From the Argentine Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the − "pope from the ends of the Earth" − to the new Pope Leo XIV, an Augustinian "made in the USA," the papacy has shifted northward, becoming pan-American. Today, if Catholic churches in Africa and Asia hold a more significant position at the global Catholic table than ever before, the papacy is still a transatlantic affair.
While the US is no longer the global superpower it was in the 20th century, it remains a Catholic superpower – and not just financially. The Anglo-American Catholic world seemed marginalized by Pope Francis' pontificate; nevertheless, it has produced the first pope originating from the United States. Leo XIV will encounter an American Catholicism different from that of his birthplace of Chicago, which no longer exists sociologically or politically. He will not face the Catholicism of the Kennedys nor even that of Joe Biden, but that, which has reached the White House, of Donald Trump and his vice president, JD Vance.
Today, an Augustinian pope has succeeded a Jesuit pope. Augustinianism, compared to Jesuit theology, offers a more complex and dialectical interpretation of modernity and secularism – as evidenced by The City of God, which Saint Augustine wrote in a world disrupted by the fall of the Roman Empire. Saint Augustine is also a key figure in contemporary theology, particularly in Anglo-American Catholicism. Thus, the choice of an Augustinian pope sends a strong political message to today's United States, where national populism − fueled by Catholic fundamentalism − has replaced Protestantism within the circles of power.
A subtle response to Trump
Just a few weeks ago, on February 3, the future Leo XIV openly criticized Vice President Vance, who had proposed a reductive and discriminatory reading of Saint Thomas Aquinas' order of love to justify the exclusion of those not part of the familial, local or national community: "JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others," wrote the then-Cardinal Prevost on social media. From a religious perspective, he offered an interpretation diametrically opposed to that of the White House, thereby aligning himself not only with the tradition of social Catholicism but also with the lineage of Saint Augustine.
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