Robert Francis Prevost, 70, Pope Leo XIV, celebrates this Friday the first anniversary of his election to the pontificate with a trip to Pompeii and Naplesin a bath of crowds with which he shows the center of his mandate: contact with the poor and the sick. His message contains criticism of the powerful rich and the vindication of persecuted immigrants, positions that have already brought him into conflict with North American President Donald Trump.
Los Trump’s exaggerated attacks against Leo XIVeven falsely accusing him of having said that he thought it was good that Iran had the atomic bomb, have focused their repeated defense of peace and the repudiation of the wars that the world suffers.
The pontiff had begun his mandate timidly. In the early days he appeared concerned about avoiding the pronouncements that could most expose him. After the jubilee year and the first period after the death of the Argentine Pope Francis, León’s definitions have taken shape and they have continued the desire for change of his predecessor, Jorge Bergoglio.
The new Pope reads the contemporary world relying on quotes from his teacher, Saint Augustineof whose order he was the top leader for 12 years (two terms), and in his twenty-year experience as an Augustinian missionary in Peru. That country granted him the status of Peruvian citizen after his work as bishop of Chiclayo and Pope Francis’ decision to name him “minister” in charge of the bishops in the government of the Holy See.
This is how at the Conclave he surprised everyone with a quick choice in which he concentrated a hundred votes from the assembled cardinals, who in just four votes consecrated him as the 267th Pope in the history of the Church.
His recent trip to four African countries shaped the progressive convictions of his pontificate. In all his speeches he defended the poor and criticized the exploiters. who keep most of the wealth. He supported the reforms and warned the powerful about the need to modernize African nations with openness and, above all, with honesty.
Trump’s excessive attacks on his compatriot finished drawing the contours of the pontiff born in chicago. He responded to Trump when he accused him of having justified Iran possessing an atomic weapon, recalling that “The Church has been against nuclear weapons for years.”
The Pope’s pacifism is not naive. It is the Augustinian conviction that peace cannot consist of the victory of the strongest. The key to understanding Leo XIV It is in the fusion between spirituality and pragmatism.
This Friday, in Pompeii in the morning and in Naples in the afternoon, the Pope was celebrated by the crowds who also celebrated his first anniversary as pontiff.
In Pompeii he recalled that when Bartolo Longo, today San Bartolo, arrived “for the first time in the Valley of Pompeii, he found a land afflicted by so much misery, inhabited by very poor peasants, plagued by malaria and bandits. He knew how to see the face of Christ in everyone, in the great and the small, particularly among the orphans and the children of the imprisoned, whom he knew how to make feel his tenderness.”
“He was right and he proved it by making this place, with faith and determinationa center of Christian life and Marian devotion known throughout the world,” he said. He highlighted that the foundation of the city’s Sanctuary is based on the prayer of the Holy Rosary, “the hidden engine that makes the rest possible.” He asked everyone to “always keep alive and spread this ancient and beautiful devotion.”
In his first year of pontificate, the North American-Peruvian Pope has made important changes in the Church of the United States, and perhaps this also explains Donald Trump’s resentment towards him. In strategic New York, instead of the cardinal Timothy Dolan —the “cultural warrior” Trump wanted to see as Pope—Leo XIV appointed Bishop Ronald Hicks, oblivious to the divisions that shake American Catholicism.
The new pontiff was installed in the papal residence of the Vatican Apostolic Palacewhich for 12 years was not used by Pope Francis. The Argentine rejected it due to the loneliness it imposed on him and preferred the Santa Marta residence, in whose apartment 201 he died on April 21 of last year.
Robert Francis Prevost The papal presence also reopened at the summer residence of Castel Gandolfo60 kilometers from Rome. He spends there every Tuesday your day of rest: He plays sports, takes care of the horses he received as a gift, works with his secretaries, and uses the swimming pool.
According to some analysts, the “pax leonina” begins to be definedwhich is in its initial state but will be firmly established in the future.