NOTES BETWEEN PRINTED EDITIONS
THE ELECTION OF POPE LEO XIV
FROM THE CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts commented today on the election of Robert Francis Cardinal Prevost as the 266th Successor of Saint Peter as the Bishop of Rome and the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church.
Cardinal Prevost has assumed the name Leo XIV.
Pope Leo is the first American born Pope, only the second Latin American prelate (after Francis) to become Pope, and the seventh member of the Order of Saint Augustine to ascend to the papacy.
He is one of only three popes in the last two centuries—along with Francis and Gregory XVI—to be a member of the so-called regular clergy, that is to say, to be a member of a religious order.
He is the first former general of a religious order, in centuries, to be elected Pontiff.
Born in Chicago in 1955, Robert Prevost graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Villanova University in 1977, followed by a Master of Divinity from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and both a licentiate and doctorate in canon law from the Angelicum in Rome.
Professed as an Augustinian in 1981 and ordained to the priesthood in 1982, Father Prevost joined the Augustinian Mission in Peru. After a brief return to the United States, Prevost spent ten years as a seminary Rector in Trujillo.
In 1999, he became the Augustinian Provincial in Chicago. In 2001, Prevost was elected Prior-General of the Order of Saint Augustine, serving until 2013.
In 2014, Pope Francis appointed him Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, elevating him to Bishop in 2015. Prevost was the Ordinary of that diocese until 2023, during which time he also served as Vice-President of the Peruvian Bishops Conference.
In January of 2023, Pope Francis made Bishop Prevost a titular archbishop and appointed him to one of the most powerful positions in the Roman Curia—Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, the official responsible for vetting and recommending candidates for the episcopate.
Eight months later, in September of 2023, he was created a Cardinal.
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comments:
“The election of Pope Leo means the continuation of some of the heterodox practices of the Francine papacy, though perhaps in a less extreme, divisive, arbitrary and chaotic manner.
As a prelate, Bishop Prevost supported the innovation by Francis—contrary to Sacred Scripture and Canon Law—whereby the divorced and civilly remarried could receive the Holy Eucharist.
He was somewhat less supportive of Fiducia Supplicans, which authorized blessings for same sex couples, warning about ‘sympathy for beliefs and practices that contradict the gospel.’
As a Cardinal in 2023, Prevost opposed female ordination, criticizing the idea of ‘clericalizing women.’
Cardinal Prevost fully embraced the positions of Pope Francis on promoting a decentralized (and doctrinally diverse) church through so-called Synodality, and in welcoming migrants.
He has criticized the Trump Administration for the deportation of criminal illegal aliens, and has rebuked Vice-President J. D. Vance for his remarks on ‘ordo amoris.’
With the election of Pope Leo, the modernist revolution in the Church, effected by Vatican II, and advanced so radically by Pope Francis, will now likely be institutionalized.
Nonetheless, some of the optics of his election were reassuring. Unlike Francis, Leo wore the traditional vestments, imparted the blessing Urbi et Orbi in Latin, and took the name of an impeccably orthodox Pope.
Time will tell.”
