Hours after Leo XIV was elected the first pope from the United States, the Chicago Cubs posted a congratulatory message on X with a photo of a digital billboard outside Wrigley Field boasting “Hey, Chicago, he’s a Cubs fan!”
Just a few hours later, the White Sox, the Cubs’ rival in the new pontiff’s hometown, snatched back bragging rights. The pope’s brother told a local television news station that the new head of the Roman Catholic Church had always been a Sox fan.
The episode was among the first of many “He’s one of us!” moments in Leo’s nascent papacy. The former Robert Francis Prevost confirmed his loyalty to the White Sox in a video message he sent in June for a gathering at Rate Field in Chicago. But on some of the most salient issues dividing the church, Leo has remained neutral in public, leading followers to project their hopes and expectations onto a pope who has so far resisted identifying clearly with any particular camp.
“He’s got that new pope smell and everybody wants to recruit him to their side,” said William Cavanaugh, a political theologian at DePaul University in Chicago.
In a new biography published in Spanish on Thursday, Leo revealed some of his thinking about some much-debated issues within the Church. He told Elise Ann Allen, a senior correspondent for Crux, a Catholic news service, that “at the moment” he did not “have an intention of changing the teaching of the church” on the ordination of women and that he found it “highly unlikely, certainly in the near future, that the church’s doctrine in terms of what the church teaches about sexuality” or marriage would change.
Yet he has mostly left the door open for further discussion, a sign that this pope is less interested in being pinned down ideologically than in listening to his global flock. “I don’t plan to get involved in partisan politics,” he said in an interview for the biography.
The legacy of Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis — beloved by Catholic progressives but frustrating to conservatives — has loomed large as followers have sought clues as to whether the new pontiff would keep to Francis’s path or repudiate him. So far, in the people Leo has met and in the small decisions he has taken, the new pope has put out signals that both conservative and liberal Catholics have tried to interpret as though they were Rorschach ink blot.
Leo has enjoyed a longer honeymoon period than his most recent predecessors, whose leanings were quickly defined. John Paul II and Benedict XVI came into the papacy as known conservatives, while Francis was quickly hailed as a progressive after he visited Lampedusa, the Mediterranean island that serves as a gateway to Europe for migrants and when, less than five months into his papacy, he said, “Who am I to judge?” when asked about gay priests.
Leo, who has the mild manner of a Midwestern uncle, entered the pontificate with a spartan trail of speeches or documents that could definitively illuminate his theological or political orientation. More than four months into his papacy, he has not made any significant decisions.
Conservatives have proclaimed Leo a traditionalist because he wore a red mozzetta, or cape, and a gold embroidered stole over his white cassock during his first appearance on the balcony — a sartorial choice that differentiated him from Francis, who preferred simpler tailoring. Leo vacationed at Castel Gandolfo, the traditional summer residence that Francis chose not to use, prompting conservatives to cheer the embrace of papal heritage.
Leo also declared that government leaders should invest in families “founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman” and agreed to allow Cardinal Raymond Burke, Francis’s chief American antagonist, to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass in St. Peter’s during a planned pilgrimage next month. Francis restricted the use of the old rite in celebrating Mass, enraging traditionalists. In an interview for the biography, Leo said that the Latin Mass had “become a political tool, and that’s very unfortunate.”
Liberal Catholics, on the other hand, say they can tell Leo is a progressive in the mold of Francis because he has, like his predecessor, spoken of the importance of helping the poor and exhorted the world to protect the earth from being “ravaged” by climate change. L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics have seized on a meeting the pope held with the Rev. James Martin, a high-profile American advocate for inclusivity, as evidence of Leo’s openness.
One thing that is clear is that Leo has shown a willingness to engage with a wide spectrum of interlocutors. He has also met with people whom Francis avoided, including Cardinal Burke and Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and the leader of the anti-immigrant League party.
For the most part, Catholics of various leanings have emphasized the signals they feel support their hopes that Leo is one of them and suspended judgment on those that do not. “There is something remarkable about the fact that he doesn’t seem to have upset anybody really yet,” said Miles Pattenden, a historian at Oxford University who studies the church. Mr. Pattenden likened the pope to Queen Elizabeth II, who “could offer a general framework for thinking about an issue without alienating people.”
A Gallup poll in July found that among 14 global leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Trump, Leo scored the most favorable rating.
Some Catholics see the new pope as being on their side as much for his manner as for anything specific. “It’s hard to say why or what he did to be more conservative,” said Alessandro Fornaciari, 26, a software marketing associate in Rome who rejoiced in Leo’s ascension. In St. Peter’s Square during the conclave in May, Mr. Fornaciari wore a T-shirt bearing a likeness of Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, a leading opponent of Pope Francis, over the Trumpian slogan “Make Vatican Great Again!”
Leo’s vibe can be read in different ways. During a general audience in St. Peter’s Square this month, a married couple from Jonesboro, Ark. — Robert Jones, a tax attorney, and Mary Kay Jones, a retired Catholic school principal — were among the thousands who stood in the rain to see the new pope. Both strongly supported Francis. “So far, so good,” Mr. Jones, 57, said of Leo’s papacy. He noted that he did not sense ideological motivations behind Leo’s decision to allow the Latin Mass in the basilica next month, but rather a receptivity to all worshipers.
Veteran Vatican watchers say that as the first pope from the United States, Leo is attuned to the dangers of partisanship. “I think he understands that it’s not healthy for the church to have a pope who is clearly appropriated by one side,” said Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology at Trinity College Dublin.
Leo has downplayed his American roots. He speaks English sparingly, sticking mostly to Italian. During the general audience last week, as he welcomed English speakers, he cited the United States last in a long roster of countries. (It was not an alphabetical list.)
His American roots could help him in other ways, though. “People can’t say, like they did about Francis, ‘He doesn’t understand the United States, he just doesn’t see what’s going on,’” Leo told Ms. Allen.
Some say the pope has managed a balancing act because of his temperament. “He listens more than he speaks,” said Anna Rowlands, a political theologian at Durham University in England.
In the absence of major decisions — Leo has not even named his own successor as head of the influential Vatican office that selects bishops — followers are growing restive.
“Everyone expects some response, some comment from the pope, in order then to judge,” said the Rev. Alejandro Moral Antón, a friend of Leo who succeeded him as head of the Order of St. Augustine before retiring this month.
In regions of the world with the fastest-growing number of Catholics, some followers may be less fixated on the ideological identification of their pope. “They don’t mind whether you are coming from the left or right,” said Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier of South Africa. “They are poor. They are looking for relief.”
Yet there are some divisive issues within the church that Leo will probably have to adjudicate beyond what he has said so far.
Already, some factions are pushing boundaries. In Germany, a group of bishops released a document in April suggesting that same-sex couples “should be allowed to have blessing ceremonies.” Such a recommendation appears to go beyond what Francis allowed, which was the blessing of the couples themselves, but not their unions. In the interview for the biography, Leo said, “I think that the church’s teaching will continue as it is, and that’s what I have to say about that for right now.”
Philip Jenkins, who studies global Christianity at Baylor University, said the pope may need to take a firmer stand at some point. “Not to decide is to decide,” he said.
Josephine de La Bruyère and Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting.
Motoko Rich is the Times bureau chief in Rome, where she covers Italy, the Vatican and Greece.
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