Is the World Finally Ready for an American Pope?
It was with a heavy heart Catholics around the globe woke to the news that the one whose baptismal name was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, but was known to the world as Pope Francis, had gone to God. On Easter, no less. Soon after visiting with tens of thousands of the faithful:
... and granting an audience to the Vice President of the United States:
Which raises the question of who his successor will be. Big Conclave fan Kevin Clancy got way out ahead of the field on this question and done some exhaustive research, power ranking the leading candidates:
Which briefly mentions the only reasonable shot we have of getting an American in the Holy See, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
Before we get into Cardinal Burke, it's worth mentioning that Francis himself has, in a lot of ways, the closest we've had to an American pontiff, both geographically and culturally. As we've so often heard, he was the first pope born in the Americas. In fact, the first born outside of Europe since Gregory III in the 8th century. And he often conducted himself very much like someone from the States. Whether it was asking for a Coach Cal autographed ball for Christmas, to lauding the healing power of tequila, to a social media slip up or two, to the occasional regrettable slip up on his social media accounts, he rarely seemed like the traditional European pope we've been accustomed to over the past 1,300 years or so.
And it's not disrespecting Francis or "too soon"-ing his memory to state the fact that his time in charge of the Roman Curia has been a controversial one. What have been "reforms" on social issues such as same-sex relationships and divorce to some have been seen as weakening the moral authority of the Church to others. I personally witnessed the reaction of a group of very devout young adult Catholics to Francis' 2021 decree restricting Traditional Latin Mass. And believe me, they were not happy.
Which brings us back to Cardinal Burke.
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As Kevin has mentioned, there's an unofficial tradition in electing pontiffs, "Papa Grossus, Papa Macer." Literally, "Fat Pope, Skinny Pope." Meaning that the College of Cardinals tends to alternate between popes of different philosophical approaches. Think of the way a team will replace a stern, taskmaster coach with a more laid back, "players coach" type. If that approach holds to form, there aren't too many candidates as ideologically far from Francis as Burke:
AS - Cardinal Raymond Burke, 76, is a highly conservative cleric who clashed repeatedly with Pope Francis over most of the main issues facing the Catholic church. Burke, from Wisconsin, has taken a consistently hard line against softening the church’s policy towards LGBTQ people, divorce, or the role of women in the church.
Burke is also a supporter of Trump. In 2016, when Pope Francis was criticising the president’s plans to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico, Burke offered his support for the Republican, saying he was “defending the values of the church”.
And now it seems Trump, serving his second term as President, is keen to see Burke installed in the Vatican as the new Pope. …
The bookmakers currently have him as sixth favorite to take over at the Vatican. …
When Francis was appointed Pope in 2013, he took Burke off the Congregation of Bishops, the body that helps the Pope select new bishops.
Burke then started criticizing Francis, saying: “One gets the impression, or it’s interpreted this way in the media, that he thinks we’re talking too much about abortion, too much about the integrity of marriage as between one man and one woman. But we can never talk enough about that.” …
The clashes between the two continued, until in 2023 a meeting of Vatican department heads took the decision to remove his his rent- free apartment in Rome and his €5,000 monthly salary, though it was framed as a reassignment of privileges rather than punishment.
So while Burke is just a 6-seed in this Rome Madness bracket, and he's not without his own controversies, it's hard to count him out. Assuming that a lot of voters in the Conclave are, like those 20-somethings I mentioned, disheartened by Francis doing away with sacred 2,000 year old traditions, you can imagine there'll be support for a vocal advocate of course-correcting back to the way things were before.
On the other hand, this is still an American we're talking about. Meaning his candidacy carries all the baggage of my culture and yours. No matter how amazed and self-satisfied with our own awesomeness, the rest of the world - an Europe in particular - still sees us as the obnoxious party house on the street that throws loud parties til all hours of the night, pees in their rose bushes and knocks the mailbox over when they're backing out in the morning. We might have given the world blue jeans, Johnny Cash and liberty. But we're still the ones responsible for the invention of toddler beauty pageants.
I also have to think that even the remote possibility Burke has Trump backing his candidacy is a strike against him. Yes, the man can bring an arena to UFC fans to their feet:
But in Vatican City, the support of a New York real estate mogul with a long history of bragging about his sexual prowess on camera is not the endorsement that gives you a bump in the polls, I'm afraid.
So while I love my church and my country, even I'm afraid this would be a bad marriage from the start. I prefer my popes to speak English as a third language after their own and Latin, not with Missouri accents and a hundred stories about how good the Rams were in the 1990s-2000s. Having a more traditionalist pope might be a good thing. But the world is not ready for an American in the Holy See. And frankly, neither is this Catholic guy.