Vatican City – Pope Leo XIV has inherited a furious battle not only for the soul of the Catholic Church, but also for his place in the geopolitical world.
The new Pope will have to decide if his global pulpit will continue with the widely progressive legacy of Pope Francis or return to a more conservative approach. The first American pontiff will deal with the spiritual decline in the basis of European power of the Church, along with its increase in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. And will be forced to face the legacy of the sexual abuse scandal of decades.
“In general, the most important thing that the Pope has to take care of is the Catholic Church, but at this time it is much more complicated because we are in a world of world interruption,” said Massimo Faggioli, a professor and expert in the world in the internal functioning of the Church, based at the University of Villanova. “The Church is much more global than ever, so the cardinals will have to consider what a global leader of the Catholic Church means in this situation.”
Here is a look at what is in the ecclesiastical input tray:
Sexual abuse scandal
After hundreds of thousands of cases arose in dozens of countries during the last century, the church’s endemic sexual abuse scandal is far from being resolved.
The cases continue to be discovered, and although Francis went beyond their predecessors to address this, the activists said it did not approach enough.
“The next Pope must institute a zero tolerance law for sexual abuse that immediately eliminates abusive clerics and leaders who have covered the abuse of the ministry,” Survivors Network said of the abused by priests, or Snap, a guard dog based in Chicago, said Leo was chosen.
“You must use your authority to promulgate fundamental and institutional changes to end the systematic practice of sexual abuse and its concealment,” he said.
Ideology
Francis was widely seen as a progressive force, at least compared to predecessors and colleagues. It allowed priests to bless same -sex couples informally, asking: “Who am I to judge?” And about doctrinal dogma he favored issues such as global capitalism and climatic crisis.
Although this was not cut and dried (he compared the abortions to “hire a hired killer”), his message enraged the conservative traditionalists, including those on the American right, who would like to see that Francis’s successor returns to what they believe are the main teachings of the Church.
“At a time when Iliberalism is gaining international land,” “Francis’s messages” was an unexpected oasis for many and inappropriately out of place for others, “said Effie Fokas, an associate of specialized research in geopolitics and religion at the London Economy and Political Science School and Political Science before Leo’s Choice on Thursday.
“Therefore, there is great anticipation on whether the Church, on the one hand, will choose to be an oasis or, rather, at the time with the waves of right conservatism that extends over the United States and much of Europe and beyond.”
Geopolitics
Whether it likes it or not, the new leader of 1.4 billion Catholics will become a main voice in a overturned world. Francis chose to use that platform to pontify against the war in the Gaza Strip, for example, and even rebuked the position of President Donald Trump about immigration.
The next Pope can choose to continue these fulminations, or not. But even a less open Pope would be remarkable for his absence on the world stage.
“Francis has been a lighthouse of hope in the world, probably the only ethical rudder on the ship (sunk) of global politics,” said Sara Silvestri, a titular professor of International Policy at City St. George’s, University of London, in an email.
I hoped that the new Pope does not “fall into the trap of putting aside” with any political faction, but “avoiding this emphasizing the universality of the Christian message and its central values of justice and mercy that are not negotiable and cannot fit into the narrow box of a political party or a political ideology.”
Geography
A key element of how the new pontiff sails through these waters that wobble will be its approach to the demography that quickly changes from the church.
The Catholic population of Europe fell in almost half a million in 2022, according to the most recent figures in the Vatican, published at the end of last year. Meanwhile, the Catholic population grew by 7.3 million in Africa, 5.9 million in North and South America, and around 900,000 in Asia.
The number of priests tracks the European decline elsewhere, according to the figures.
Therefore, a big problem for the new Pope will be how to address the needs of a church whose followers are increasingly based on the global south.
“We need a Pope who understands the problems facing the Third World,” said Piere Domerson, a priest of Haiti who is studying in Rome, NBC News shortly before Leo’s elections were announced.
“We always remember how Pope Francis understood this universality of the Church,” he said in the Plaza de San Pedro. “And because he designated more cardinals from outside Europe, we have seen that they also become more universal.”
Nérstor Medina, professor of religious ethics and culture at the University of Toronto, said that people in the global south are “becoming more actively vocal about the participation of the Church with colonization.”
That means that if the new Pope wants to “keep people in the church, then social justice, ecology and criticism of capitalism will still have to be in front and the center of the new papacy,” he said.
The management of these changing currents will not be simple: the developing world is not a monolith. While many progressive Catholic voices come from Latin America, several African bishops, also, for example, may be among the most conservative when it comes to same -sex couples, divorce and coexistence outside of marriage.
