We Have a New Pope

Welcome to the Saint John the Baptist Catholic Parish podcast from Fort Lauderdale. Be sure to spread the word about our podcast and follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. That way you'll be notified every time we release a new episode. Welcome to episode 16 of the Saint John the Baptist Parish podcast. In the Catholic church, we dedicate the entire month of May to the blessed virgin Mary.

And this time of year, we're always we always find ourselves in the middle of the two great feasts of Easter and Pentecost. And, you know, right after Pentecost arrives in the not too distant future, we're going to be focused on a feast called Mary, mother of the church. In fact, in the decree that established this celebration, it occurs on the Monday after the feast of Pentecost, That decree states that Mary, when standing at the foot of the cross, became the mother of the church when she accepted her son's testament of love and welcomed all people in the person of the beloved disciple as sons and daughters to be reborn unto eternal life. And therefore, it's in Mary and her life of humble, obedient service that we discover the model of her own vocation to accept her son's testament of love. From the very moment of Mary's response to the angel Gabriel through her assumption into heaven to sit in glory with her son, Mary demonstrated the importance of bringing Jesus to a suffering world, and the manner in which to do that.

Whether it was her personal response to God, as at the Annunciation, or her intervention on behalf of others, as at the wedding feast at Cana, Mary demonstrated the essential virtues needed to be a faithful follower of her son and to carry out our part in the unfolding of the story of salvation. It was Mary's humility which allowed her to abandon herself to god's will and gave her the courage to follow god into an unknown future. And it was this trusting humility that gave her the strength to say yes under all circumstances of her life. Mary committed herself to following the will of God, and to bring his son into the world, so that we all might be the adopted children and co heirs to the glory of the resurrection. But at no time in her life can we think that she fully understood all that this entailed.

She, like us, wondered about a divine plan which would include great pain, bewilderment, and sorrow. It was, however, her humble obedience, her total and absolute reliance upon divine love that gave her a never failing strength to be the first and greatest disciple of her son. Mary gave birth to Jesus at Bethlehem, but she continued to give birth to his presence in this world for the entirety of her life here on earth and in heaven as she invites each and every one of us to simply do whatever he tells you. Mary is our pattern, our model of true discipleship. It is she who teaches us to listen humbly and to act boldly upon the invitation of God with the absolute conviction that we too are called to bring Jesus to a suffering world through lives of humble obedience to God's will.

Well, as Catholics, we were glued to our television sets about a week ago. Not just Catholics, but the whole world was tuned in to a smokestack on a medieval building. The top of the Sistine Chapel was front and center on CNN, on MSNBC, on Fox News, on all the news channels. Everybody was fascinated by this question, who would the College of Cardinals pick to succeed Pope Francis? The mystery and the majesty of Catholicism was captured on television as the cardinals entered into the Sistine Chapel with the beautiful music, and we watched as they each took a vow in Latin to perform their solemn duty.

And it only took four ballots, which is a lot faster than most people believed. And what happened in the moments after the deacon came out and said, habeimus papem is something we never thought we would see, an American pope emerged on the balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica. We've all heard throughout most of our life, there'll never be an American pope. And here was cardinal Robert Prevost from Chicago standing on the balcony, having moments before ceased becoming cardinal provost and taken the name Pope Leo the fourteenth. And it was very interesting, the name selection, because a lot of people thought, well, the next pope since Pope Benedict had selected almost 80% of the cardinals, a lot of people thought the new pope would would pick Francis the second as a nod to his predecessor and the man who put him in the College of Cardinals.

But no, Pope Leo the fourteenth went back a hundred years, more than a hundred years, to pick the name Leo. So, of course, since we have Pope Leo the fourteenth, that means the previous Leo was the thirteenth. When was he in office? Well, it was the latter part of the nineteenth century, and then across the change into the nineteen hundreds, and he died in nineteen o three. But he mostly served as pope during the late eighteen hundreds.

In fact, he assumed office in 1878. That means pope Leo the thirteenth had a twenty five year reign until his death at age 93, which was in nineteen o three. Now Leo the thirteenth is famous for a few things. First of all, he had an amazing devotion to the rosary. In fact, Leo the thirteenth is called the rosary pope because he wrote more than 10 papal encyclicals on the power of the rosary.

But perhaps he's most famous for his 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum. And in this, Pope Leo the thirteenth outlined the rights of workers to a fair wage, safe working conditions, and he also affirmed the rights of private property and free enterprise, and he opposed socialism and unrestrained capitalism. He became known the social pope, the pope of the workers. And Leo the fourteenth, the pope we now have, was given nod there as to what kind of pope he would like to be. Pope Leo the thirteenth came about in this industrial age as society was changing, as the way people made a living was changing.

And we find ourselves very much in a similar state now with the advent of AI, which many experts say is going to transform the world in ways we cannot imagine yet. Now that time that Leo the thirteenth lived was really known as the second industrial revolution, and he developed modern Catholic social teaching. Leo the fourteenth believes we're going through a fourth industrial revolution now, and that the advances in artificial intelligence and robotics is gonna pose new challenges in the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor. So in that name choice, he is indicating where he wants to go. Very fascinating.

Now despite the fact that, the former cardinal prevost, now pope, was born and raised in the Chicago area, grew up a White Sox fan, he's actually spent more of his sixty nine years outside of The United States than inside. He was ordained in 1982 to the priesthood. Within a couple years, he found himself down in Peru as a missionary. Then for more than a decade, he was the prior general of the Order of Saint Augustine. Then cardinal Prevost, he went back to Peru and was appointed as bishop and served as the bishop of a diocese down in Peru from 2015 to 2023.

Then pope Francis tapped him to move to Rome to work for, what they call a decastery. It's sort of a Vatican term for department. The decastery for bishops. So what pope Leo did in his immediate prior job was help identify priests to be promoted by Pope Francis to become bishops. That, of course, is one of the roles of the pope, is to nominate and appoint priests into the episcopal role of shepherding a diocese.

And now, of course, Pope Leo the fourteenth, very familiar with that because he's actually served in that role. That might be one of the few times that's happened where a a cardinal working in that role elevated was elevated right to the papacy. So Leo the fourteenth has a number of firsts in his, column. He's the first pope to have been born in North America. He's the first pope to hold Peruvian citizenship.

That's because he's a dual citizen of both United States Of America and Peru. Of course, he would be the first US citizen. He's the second pope from The Americas, because pope Francis was, of course, from Argentina. Pope Leo is the first pope from the order of Saint Augustine. He's got a couple of brothers.

In fact, you might have seen one. One of his brothers loves to, share all about him on in interviews. In fact, there was a funny, clip on the news where the brother of the pope was being interviewed in his house by the media when the pope called him. And the brother did something some of us probably wouldn't have done. He answered the call and put him on speakerphone without the pope even knowing it.

And we're getting a great insight into not only Pope Leo, but the relationship of these two brothers who obviously love each other very much. Pope Leo is also well suited in the church to help the Vatican with its finances. There's a budget deficit at the Vatican, and our pope has a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from Villanova University. He also taught physics at a high school in Chicago during his studies. So when he came out on that balcony, the world was stunned that the cardinals had chosen an American pope.

Over the last hundred years or so, it's really thought that someone from The United States probably would not be elected pope, because as a very strong country, that might not be the signal that the College of Cardinals wanted to send. Pope Leo is also only the second native English speaker to be elected pope. The last one was pope Adrian the fourth, who was pope in the November. Leo was also the first pope born after World War two. That makes him the first baby boomer pope.

So as the Catholic church moves into a new era, all of us here at the parish encourage you to keep pope Leo the fourteenth in your prayers each and every day. We're supposed to pray for our leaders. That means we pray for our pastor, we pray for our local bishop, and we pray for our pope each and every day. And let's also redouble our efforts in praying for more vocations to the priesthood, diaconate, and religious life. Thanks for listening to the Saint John the Baptist Catholic Parish podcast from Fort Lauderdale.

Be sure to follow our show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and that way you'll be notified every time we release a new episode. This has been a production of the Parish Podcast Project.