Americans Revel in Connection to Pope Leo XIV – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

With Pope Leo XIV being from Chicago, everyone seems to have some sort of connection with him — even if it’s as simple as sharing a love for the White Sox or having played tennis on the same court as him.

For instance, my father-in-law’s colleague shared that the pope is actually her uncle’s cousin.

And Catholics from Chicago (where the pope grew up), New Orleans (where the pope has familial roots), and Holland, Michigan (where the pope went to minor seminary), as well as those who attended the University of Villanova (where the pope attended college) feel particularly close to him.

The closeness is jarring, given that our experience with other Roman pontiffs has been that they are from foreign lands and historical times and speak languages we don’t understand.

I have been reading Peter Seewald’s biography of Pope Benedict XIV, Benedict XIV: A Life. In the initial chapters, Seewald presents the pieces of historical evidence we have of Pope Benedict’s childhood and education amidst the Second World War as though they are precious pearls of insight into a long-ago past.

That’s a far cry from what we have with Pope Leo, as the pope’s grade school classmates, acquaintances, and personal friends are speaking of his life in modern Midwestern America in relatable terms on cable news shows.

In my case of connection to the pope, my husband’s great-uncle, Father Don Bates, was an Augustinian priest in the Midwest Province until his death in 2023. As the pope’s brother Augustinian for 46 years, my husband’s great-uncle no doubt knew the pope, especially given that then-Father Prevost was his provincial superior for a time and bore responsibility for deciding his ministry.

The two experienced the decline of the Order of St. Augustine in their home province, as well as its recent resurgence. The same year that Father Bates was honored for 60 years of profession to the order, the province broke a 15-year dry spell in which not a single man had been ordained to the priesthood.

Father Bates was for some time the parochial vicar of St. Jude Church in New Lenox, Illinois, which Pope Leo is known to have frequented. The pope’s brother, John Prevost, is a parishioner at St. Jude, and the Chicago Sun Times published an article this week documenting how the pope is close friends with others who attend St. Jude.

My husband frequently spent time with his great-uncle in childhood and visited him a number of times when Father Bates was in a nursing home later in life, still living in community with his brother Augustinians.

Plus, my childhood home is less than two miles away from the church where Pope Leo was ordained a deacon.

Of course, some sort of connection to this modern American pope — whether geographical, familial, or circumstantial — is hardly unique among Americans. It puts, as CNN said, a “surreal” spin on this pontificate.

John McGreevy, my former professor, told the Washington Post in an interview that Pope Leo’s pontificate would bring “enormous pride” to the United States. And brought such pride it has.

Pope Leo set the tone for his papacy when he emerged on the Central Loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica holding back tears, seemingly awed by the responsibility given him and how Christ had led him to that moment. And he revealed the deep spirituality that his papacy would be characterized by when he delivered a stirring and beautiful first homily in the Sistine Chapel to the cardinal electors. In that homily, the pope proclaimed, “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God: the one Savior, who alone reveals the face of the Father.”

Pope Leo Shares His Wisdom

Since then, it’s been one moment after another of stirring wisdom. Pope Leo XIV exemplifies the vibrancy that the Catholic Church in the United States has to offer the world.

Pope Leo spoke of seeking peace in Ukraine after his recitation of the Regina Caeli, saying, “I carry in my heart the sufferings of the beloved Ukrainian people. May everything possible be done to reach an authentic, just and lasting peace, as soon as possible. Let all the prisoners be freed and the children return to their own families.”

He spoke to members of the Eastern Catholic Churches about the need to revive “a sense of mystery” in the liturgy, saying, “We have great need to recover the sense of mystery that remains alive in your liturgies, liturgies that engage the human person in his or her entirety, that sing of the beauty of salvation and evoke a sense of wonder at how God’s majesty embraces our human frailty!”

Also, in an address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, Pope Leo affirmed marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and implored the need to protect the lives of the unborn and elderly.

“It is the responsibility of government leaders to work to build harmonious and peaceful civil societies,” said the pope. “This can be achieved above all by investing in the family, founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman, ‘a small but genuine society, and prior to all civil society,’” he said, quoting his namesake’s most famous encyclical.

The pope affirmed the sanctity of life, saying, “In addition, no one is exempted from striving to ensure respect for the dignity of every person, especially the most frail and vulnerable, from the unborn to the elderly, from the sick to the unemployed, citizens and immigrants alike.”

How remarkable it is to witness a pope we feel so close with speak in our own language and accent as he proclaims Christ and brings new vigor to the Catholic Church.