bridge too far. And I think there's a concern and has been a longstanding concern that in an institution like the Catholic Church that is vastly diverse, where it's growing most successfully is in the global south, that a pope from the United States would, in a sense diminish that the diversity of the global church. And that is why, you know, Cardinal Robert Prevost was in a sense the only American that would have been taken seriously because of his resume. He's a man who spent, he was born and raised in Chicago, but most of his adult life he's lived outside of the United States. The Italian papers referred to him as the ‘least American of the Americans’.
GR: (laughter)
CW: And so I think, you know, it goes to show you, there was some suspicion about an American, but because of his particular resumé, many cardinals chose to overlook that or geography wasn't really the major factor.
GR: And you've met Pope Leo when he was a cardinal, you write about that in your book. What are your impressions of him just as a person?
CW: Yeah, he's an interesting figure, I'd say. The very first time I met him, it was soon after he arrived in Rome to head up this very important office that Pope Francis had asked him to lead. I went in for a meeting with him, and I was just struck by this man who was kind but very, very determined and very serious about the work ahead of him. He asked very detailed questions and he just struck me as someone who walks into any room, any meeting, having done all of his homework and using that particular meeting to do more of it. I went in as a reporter with a list of particular questions and issues that I wanted to discuss. And I was struck how quickly he turned the conversation around and put me in the hot seat to ask me questions. And that really holds true, you know, with many people that I've interviewed that worked alongside him both in Rome and elsewhere, that he's a man of government, a man of governance. He's a real sort of manager. And in that sense, he's quite different from Pope Francis, who was an extrovert and the governance was secondary.
GR: Ah, I see, yeah, that's interesting. So, going back to our earlier conversation and your comments about perhaps a course correction or concerns or referendum on the previous pope, what does Leo's choice signify regarding those fault lines that you discussed?
CW: Yeah, I think it's fair to say that the Cardinals in electing Robert Prevost now, Pope Leo, chose to continue on the same path of reform as Pope Francis. Pope Leo is someone who shares Pope Francis’s same pastoral priorities and instincts. He was deeply shaped by his experience of Latin, you know, serving 20 years in Latin America. And I think his sort of vision of church is one similar to Francis where, you know, he sees the church's role as walking alongside the least of these, the most marginalized in society. So I think it's fair to say that he was fully supportive of Francis’s vision of opening the church up to the world around it, becoming a more dialogical institution. But where the major differences is in personality and approach to management. And I think that's why many of the people who were fully supportive of Pope Francis's vision said, okay, we have this pope that in a sense, opened everything up for us and he started all these new processes, but now we need someone who has the real skill set of a manager to come in and institutionalize these reforms for an unwieldy, complicated, I would say often, you know, archaic, antiquated institution. And let's now elect someone with a different skill set. And that's why they chose Robert Prevost, because they thought he blended those two worlds of the same sort of outlook on church life and the world around as Francis, but with a particular skill set geared toward management.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Christopher White. He's associate director of Georgetown University's Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, and he's the author of a new book on the new pope. It's titled, "Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy". So I wanted to ask you, Chris, you know, each pope comes in, they choose a name, they rename themselves. And so what's the significance of Pope Leo's choice of Leo as a name given perhaps maybe previous Pope Leo's?
CW: Yeah. So he's Leo the 14th and taking Leo is a nod most recently to Leo the 13th, who was the pope, who really had quite a significant reign at the height of the industrial revolution. And he wrote this, you know, what the Catholics call an encyclical. It's a fancy, you know, clunky word for a letter that really said, you know, this was at the height of the revolution saying the church has to stand with workers to be on the side of the workers, in the face of, you know, real dehumanization. And it was, it cemented in a sense, this new era of thought in church life, not as sort of modern Catholic social teaching, saying that the church stands with particularly the marginalized, the poor. And it's more complicated than that but that's the bird's eye view of it all. And Leo the 14th said he's taking that name because in this age, we are seeing a new revolution with technology, particularly artificial intelligence. And the Catholic Church is neither anti A.I. or pro A.I., but the Catholic Church's main concern is that the human person be at the center of conversations about technological development. And I think he sees a particular duty in this as we're seeing just, you know, massive technological change to sort of have a moral voice.
GR: Yeah, that's interesting. And probably something is going to tap a nerve as we go on and continue on with this change. You know, I wanted to ask you this question based on some recent experiences I've had. I was traveling in Eastern Europe, and I like to go to Catholic churches. I'm not Catholic, but I find them very interesting and beautiful. And one of the things that I was reminded of is the pride that people feel when a pope is chosen from their country or even just from their region of the world. I mean, I saw portraits of Pope John Paul II in Hungary and Slovakia for instance. Pope Francis obviously very important to Argentineans and South America more generally, he'll be remembered for a very long time. And as I just said, you know, I'm not Catholic, but I wanted to share with you, I don't get quite the same sense that here in the United States, something similar is going on regarding this new pope. There was a lot of excitement about it at first, but I just don't feel the same kind of, I don't know, what it is like almost like a soccer kind of thing that you that I got in Europe. Am I missing something? And if I'm not missing something, why is there a difference in the United States?
CW: I say yes and no. So on one hand, the Pope Leo story is an afterthought for most Americans, I think, because of Donald Trump, who sucks up all of the oxygen in the room, whether you're for or against the president, he is the biggest news story and he is leaves little room for anything else. So I think you're right that we don't detect the same sort of fervor or enthusiasm. That being said, in July, I spent some time out in Chicago launching the book. And there in his hometown, the excitement was quite palpable. You go down the street and gift shops, you know, that sell Chicago merch are now selling Pope Leo gear. You know, I did a number of events where, you know, just people, they're almost giddy at the prospect of his hometown, his homecoming. He's a White Sox fan, so just this week, they had a moment where they inaugurated this chair at the stadium where he once sat and they had a big sort of, you know, hometown celebration in June where I think that 20-30,000 people came out. So in his hometown, you do get the sense of that in the way that you might in Poland, where there's still sort of such energy and almost a cult around Pope John Paul II. Not the same degree here in Chicago, but it's more detectable there than I'd say in New York or Washington.
GR: Yeah, okay, interesting. So he's early in, but what changes have you noted so far, the biggest ones? And what changes do you anticipate from this new pope? Is it going to be this sort of institutional backfilling of Francis? What else might we expect?
CW: Yeah, I think it's fair to say we just passed the hundred day mark. And, you know, the hundred day mark is not anything that's a useful sort of category when it comes to the papacy, because, as we said, popes are elected for life. You know, if presidents are eager to, you know, show that they're capable of getting things done in the first hundred days, popes have for the most part, a fairly different approach to this and Leo certainly is following suit. He's keeping his cards very close to his chest. I monitor his schedule every morning to see who he's meeting with. And he's meeting with everyone from heads of state to heads of Vatican offices, people that would be seen as, you know, natural allies of him and Pope Francis and also those that perhaps were antagonistic to Francis. So he's showing early on that he wants to listen to everyone, but he hasn't made any consequential decisions. We don't know who his team is yet. He's effectively, you know, a president names a cabinet, his cabinet are effectively the holdovers from Pope Francis. He's reconfirmed everyone to their posts for the time being. And so in the coming months, we'll see him start forming his own team. One of the first big jobs he has to name is he has to decide who's going to replace him at the office that is responsible for identifying and vetting potential Catholic bishops around the world. It's a very powerful job. That will be the first real indicator of what he wants in a leader. And we'll see what he chooses, the profile of that person. So, so far, all we're really left to read are his public speeches. He speaks every Wednesday and then Sunday at the Vatican and then he gives addresses throughout the week. And I'd say the persistent theme so far has been peace. He's spoken more about Ukraine and Gaza than anything else. And that seems to be his front burner issue at the moment.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is Georgetown University's Christopher White. So you just made a comparison a few minutes ago to the presidency in talking about the pope. And one thing that strikes me as a political scientist in that similarity is that the person immediately becomes an institution, right? You've been talking about this person, Robert Prevost, but now he's got a different name. That actually speaks to what I'm talking about, you physically rename yourself. Former presidents often speak of their very first security briefing as the moment when this fact hits them: I am not just a person, I'm an institution. There's a wonderful video of President Obama when he travels for the first time on Air Force One. And you can see this just, you know, this just coming together in his head. I was just wondering if you have any reflections on that as it relates to the papacy, because I would think in some ways the hit of, now I'm this thing, is probably even bigger for a pope.
CW: Yeah. I'd say there are two moments that I'll point to. The first we've already seen, it's the moment when the pope appears on the balcony. That happens typically after about an hour after their election. So they don't have a lot of time to prepare. I mean, you know, this conclave was 24 hours and I think it's fair to say from my own reporting in the book that Robert Prevost probably went to bed on the evening of May 7th with the good sense that he might wake up and be elected pope the next day. His chances on that very first ballot were quite strong. Even so, you know, from the time you're elected to the time you're introduced to the public, it's really 60 minutes, 70 minutes. He gave a short speech, it was about 500 words that he quickly wrote himself but there's no chance to talk to advisers. And so you get a sense of the man and his priorities in that first public appearance. He said the word peace nine times. You could just tell that's kind of what was keeping him up at night and that's his chance to introduce himself to the world. We certainly saw that with Francis in 2013 as well. You know, those initial speeches are moments where you make a first impression. But then I would say related to your anecdote of Obama, papal travel, it's just a chance where you see a pope being forced to have these often unscripted moments. You see them with people at every turn and hopefully he will have his first international trip later this year. It looks like it'll be at the end of November to Turkey and possibly Lebanon. And those are the first moments where he will have a press conference, typically on the way back to Rome. Where, you know, he's put in the hot seat and that's when you get another sense of the man and his priorities and how comfortable he is sort of being unscripted and what he's willing to say. So I'm just saying, you know, for now, stay tuned.
GR: Well, one of the things that that struck me as you were talking and the difference between presidents and popes is they haven't had a year or more of a campaign and a team, it's just this guy. And so it's not like he's, yeah, it's interesting that he doesn't have advisers and he's got 60 minutes to come up with what he wants to say. Yeah, that's quite something.
CW: Including, you know, he's asked, you know, do you accept the election? And then the second question is by which name would you like to be called?
GR: Oh, wow.
CW: And so, you know, even a name which has tremendous weight to it, it’s not a tremendous amount of time to give that consideration.
GR: And then you say, let me think about it, I'll get back to you? (laughter)
CW: (laughter)
GR: That's not going to work in that instance. Okay, so we've got about 2 minutes left. I wanted to put one, perhaps two questions to you, depending on how long you spend on the first one. This first one, you may not be comfortable answering, but I really want to ask it. Were you personally pleased with the choice or were you in a sense rooting for somebody else?
CW: I think I was one of the few journalists that was making the case that Robert Prevost was a real contender. And I have to say I took a lot of flak for that from a number of colleagues, those that thought that I was, in a sense, playing up the idea of an American pope for an American audience. And what I had detected in the ten days or so leading up to the election is that people just didn't see him as an American and geography wasn't going to be a strike against him. And if you remove that from the equation, he ticked all the boxes. And so in that sense, I felt vindicated. I think he has tremendous assets and gifts, and I think he has the potential to be a great leader. So in that sense, yes, I was pleased. As an American, I'm delighted as well. I think at a moment in which we see increased isolationism and sort of resistance to sort of the multilateralism that sort of defined the post-World War II era, to have an American as pope who believes in those things, I think is a very necessary counterweight at the moment.
GR: That's a really interesting observation, I hadn't thought of that at all so I think that's a good place to leave the conversation. That was Christopher White and again, his new book is titled, "Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy". I'd say it's very informative and it's also a very good read. Chris, thanks again for making time to talk to me. I really enjoyed this, really learned a lot.
CW: A real pleasure. Thank you, Grant.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
