It’s a great day to be a Midwestern Catholic.

I haven’t yet written about our new pontifex, largely because I’ve been too elated to put thoughts to keyboard. But, in short, Pope Leo XIV is my guy.

When predicting which cardinal would emerge as the new pope, I did not imagine that an American would ever claim the balcony in my lifetime. But every day since Pope Leo XIV’s election, my world and my X feed have become more optimistic — delightful, even. If Pope Leo XIV can redeem the Hudson River of the internet, the Church may very well be entering a new era of evangelism.

I feel akin to the new pope because he is a Midwesterner, and I am a Midwesterner. He studied with the Dominicans at the Angelicum in Rome, and I studied with the Dominicans here in D.C. By all accounts, he is a Mitt Romney Republican, and I, too, long for Mitt. He cares deeply about the rise of transhumanist technologies and their threat to our very way of being; I share his sense of urgency and have written on these issues when I can. (And, for the record, I too am a Leo.)

Immediately upon his election, different factions of the Catholic right began to spar over whether the new pope was truly “based.” On the one hand, he had made comments highlighting the sanctity of marriage and the dignity of the unborn. This entered “based” territory. On the other hand, he had compassionate things to say about immigrants and refugees, which was decidedly not “based.”

In response to the latter concerns, any expectation that the pope be an “America-first” nationalist is absurd. The Catholic Church is the oldest international organization in the world. The pope’s duty is to care for his flock, not for his countrymen alone. And the fundamental Christian doctrine still stands: We are called to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and welcome strangers (See Matthew 25).

As to the former observation, about his views on marriage and the unborn, this has been proven true. Leo XIV does not shy away from standard Church teaching made controversial by our times. Just today, the pope gave a speech to a private gathering of Vatican diplomats. He affirmed Church social teaching on life and marriage in his words:

It is the responsibility of government leaders to work to build harmonious and peaceful civil societies. This can be achieved above all by investing in the family, founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman, “a small but genuine society, and prior to all civil society.” In addition, no one is exempted from striving to ensure respect for the dignity of every person, especially the most frail and vulnerable, from the unborn to the elderly, from the sick to the unemployed, citizens and immigrants alike.

Sounds pretty Christ-like to me.

Apart from Leo XIV’s apparent charity and clear-sightedness, I am also thrilled that he has (probably) dined at Culver’s, saved big money at Menard’s, and taken a shot of Malort. It’s a great day to be a Midwestern Catholic.