There are two principal takeaways from the election last week of Pope Leo XIV, one reflecting on the condition of the Roman Catholic Church, the other that the new Pope is an American, albeit one who has spent much of his career in Latin America. Despite centuries of effort by millions of people to portray the Roman Catholic Church as a superstitious anachronism, it endures. This is the first pope whose native language is English since Adrian IV (Nicholas Breakspear), who died in 1159. English is the most widely spoken language in the world and although that singular self-nominated “defender of the faith” Henry VIII of England caused the English-speaking peoples to be more heavily influenced by the Reformation, and not necessarily its best aspects, than the other great western cultures, it is high time that there was an English-speaking pope.