Thom Nickels: New hope from Rome?

After the disastrous Pope Francis papacy — his war on traditionalist Catholic communities and his globalist embrace of unchecked migration to name but two offenses — I wasn’t looking forward to white smoke coming from the Sistine Chapel chimney.

My fear was that someone heterodox like Cardinal Tagle (the liturgical dancing queen) or Germany’s Cardinal Marx (“Love God and do what Thou Wilt”) would be elected. I knew that my favorite, Cardinal Sarah from Africa, didn’t stand a chance: too black, too orthodox — perhaps many of the radical woke cardinals in the enclave looked on him as a Cardinal Burke in blackface. 

Let me say upfront that having been born Catholic, I nevertheless became an Orthodox Christian years ago mostly because of the liturgical destruction wrought by modernists on the Catholic Mass. Yet despite being Orthodox, I realize that what happens in the Catholic Church has a profound effect upon the whole of Christendom. The Catholic Church is the morning star of Christianity. One has only to think of how attune the entire world was to this papal election to know how much power and influence Catholicism wields. 

That’s why you had non-Catholics glued to papal elections as if it were some sort of Super Bowl. No other Church in the world can claim this. 

I was in a cafe having coffee with a friend when I noticed on my phone’s news feed the appearance of the dreaded white smoke. 

My first thought on seeing the face of the new pope, Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, was how much he resembles former VP candidate Tim Walz or Tampon Tim. Something about Pope Bob’s easy smile put me off. First impressions can often be wrong. Was mine? I honestly didn’t know. 

As I watched the cheering throngs in St. Peter’s Square, many of them going berserk without knowing anything about the new pontiff, I felt a degree of caution.

I say this because there are Catholics in the world who see any new pope as the exclusive selection of the Holy Spirit, meaning that if he were to suddenly proclaim that the bread and wine used at Mass did not really become the body and blood of Christ, or that abortion was now acceptable and moral, or that Baptism was no longer necessary to salvation, they would accept this as the “new” word of God and obey it with the strictest orthodoxy.

Catholics like this worry me. The wrong pope could dismantle Catholicism in front of their eyes and they would give a standing ovation as he did so. 

And yet I was happily surprised to see that Leo XIV appeared on the loggia in traditional vestments. Unlike Francis who appeared on the same loggia years ago without the mosetta — he wanted to make a show of his simplicity and humility by kicking tradition to the curb — this new pope was sending a signal in favor of tradition. Small signals like this often carry tremendous weight as evidenced by Francis’s mostly disastrous papacy. 

Pope Leo XIV also gave a blessing and prayed the Hail Mary in Latin. Not only that but during his first Mass before the Cardinals — a Novus Ordo Mass said mostly in Latin — he was not carrying the crooked hideous looking cross staff championed by Francis but a traditional and beautiful ferula. 

I came across a fine piece written about Francis’ first appearance on the loggia by Dr. John C. Rao in One Peter Five:

“Neither my companions nor I knew anything whatsoever about Francis in 2013. Nevertheless, his ghostly appearance on the loggia, the tense minute-long silence that followed, and then his replacement of the mention of Christ with a lugubrious ‘buona sera’ created a deep spiritual chill enhanced by the unpleasant evening weather…” 

I took to social media to see what people were saying about Pope Leo and what I got was a buzz of confusing cross-hairs. Some were claiming him as anti-MAGA, the Church’s answer to Trump (this didn’t make sense because Democrats support abortion and gender ideology), while others were writing that he was a registered Republican, against abortion, not too keen on LGBT issues but very liberal when it came to open borders. 

To be fair, the Catholic Church (at least on paper) has always had a very sloppy bleeding heart when it comes to immigration and migration issues. 

The news media listed Leo XIV as a centrist but concentrated on his social media tweets blasting President Trump and Vice President Vance for the deportation of illegal immigrants. These same TDS journalists also found time to interview the Jesuit James Martin who told them what they wanted to hear when it came to how the new pope as a cardinal criticized Trump. That became a separate sensationalized news story.

I caught a television interview with the current president of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Sister Barbara Rein, OP. Leo XIV studied there as a seminarian and Sister Barbara, who happens to be a nun in secular dress-meaning earrings, pearls, long hair and makeup; this would be a travesty in Orthodox Christianity- praised him to the hilt, saying he’ll make a fine pope. 

“Withhold judgment until you know more,” I told myself. 

Leo XIV has taken stands against Planned Parenthood, abortion and many LGBT issues, including same-sex parenting. He called the latter at “odds with the gospel,” and cited as examples “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.” 

This is hardly a pope that can be called woke, except of course when it comes to illegal immigration. 

So how do we categorize him? 

His tweet criticisms of President Trump’s immigration policy and the way he locked horns with VP Vance on the deportation of migrants, and even how he retweeted criticism of Trump and President El Salvador Nayib Bukele’s response to the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a resident of Maryland, troubled me. 

And yet I do not think we have another globalist pope like Francis. Leo XIV, I believe, will soften his views on immigration.

As Catholic-turned-Orthodox Rod Dreher commented on his blog:

“When J.D. Vance defended the Trump administration’s migration policy, he reasoned publicly according to the Augustinian principle of ordo amoris — a right ordering of one’s loves. And now the cardinals have given the Church an Augustinian pope who thinks Vance is dead wrong about migration. Well, in the West at least, migration is now the most important geopolitical issue, and will only grow in importance as native populations decline, the Prevost election is quite a statement from the Vatican.”

And as Europe turns more and more nationalist — the recent election of a conservative-centrist in Germany, as well as the almost guaranteed win of a nationalist conservative in Romania — the tide is turning against open borders and unchecked immigration. 

My brother, a Vietnam vet struggling with cancer, called me on the night of Pope Leo XIV’s election. Always somewhat prescient in his political views (he’s a loyal Trump supporter) and in his observations about people, he said he was feeling something good about the new pope. 

At the time of his call I was still feeling uncertain. 

“He appeared on the loggia in traditional dress and he prayed in Latin. That’s all I need to know,” he said. “You know he has to praise Francis for a short time. He’s still in the shadow of the old pope but that will fade. Once he hits his stride Francis will be less of an influence. Besides, before the white smoke appeared I saw an American flag among the throngs in St. Peter’s Square, and I knew something special — the election of an American — was going to happen.”

I shared with my brother what a Catholic traditionalist had unearthed about the new pope when he was a bishop during the Covid lockdown in 2020.

“He advocated that confessions be allowed to take place over the phone.” 

My brother paused. “You have to keep up with technology,” he said. 

While I part from my brother when it comes to confession-by-telephone, the feeling hit me hard that one day this new pope will become an enemy of the left. Liberal news anchors and the left may love him now because of his open borders views — and how he let Trump have it! — but over time there will be a change, a big change. 

Given what could have happened, Leo XIV may indeed be a pope for Century 21. 

Thom Nickels is a Philadelphia-based journalist/columnist and the 2005 recipient of the AIA Lewis Mumford Award for Architectural Journalism. He writes for City Journal, New York, and Frontpage Magazine. Thom Nickels is the author of fifteen books, including “Literary Philadelphia” and ”From Mother Divine to the Corner Swami: Religious Cults in Philadelphia.” His latest is “Death in Philadelphia: The Murder of Kimberly Ernest.” He is currently at work on “The Last Romanian Princess and Her World Legacy,” about the life of Princess Ileana of Romania.