Make no mistake: a Pope from Chicago terrifies me. But I have cause for some hope, which I will share.

Pope Francis was, in the surprisingly well-chosen words of the New York Times, “ostentatiously humble.” Fully recognizing the irony of a Catholic critiquing the Pope for lacking humility, I also mean to acknowledge that from that humility it took me a long time to give up on Pope Francis. For the longest while, I tried to learn what I could from him, becoming frustrated only after he made it stunningly care that his flock was not the billion and a half Catholics who he supposedly was Papa to, and instead the various God-haters, Marxists, queers and elitists he preferred to ingratiate himself upon. Rather than a teacher, he seemed more like a bully who attacks a nerd to impress the big kids.

Pope Leo XIV couldn’t’ve looked more different. He left behind the simple white cassock of Francis for splendid garments. See, it’s humble to prefer simple dress over truly grand amounts of bling, but this isn’t bling: it’s the official attire of the man who fills the office of the papacy. Ironically, by eschewing tradition in favor of his own personal style, Francis made it all about him. “I’m so humble, I’m unilaterally throwing out centuries of tradition!”

I was also slightly irked by how happy Pope Leo was. Although he pretended otherwise, it was plain that Francis coveted power, having pretended to be a conservative while in Argentina during the time it was led by a right-winger. I trusted the retincence of Pope Benedict XVI, who, truly humble man that he was, feared the overwhelming responsibility of the papacy, and the suffering such a grand task would inflict on an old man. I even had as my Freeper tag, “The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops,” which I routinely explained wasn’t the statement of a cynic, but a warning that a pastor takes on the responsibility for the sin of those of his flock that he fails to guide away from sin.

Almost as if in response to me, in this morning’s mass, Pope Leo described how holy responsibility and its concordant suffering can transform a person, helping them to grow like Christ. Taken sincerely, this was a man who, like Peter before him, was happy to accept such a huge burden as a cross he could bear in imitation of Christ.

The name, “Leo” is a good sign, as well. Some liberal news outlets have claimed that this is a sign he will be a liberal, since the prior popes Leo were “reformers.” Maybe, but they were hardly liberals in the American sense. Pope Leo XIII wrote “Rerum Novarum.” Hardly a libertarian treatise, any claim about it that it calls for a balance between socialism and capitalism is so intellectually dishonest that I’m tempted to flat-out call it a Big Lie.

Rerum Novarum held that socialism is anathema to Christianity. Preaching socialism is a great way to go straight to Hell. And no, this wasn’t a response to Soviet Socialism, which did not exist yet, nor the millions of murders inspired by communism. This was a flat-out assertion that the ability of the state to take people’s money away from them in the notion that they knew better what to do with it was a fundamental assault on the dignity of mankind. Socialism is not something to be compromised with, or one end of continuum that one must find the middle of, but rather a fundamental evil which must be opposed.

The “balance” in Rerum Novarum, to the extent it exists (and no such word exists within it), is that once freed of the soul-destroying effects of socialism and given freedom instead, people must use that freedom for the universal good of all men. There is an obligation to create a just society, even if attempts to do so through government necessarily result in soul-destroying oppression. So you cannot use the government to rob from the rich to give to the poor, but you also cannot use government to break unions, to import cheap labor, or to subsidize immoral behavior (like giving public benefits to mothers, but only if they’re not married to their children’s fathers, but that’s a dystopia Leo never imagined).

Nor is Rerum Novarum libertarian: it does not hold that government can proscribe socially harmful behavior, such as abortion, adultery, drug addiction, gambling or pornography. The moral is not that democracy cannot promote justice or morality, but that taking from certain people to give to others, even if from the wealthy to the needy, will not work to create justice.

Given that Pope Leo is American, he may better understand than Francis that Americans who seek economic freedom are not the same as the right-wing dictatorship that he ingratiated himself upon before having the taken opportunity to ingratiate himself upon the left-wing, would-be totalitarians of the global elite. It doesn’t matter so much if he agrees in liberty-based economic theory, just that he respects that it isn’t inherently opposed to charity. Frankly, while Pope Benedict was seen as such the conservative, the reality is he shared socialism’s notion that the cure for greed was government, blind to the reality that government, once empowered, itself becomes greedy and power-hungry. Where he seemed so much more well, Catholic than Francis is that he didn’t make this squishy socialism the focus of his papacy. He was concerned with saving souls, not acheiving the worldly dominance of his economic opinions. And he understood that the papacy did not give any special insight or authority to the pope on economic matters. You can have a moral reason or an immoral reason for so many political beliefs, and Pope Benedict recognized 

having the taken opportunity to ingratiate himself upon the left-wing, would-be totalitarians of the global elite. It doesn’t matter so much if he agrees in liberty-based economic theory, just that he respects that it isn’t inherently opposed to charity. Frankly, while Pope Benedict was seen as such the conservative, the reality is he shared socialism’s notion that the cure for greed was government, blind to the reality that government, once empowered, itself becomes greedy and power-hungry. Where he seemed so much more well, Catholic than Francis is that he didn’t make this squishy socialism the focus of his papacy. He was concerned with saving souls, not acheiving the worldly dominance of his economic opinions. And he understood that the papacy did not give any special insight or authority to the pope on economic matters. You can have a moral reason or an immoral reason for so many political beliefs, and Pope Benedict recognized that.

Yes, Pope Leo corrected Vice President Vance, but I would offer that even this represents a profound change from Pope Francis. Even though from the American persective, you could say that he came at Vance from the Left, he did so by a theological instruction. What frustrated me with Pope Francis is that I never felt instructed by him, merely politically attacked with name-calling and slanderous presumption. I’d’ve liked to see him call out far more evil left-wingers who call themselves Catholic, like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi or former President Joe Biden, but I’m OK with it if he doesn’t use corrections to make examples out of the wicked, but rather to correct people, and if he sees that there’s no chance to morally correct Biden or Pelosi, I can’t argue.

Lastly, go ahead and offer any refutations you want — I come here for such exchange of ideas — but at least give me the credit that I’m being optimistic, not confident.

Dangus