10 Things to Know about Pope Leo XIV

Pope Leo XIV, formerly known as Robert Prevost, is the first (US) American and first Augustinian to become pope. Here are a few more things you may not know about him:

1. Our new pope attended high school in Holland, Michigan, at St. Augustine Seminary High School, “a Catholic prep school for young men.” In the late 1970s, the property was purchased and used as a prison. Today, the former school functions as an event venue, museum, and community space and is open to self-guided tours.

   

   The Felt Mansion and Carriage House, photo couresy of Saugatuck Douglas Area Convention & Visitor’s Bureau

2. According to Hannah Levitan at Nola.com, the pope’s family lineage traces back to New Orleans’ 7th Ward, “a neighborhood long recognized as a cultural stronghold for people of African, French, Spanish and Native American descent. Jari Honora, a local genealogist and historian, found that he has “Creole of color roots”—his maternal grandfather claimed Haiti as his birthplace.

3. The Pope is definitely not a Cubs fan. He roots for the White Sox and his brother wants to put rumors to the contrary to rest.

4. The pope has dual citizenship, American and Peruvian. In his first address as pope, he switched briefly from Italian to Spanish to greet his “dear Diocese of Chiclayo” in Peru. He refers to Peru as “mi segunda patria”—my second homeland.

   Speaking of languages, the new pope is fluent in 5: English, Spanish, Italian, and Portugues, and he can read German and Latin.

5. Not surprisingly, Pope Leo XIV is not a fan of President Trump’s rhetoric on immigration and immigrants.

   

6. Laura Loomer and pretty much the entire MAGA world is not happy with another “woke pope.”

   

7. The pope, meanwhile, is not happy with JD Vance’s attempt to twist Catholic doctrine to justify xenophobia, nationalism, and selfishness.

   

   The article then-Cardinal Prevost retweeted was written by Kat Armas at the National Catholic Reporter. Here’s more from Armas, and it’s worth reading in full:

   The internet has been buzzing since Vice President JD Vance said during a Fox News interview on Jan. 29, "There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that….

   Vance's argument echoes a medieval concept known as ordo amoris — the order of charity, often attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas. The idea is that love must be ranked, that a person rightly prioritizes their affections, with family on top. In some ways, it sounds practical, even reasonable. Love is not meant to be an abstraction, floating in ideals without real world engagement.

   But the problem with this hierarchy is that it feeds the myth that some people are more deserving of our care than others. It's a framework that makes sense in a world governed by scarcity and fear, where protection comes at the expense of others. But Jesus never speaks of love as something to be rationed. He speaks of love as abundance — a table where there is enough for everyone.

   Colonial ideology has conditioned us to think in binaries and hierarchies — who is in and who is out, who is first and who is last. We struggle to fathom a love that is not ranked, that does not sort people into categories of worthiness. But Jesus seemed to be inviting us into a different world altogether — one where love moves freely and without hierarchy, breaking down the borders we've been taught to build.

   When Jesus was asked, "Who is my neighbor?" he responded with a story: a man is beaten and left for dead. The religious leaders pass by, their robes untouched by the mess of it all. The Samaritan — a stranger, a foreigner, an enemy — stops. He is the one who shows love.

   Jesus' point was not about prioritizing family first and neighbors second. It was about demolishing the categories that keep us from seeing each other as worthy of love in the first place. Love of family and love of neighbor are not in competition; they are part of the same holy calling. Jesus goes even further:

   "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. … If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?" (Mt 5:44, 46-47)

   When Jesus speaks of family, it's not defined by blood or borders but by kinship in God. When someone tells him his mother and brothers are waiting to speak with him, Jesus points to his disciples: "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Mt 12:48-50).

   Jesus redefines family, not as a fortress to be guarded but as an ever-widening circle. And the call to love is no different.

   No, I won't deny the complexities of immigration. But framing love as something calculated and conditional misses the heart of it entirely. Of course, we do not neglect our families. Of course, we invest in our local communities. In fact, this is how we enact the deepest change — by voting, by fighting, by pushing back against systems in place that refuse to protect the most vulnerable among us.

   But love cannot stop there. The love Jesus speaks of is not about calculation or a choice between our families or neighbors. It is not a finite resource to ration out, but a river that flows, wild and without restraint. The empire's vision of love is built on scarcity, but the kingdom of God is built on abundance.

   If we find ourselves asking, "Who is my neighbor?" — we are already missing the point. The better question is: How do I love without limits?

8. Maybe the pope has read Jesus and John Wayne…or maybe he’s just read the Bible.

   

9. On a lighter note:

   

   10. Finally and perhaps most importantly, in his first address, Pope Leo XIV echoed Pope Francis’s call for people to build bridges not walls, to reject fear, and to seek peace and justice:

   We are all in the hands of God.

   Therefore, without fear, united hand in hand with God and among ourselves, we move forward. We are disciples of Christ.

   Christ precedes us. The world needs his light. Humanity needs him as the bridge to allows it to be reached by God and by his love.

   Help us, too, and help each other to build bridges, with dialogue, with meetings, uniting us all to be one people, always in peace. Thank you, Pope Francis! I also want to thank all my brother cardinals who have chosen me to be Peter's Successor, and to walk together with you, as a united Church always seeking peace, justice, always seeking peace, justice, always seeking to work as men and women who are faithful to Jesus Christ, without fear, to proclaim the Gospel, to be missionaries.

At a moment when the world seems spinning out of control, when hate is called righteous and lies mascarade as truth, the head of the Catholic church is pointing the global church to deeper truths, to a centuries-long tradition of Christian charity and respect for the dignity of all.

Later today, our latest podcast releases at the Convocation Unscripted in which we share our thoughts on the new pope. (I’ll try to add that here when it comes out.)

Finally, thank you to all who tuned in to last Saturday’s Free to be Faithful event. I’ll be posting the video soon and share some initial next steps. Thanks for your patience—it’s been a busy week here and I pushed back that post in order to take a moment to reflect with you on this historical transition.