One Year Later: The True Meaning of an American Pope

Pope Leo XIV was elected one year ago today, on May 8, 2025. I’m republishing my essay from Time on the afternoon of his election — a record of the providential gift no American expected.

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Editor’s note: One year ago today, on May 8, 2025, white smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel chimney and the world met its first American pope. I wrote the essay below for Time on the afternoon of his election. I’m republishing it now to mark the anniversary — one year wiser, and more grateful than ever for the providential gift of Pope Leo XIV. Let me know if you think my initial sentiments stand true a year later.

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On May 8, I stood on the colonnades of St. Peter’s Square on the beautiful afternoon a new pope was elected, shoulder to shoulder with pilgrims from every corner of the globe. The roar that erupted when white smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel chimney is something I’ll never forget.

The earth beneath my feet shook as the bells of the ancient basilica tolled. And then the announcement: the unknown Robert Francis Prevost had been elected the vicar of Jesus Christ. Silence — everywhere. “Who?” an elderly nun next to me asked. Overconfident in my Latin skills and my biographical knowledge of the 133 cardinal-electors, I exclaimed: “Robert, Sister! He’s from America — he’s one of us.”

The cardinal-electors had chosen a Midwesterner to be the Successor of Saint Peter. As the bells of St. Peter’s pealed and the red velvet drapes parted on the balcony, we knew we were seeing the dawn of a new era for the Church — and, in some ways, for America too.

For the first time ever, the most famous American in the world is not the president or a Hollywood icon or tech billionaire — it’s the pope.

This is more than a Catholic triumph; it’s a cultural watershed for the United States. In a society that often equates American influence with might or money or celebrity, now our foremost representative on the global stage is a humble man in a white cassock, preaching love, justice, and mercy.

Back home in the U.S., the news of an American pope set off a flurry of excitement — and a scramble to claim him in our own image. Within hours, politicians on both sides of the aisle were applauding the new pontiff’s election, each with their partisan subtext.

Progressive Democrats pointed out his strong record on social justice, immigrant rights, and poverty, hoping to cast him as one of their own. Conservative Republicans, meanwhile, highlighted his orthodox Catholic stances on issues like abortion and religious liberty, eager to claim a spiritual endorsement of their platform. (Though some in the MAGA contingent are seemingly ready to criticize him already.)

This tug-of-war to politically appropriate the pope was perhaps inevitable. Yet it misses the mark of who Pope Leo XIV really is. Like any good priest, he is going to comfort and challenge all of us, regardless of politics.

In Vatican circles, the early consensus is that Pope Leo XIV may become to Pope Francis what Paul VI was to John XXIII, or what Benedict XVI was to John Paul II. In other words, he is seen as a man who can bring structure, discipline, and tangible reforms to consolidate the prophetic vision of his predecessor. Pope Francis lit an evangelical fire in the Church’s conscience over the past decade, preaching about the peripheries, mercy, and care for the poor.

Pope Leo, a calm lawyer-bishop with years of governance experience, seems aptly cast for that role. His job now is to take Francis’s lofty ideals and hammer them into lasting policy. If Francis was the dreamer, Leo will be the doer.

For all the lofty historical comparisons, sometimes the ordinariness of this moment is what strikes me most. After the white smoke cleared and the crowds drifted home singing hymns, I did something utterly mundane: I pulled out my phone and shot off a text to an old contact I had in my phone from a decade past. Except that old contact is now the pope.

I thumbed, hitting send with a mix of giddy disbelief and pride. Almost immediately, the message bubble turned green, undeliverable.

Of course it did. Father Bob had traded his iPhone for the Fisherman’s Ring, and his private cell number was probably deactivated by the Vatican within minutes of Habemus Papam.

I laughed at myself for thinking I could just text the pope, but the impulse itself says so much: We Americans are used to our leaders being just a tap away, and for a moment, I had forgotten that my countryman on the balcony was now a universal pastor with an entirely different life.

Still, the very fact that the new pope had a number in my contacts list is a testament to his accessibility and American-ness.

For an American Catholic like me, that hint of shared culture is both charming and reassuring. It reminds us that the papacy isn’t an abstract institution; it’s held by a person, and now that person happens to hail from our own shores.

Pope Leo’s election has instantly made the rituals of the Vatican feel a touch more familiar to Americans — and perhaps made the idea of holiness feel a touch more attainable.

Beyond the novelty and pride, many of us are looking to this new pope with a deeper longing: could this be a moment of moral and institutional renewal for America? It’s no secret that our country has been sorely divided in recent years. We’ve endured bruising political fights, a crisis of truth and civility, even an insurrection and the ongoing temptation of authoritarian politics.

Trust in institutions is at a historic low; faith communities themselves are riven by conflict. Americans, in short, are hungry for healing — a restoration of integrity in our public life and compassion in our communities.

In this context, the first American pope feels providential. Who better than an American, steeped in the ideals of liberty under God, to remind the world that faith and freedom stand together against loneliness and isolationism?

Don’t be surprised if he soon uses his moral pulpit to gently, but firmly, push back against the siren song of authoritarian leaders — be they on the international stage or lurking in our domestic politics.

His voice, coming from an American who cannot be dismissed as “anti-American,” might uniquely rally the conscience of our people. At the very least, his example of servant leadership — prioritizing the poor, dialoguing with opponents, renouncing worldly power — is a much-needed antidote to the cynical power-grabs we’ve grown accustomed to.

Without rehashing this era’s divisiveness too much, it’s fair to say this is a time when America’s image was often tied to loud, combative nationalism and a cult of personality.

How poetic, then, that as we turn the page, the world’s spotlight shifts to an American known for quiet service and spiritual depth. Pope Leo XIV’s rise doesn’t erase our nation’s struggles, but it does offer a new narrative for what American leadership can mean. It suggests that America’s greatest export might not be our entertainment or weaponry, but our capacity for idealism and moral vision.

At Letters from Leo, we stand with the millions of Americans — Catholics and people of goodwill alike — who believe that what Pope Leo XIV represents is the country’s truer self: a republic of moral seriousness, a people whose deepest aspirations bend toward dignity, mercy, and the common good.

In an age poisoned by cruelty, where authoritarian temptations gnaw at our institutions and our souls, we remain rooted in a faith that refuses to flinch — and in a vision of America capable of being something far larger than its loudest, ugliest impulses.

This is the fastest-growing Catholic community in the country because people are hungry for something deeper than rage and propaganda. They want courage, truth, and a politics of conscience — and right now, with an American on the Chair of Peter and an authoritarian in the Oval Office, that hunger has never been more urgent.

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