The Right Pope?
In speaking about the push to build a wall between Mexico and the United States to keep out illegal immigrants, Pope Francis said that we should be building bridges, not walls. Was the new Pope, Leo XIV, chosen to build bridges rather than walls between the rich nations, like the United States, and poor nations across the globe?
The current administration in the United States and the Americans who voted for it are on the side of building walls that increase inequalities in the world. Although the proposed tariffs are unlikely to be successful in bringing manufacturing back to America, such a success would only increase inequality as thousands of workers in other countries lose their jobs and their nations lose the income that can drive development.
The current push to deport immigrants also can be seen as a push for greater inequality. What will the poorer nations do with thousands of their emigrants who will be deported home? National debt, lack of jobs, inadequate health care, hunger, and growing conflicts pushed people to leave their country in the first place. Now their forced return will make things even worse for them and their nations. Once they are captured and deported their families in their home country will not only have to help them be reintegrated into their former life, but they will lose the money which was sent home from the U.S. by the those harvesting produce, cleaning hotel rooms and caring for the disabled.
Making matters even worse is the gutting of government aid from the U.S. for hunger relief, medicines for HIV, rural clinics, and water projects. While aid for foreign nations is a low priority for Americans, it serves as a lifeline for those on the edge of existence. Now the U. S. has also withdrawn from the World Health Organization and from the Paris Climate Accords. For many in the world, the United States has become a rogue nation on a trajectory that seeks only its own prosperity and regards poorer nations as throwaways.
As a world power, the United States has a major opportunity to resolve conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East—a chance to build bridges rather than walls. On the other hand, the U. S. itself may find itself at war with Russia and/or China. It already spends on military preparedness much more than the total budget of many nations. Its factories build weapons for much of the world, another way in which the strength of the country is used for the building of walls rather than bridges.
What better candidate for the Papacy than an American, a fellow on the inside but one whose ministry was in Peru, one of the poorer nations that the current administration looks down upon. Can he be a bridge? The sheer human dimension of what is happening in the world is more important than just Roman Catholic Church unity or LGBTQ issues. Why did he call himself Leo XIV? Was it because Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum spelling out the church’s social teachings which still remain in force today? He is not likely to be a copy of Pope Francis’s humble style, but he may have more clout building bridges and preventing tragedy.