Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost is now Pope Leo XIV after being elected by the Roman Catholic College of Cardinals on May 8 in Vatican City. His historic statements indicate that he will likely continue many of Pope Francis’s policies within the Church, though he has not been overly outspoken on contentious issues.
According to a College of Cardinals report, some of his positions are known. He is said to support Pope Francis’s views on the environment. These views were laid out in the Papal encyclical Laudato Si in 2015, and criticised consumerism, called for action on climate change, and for more responsible economic development.
He also supported Pope Francis’s outreach to migrants and the poor, once stating that he believed a bishop should not act like a prince. He has shared several articles and social media posts critical of President Donald J. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance on the subject of immigration on X (formerly Twitter)—despite being a registered Republican.
A significant issue for conservative Catholics could be Pope Leo’s stance on giving Holy Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics, as he previously supported the practice.
On other issues, Pope Leo is much more orthodox and in line with traditional Catholic teachings. He has rejected the idea of ordaining female deacons, saying it would cause more problems than it would solve.
“Something that needs to be said also is that ordaining women—and there’s been some women that have said this, interestingly enough—‘clericalizing women’ doesn’t necessarily solve a problem, it might make a new problem,” he said in 2023 during the Synod on Synodality.
Pope Francis introduced a declaration, Fiducia supplicans, last year that allowed priests to bless same-sex couples, while Pope Leo neither endorsed nor rejected the document. In his prior role as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, he told local Bishops across the globe to interpret the statements themselves.
He has also been far less enthusiastic about LGBT issues in the past than Pope Francis. Pope Leo previously stated that Western culture promotes “sympathy for beliefs and practices that contradict the gospel,” specifically mentioning homosexual lifestyles and “alternative families made up of same-sex partners and their adopted children.”
While also serving as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Pope Leo oversaw the removal of popular conservative Bishop Joseph Strickland from his position as Bishop of the Diocese of Tyler in Texas in 2023.
Despite this, bishop Strickland posted on social media in support of Pope Leo, saying, “We entrust the Holy Father to the guidance of the Holy Ghost and the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, praying that he may faithfully uphold the Deposit of Faith and confirm his brethren in the truth.”
On many other important issues, such as the suppression of the Traditional Latin Mass, the Vatican’s controversial relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and other matters, Pope Leo’s views remain largely unknown.
