How America was built by Catholics and the Catholic Church by Americans.
God is truly full of surprises. The possibility of an American pope was doubtful, so long as the country remained a global superpower.
Throughout the centuries, Church leaders have viewed—and may still view—the United States with skepticism. In recent history, Pope Francis had a complicated relationship with U.S. Catholics, especially in regards to limiting celebrations of the traditional Latin Mass, criticizing the nation’s immigration policy, and sowing doctrinal confusion.
Yet, on May 8, the College of Cardinals elected Robert Francis Prevost—a Chicago-born prelate, who served as the bishop of the Chiclayo Diocese in Peru (2015–2023) and the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops—as the first American pope, and the 267th in the Catholic Church’s history.
Taking the name Leo XIV, the new pontiff greeted the crowds in St. Peter’s Square in both Italian and Spanish, emphasizing a spirit of unity throughout his first message:
“We are disciples of Christ, Christ goes before us, and the world needs his light. Humanity needs him like a bridge to reach God and his love. You help us to build bridges with dialogue and encounter so we can all be one people always in peace.”
Following his election, analysts and social media were quick to dissect Leo XIV’s views through the American ideological prism of conservative versus liberal. Some have posited that he stands as a contrast to Donald Trump and MAGA, a “countervailing voice against the country’s newly powerful strain of right-leaning Catholics,” as Ruth Graham writes in The New York Times. However, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, who reportedly played “kingmaker” in the conclave, says otherwise.
But, as a cardinal, the new pontiff openly criticized Vice President J.D. Vance and the Trump administration on immigration policy, and signaled his support of Pope Francis’s synodality and environmental policies. As Christopher Hale, a Democrat politician, states, Leo XIV’s election is a “cultural watershed” because “[i]n a society that often equates American influence with might or money or celebrity, now our foremost representative on the global stage is a humble man in white robes, preaching love, justice, and mercy.” Other commentators, like David French, have argued that Leo XIV has supplanted President Donald Trump as the most important American.
Still, for liberals, Leo XIV’s views on women ordination, abortion, and even LGBTQ issues may leave a lot to be desired. Plus, he might be a registered Republican.
Nevertheless, the pope is a universal figure—he is no longer strictly an American, so it would be myopic to suggest Leo XIV’s pontificate will only serve to counterbalance the United States and Trumpism; as the adage goes, the Church “thinks in centuries.” However, his native country should feel pride at offering the Church a shepherd for the entire world. As President Trump succinctly stated, this is a “great honor.”
Truly, it is a gift. No longer is Catholicism a perceived foreign and/or European religion, but one now firmly rooted in the New World with Francis and Leo’s pontificates. Prevost was raised in Chicago, not in Italy; he graduated from Villanova University, not the University of Paris; his native language is English; and he is a White Sox fan (even attending the 2005 World Series).
For the United States, which has had a sordid past and present prejudice against Catholics (the latter including the FBI’s investigation of Latin Mass attendees and arrest of pro-lifers), Leo XIV’s election is a watershed moment because it has been a long road for American Catholicism.
This road began in 1492. Christopher Columbus, a devout Catholic unjustly maligned by modernity, journeyed to the New World to evangelize. Indeed, the first recorded Mass in the Americas was during his second voyage, on the feast of the Epiphany, Jan. 6, 1494. Decades later, the first Catholic parish in the New World was established in St. Augustine, Fla. (Coincidentally, Pope Leo XIV was formerly the head of the Order of St. Augustine.) In 1611, nearly a decade before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Ma., French Jesuits celebrated the first known Mass on American soil in Maine.
In short, Catholicism was the first major European cultural export to the Americas.
The relationship between Catholics and America would take a darker turn. As Rory Carroll highlights in The Guardian, “From the first Puritan settlers to televangelists, leading political, business and religious figures lambasted followers of Rome as theological abominations and traitorous fifth columnists.” The nativist movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries, which included groups like the Know Nothing Party, the American Protective Association (APA), and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), persecuted and belittled Catholic immigrants. They were barred from jobs and even public office; Catholic schools, churches, and neighborhoods were destroyed in riots like in Boston and Philadelphia; cartoonist Thomas Nast depicted the papacy as a sinister world actor, seeking to undermine the United States.
Priests like Father James Doyle were even murdered. (He performed a marriage between a Puerto Rican man and a minister’s daughter, who had converted to Catholicism.)
Ultimately, one could not be Catholic and a good American citizen—or such thought undergirded the anti-Catholicism movements. This sentiment plagued Catholic politicians such as President John F. Kennedy well into the 20th century.
Yet America was built by Catholics and the Catholic Church by Americans. The country is soaked in the blood of martyrs, like the North American Jesuits in the early 1600s and Spanish missionaries out west in the 1700s. In the 20th century, Stanley Rother from Oklahoma and James Alfred Miller from Wisconsin were killed on Guatemala mission trips in 1981 and 1982, respectively. Both are now on the path to canonization.
To date, the Church has canonized more than ten Americans—and more are en route to sainthood. These souls exemplified philanthropic, charitable virtues and the corporal works of mercy: Junípero Serra, a 18th century Spanish missionary, founded missions in California and who, despite modern efforts to cancel him, sought to protect the native populations; Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born saint, pioneered the U.S. parochial school system; Katherine Drexel established the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and educated and sought justice for Blacks and Native Americans; Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, the first U.S. saint, dedicated her life to the poor and immigrants, founding hospitals and orphanages across the country in the 19th and 20th centuries; and Damien of Molokai tended to those afflicted with leprosy—which he himself eventually succumbed to.
There are also notable American Catholics who are not yet canonized, like Father Michael McGivney, who founded the Knights of Columbus (KofC) in 1882, in part to address the needs of immigrants. Today, it is the largest Catholic fraternal organization in the world with more than 2.1 million members and, last year, donated $190 million in charity. Meanwhile, Archbishop Fulton Sheen revolutionized faith-based broadcasting in the mid-20th century, with Emmy-winning shows that peaked at 30 million weekly viewers.
Catholics have left an indelible mark on America’s history, especially in building a philanthropic infrastructure to serve those most in need. One even helped found the nation, with Charles Carroll of Carrollton signing the Declaration of Independence.
No doubt, the heroic holiness of other Americans is known to Pope Leo XIV and will inform his papacy. The new pontiff recognizes the Church—and Western Civilization—are at a critical juncture with wars igniting across the globe and the rise of artificial intelligence. He even admitted selecting his pontifical name because:
“... Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.”
America, and Americans, have been a stalwart for Western Civilization before, defeating the tyrannies of the 20th century in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The nation has also been a great exporter of its economics, markets, technology, culture, and even the principles enshrined in the Declaration and Constitution.
Now, with Pope Leo XIV’s election, an American is poised to combat modernity’s infection of Western Civilization, while evangelizing, strengthening, and rebuilding the Church at a time when people are seeking eternal truths. In truth, an American can export the greatest virtue: hope—that Jesus Christ is resurrected, and that death is not the end, but the threshold to eternal life. And citizens can share this hope by inculcating and sharing the “treasury of [the Church’s] social teaching,” promoting human dignity and the common good through charity.
If Pope Leo XIV’s first message indicates the trajectory of his pontificate, then it will focus on “building bridges,” being a “Church that always seeks peace, that seeks charity, that always seeks to be close, especially to those who suffer.” Indeed, the message may have already been received. The Papal Foundation—a U.S.-based charitable organization aligned with the Holy Father—is predicting it will see increased giving because of Pope Leo XIV’s American heritage.
Though America may pass away, the Church will not. As Christ told Peter, to whom Leo XIV is a successor two thousand years later, “Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”
For a native son to serve as Christ’s Vicar is a cause for celebration, not merely because its likelihood seemed slim before May 8. Indeed, no American has held a greater role or bore a heavier cross. This is not simply a conservative versus liberal ideological battle, but one of greater consequence. The Church is fighting for the salvation of souls and protection of human dignity against “the devils who prowl about the world.”
With Leo XIV as the shepherd, blessed by the Holy Spirit and fostered by the American spirit, an American can lead the revival of our times—and he can do so, not with economic or military strength, but through the Gospel, charity, and love.
