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On that, signs may be promising. His chosen name, after the man known as , is auspicious. Every pope includes a predictable list of relative certainties: opposition to abortion, hostility to LGBTQ rights, and probably allegations of . Leo XIV may check each of those boxes, though Leo’s latest views on LGBTQ issues appear to date back .��

But while the Pope is indeed Catholic, the best hope for Leo XIV is as a potential bulwark against the burgeoning evil of his home country. His predecessor, Pope Francis argued strongly for humanity towards migrants and immigrants, for the seriousness of climate change, and even softened somewhat on homosexuality. He called the Catholic Church in Gaza every day as Israel continued its attacks. Francis was, above all, a pope who valued human dignity. And a modern pope, as popes go.

Leo XIV is in some ways more modern still. He has been on , or X, since 2011, which means a public record of his thoughts beyond homilies or sermons, encyclicals or books. He has condemned mass shootings and the death penalty; he has supported the Black Lives Matters protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

Prevost only posted five times since 2023, but chose wisely. He expressed support for two different which U.S. vice-president JD Vance’s cruelty-based version of Catholicism; he posted twice about prayers for Pope Francis’s health. And his last post, a retweet, is of a piece in the about the Trump administration’s brutal, cruel, and often arbitrary treatment of migrants, refugees, undocumented citizens, visiting students, and more.

“It is time now for you to reclaim your conscience,” writes Bishop Evelio Menjivar, of the Archdiocese of Washington in Washington. D.C. and Maryland, in the piece. “What you are doing is worth nothing if it is stained with unjust cruelty. That is not what America stands for. You too can and should speak out against this terror and infliction of suffering on people. You can refuse to be involved in oppression and these grievous assaults on human rights and dignity.”

Pope Leo XIV spent much of his career in rural Peru. He is seen as both a continuation of Francis, and a unity candidate. But the best hope might be that he embodies humanity in the face of a rising inhumanity. The reaction from the American right is as predictable as it is revealing: they are by the spectre of opposition, or by the idea of “suicidal empathy,” or by the idea of WOKE MARXIST POPE. It is both a gruesome caricature, and a faithful picture of the movement’s derangement.

That is MAGA. It is an evil movement, in almost every way: in its of and , in ����, in its of , in its of the of a shared common good. MAGA is measles and concentration camps, secret police and arrests, cruelty and viciousness and targeting the vulnerable. And the movement includes American Catholics, up to and including the VP.

We do not yet know if Leo XIV has a stomach for that fight. And the church is not partisan, per se. But Pope John Paul II was Polish, and helped push back against Communist rule in his home country. Francis with the Trump administration on immigration above all. Maybe an American pope —��an American pope who spent time in South America, who has in New Orleans — could have a more acute impact.��

Because�� . Every fight rooted in values and humanity matters. As the Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva�� The New Yorker recently of this moment in history, “It’s as if there is a lamp, and when you open the lid the evil people come out.” The church stands outside modernity, it’s true. A����of Francis’s reforms may be more important in the context of the church. But��the right pope could help push back against the modern corrosion of humanity, and that��might matter more for everybody else.