The upcoming papal document will tackle the most sensitive issue right now — immigration; but it will take a different approach from the one adopted by some global governments.
To sign his first document, he wore the mozzetta, a tradition that had not been observed since the time of Paul VI. A few hours later, he attended the swearing-in of the new Swiss Guards, again, a practice not seen since the times of Paul VI. A few days earlier, he had met and spiritually re-embraced the beacon of the conservative Church, American Cardinal Raymond Burke.
In other words, Pope Leo XIV has checked all the boxes of tradition, rejecting every symbol and sign of a break from the past. However, his first document, an apostolic exhortation, tackles the most sensitive issue of the moment: the rallying of conservatives and reactionaries worldwide – poverty and immigration.
As we wrote: “The extensive section devoted to the Bible, theological tradition, and ecclesial teaching dispels any doubt that practices of justice are an expression of faith in the revelation of the God of Jesus. The aspiration for social and economic equity and care for the human rights of the most vulnerable in society, including migrants and those on the margins, is not an adjunct to the life of the Catholic Church, but rather an obligation to the Gospel.”
On Thursday, we will hear what the pope says, but it doesn’t take much imagination to guess that the Church, as it has historically done in its doctrine, will speak in favor of the poor and immigrants. These words from the American pope, regardless of any possible intention, will echo through the streets of America. Here, President Donald Trump is threatening to send troops into some major cities. At the same time, opponents have already accused anti-immigration officers, ICE, of acting almost like the brownshirts of old, with provocations, bullying, and indiscriminate arrests.
That is, the pope has decided to head-on address the divisive issue affecting the world’s superpower and the world. It is a thorny problem with no simple solution. It is more common to discuss tech trillionaires. These individuals would like to repopulate the Earth but only with their own children, not those from developing countries, or they would prefer to leave the earthlings’ tangled problems behind and colonize Mars.
The Pope, instead, grounds us back down to earth by highlighting the enormous, unprecedented issue of population decline in the wealthy north of the planet, while at the same time pointing to a flow of desperate people seeking hope in this direction.
We further explained: “In the Church of the American pope, there is no room for the prosperity gospel, which rewards the wealthy and leaves the vast majority of the impoverished to their fate as if abandoned by God. This deepening imbalance, around which a new global (dis)equilibrium is emerging, challenges the Catholic faith at its core and calls on the Church to present itself as an institution that promotes the justice and equity necessary to honor the dignity of every human being.”
Thus, the pope positions himself as a global authority, not subordinate to any world government, and indeed prepared to confront anyone humbly but openly, without fear, because this is the history of the Church.
The question in the coming days and months will be to see how the world’s governments react, especially how the American government responds, which has chosen the immigration issue as a banner, albeit in an opposite sense to the one selected by the pope.
