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The great wave of public and media interest in the Catholic Church is subsiding.  A few more people can now tell a pallium from a chasuble.  A few more young men will no longer have to hide

their admiration for the great gear worn by the Swiss Guard.  And a few more detectorists will know not to look for the fisherman’s ring on the beach.  Decline in church attendance in Europe

may now be slowing. In the conclave, the cardinals were choosing a person, not a nationality, ethnicity or ideology.  The appointment of the new Pope revealed two  things: cardinals don’t

leak and the experts don’t get it right.  The commentariat ruled out an American Pope. Leo XIV, a dual citizen of Peru as well as the United States, presented himself in Spanish and Italian,

with hardly a word of English.  A contrast to Pope John Paul II, who had been well and truly a Polish Pope as well as a striking universal pontiff. Leo XIV’s American nationality will,

though, probably pose him problems.  President Trump initially has been unusually gracious.  How long that lasts remains to be seen.  The MAGA masses are already on the attack.  Pope Francis

outspokenly condemned Trump’s contempt for “losers”, his treatment of immigrants and the vulnerable.  His successor shares this view, though is likely to steer a more diplomatic course. The

crunch in relations with the Vatican will come over meeting Trump: a possible invitation to the USA creating huge media interest, a request to visit the Pope a little less problematic.  It

is not hard to imagine how the White House would try to manipulate a papal visit.  One way of saying “no” to Washington would be to present declining as following Pope Francis, who resisted

a return to his homeland of Argentina.  A visit to Peru would still be possible. The new Pope’s Chicago origins elicited massive and investigative interest.  His two brothers must be a mixed

blessing: immediately humanising their sibling but, you can be sure, a bit too gabby for the Vatican into the bargain.   And, on cue, ambitious scribblers, religious or otherwise, joined in

the “what’s he going to be like as Pope” comment.  The media is stuck on conservative and progressive as two binary categories applicable to Catholic prelates.  The reality is there is

nothing unusual about sharing an “option for the poor” with an option for social conservatism, or what is commonly called “anti-woke”.  You might call it normative for Francis and Leo.  In

that sense Pope Leo may indeed prove to be the continuity candidate for the papacy. Papa Leone is clearly a very interesting man, as at ease talking about the impact of AI on future work as

the horrors of war and the plight of migrants.  No-one has really been able to pin down his personality in a paragraph or two from details of his biography.  Most have missed the full

significance of his having worked as a North American missionary in Latin America. He worked in a rural area of Peru in his formative years as a young priest.  Then in Peru’s historic third

city, Trujillo, from 1988-1998 as a parish priest and Augustinian seminary teacher.  In 2015 he was appointed bishop of Chiclayo, a seaside town also in the North-West where he served for

eight years.  All this has been publicised.  What is missing is the significance of this appointment. Three quarters of Peru’s population of 34 million is, at least nominally, Catholic.  As

an Episcopal Conference, the country has 75 cardinals, archbishops and bishops, plus 12 titular bishops who do not serve a particular diocese.  As Bishop of Chiclayo he took out Peruvian

citizenship.   Looking at the 75 names in the Conference, Prevost appears like the only American one.  The only other American name was the Papal Nuncio, the Vatican’s ambassador in Peru. To

be recommended in 2014, as an American, for a Peruvian diocese is some measure of his record as a priest.  Missionary bishops are in the main a thing of the past.  Father Roberto was known

for his concern for the poor and vulnerable, for his easy manner and friendship, as an Augustinian spiritual director.  An American Nuncio perhaps had some anxieties as he passed on his name

to Rome, though Pope Francis appointed him quickly.  In many parts of Latin America, the USA’s role in propping up vicious dictatorships in the past has not been forgotten. Peru had less

unpleasant memories, was far from America’s backyard, but also suffered from insurgency and military reaction to it.  It was, typically, politically and culturally independent.  And Gustavo

Gutierrez’s seminal _Theology of Liberation: Perspectives_ was published in Lima, Peru’s capital, in 1971.  Its radical spirituality and Marxist economic analysis — not least of relations

with the USA — caused consternation in the Vatican.  The Peruvian love and acceptance of _their_ Bishop Roberto is shown in the joy of his appointment as Pope. As the leadership of all

Religious Orders demanded, his two terms as Prior-General of the Augustinians, meant extensive travel.  The distinctive demands of a missionary vocation in different contexts and cultures

would have become obvious.  No-one had to tell Roberto Prevost that he was serving a global Church. Leo’s first words ”peace be with you” and his fatherly _non avete paura_,  (“do not be

afraid”), reflect the gravity of the global conflicts and problems he now faces.  No wonder his emotion and tension showed on the balcony.  For how on earth do you lead 1.4 billion people

today?  A missionary Pope, he will be carried by many prayers, the friendship of many, not least the cardinals who chose him, his Augustinian spirituality, and a faith honed by the people of

Peru. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and

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