Leo and the Question of Relevancy

If a Pope makes a statement and nobody cares, is it still a statement?

Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago

Look, it was probably inevitable.

Since ascending to the throne as Leo XIV, Robert Prevost has kept a notably low profile as Pope, and that low profile won universal adulation. After the various public interventions of the Francis pontificate, Catholics appeared to welcome a Pope who stayed out of the spotlight. This was never sustainable, and we were reminded of that last week when he offered his opinion on whether or not Richard Durbin should be celebrated by the Archdiocese of Chicago despite his record on abortion.

I am not going to offer much of any commentary on Leo’s words, because I think they are a Rorschach test of how one views the office of the papacy overall. The most I will say is that I think Leo found a fork in the road, and he took it. He did not say Durbin should have been offered the award from the Diocese of Chicago, but he did say that we should engage these individuals. He mostly speculated rather than making a bold statement one way or the other, since, by his own admission, he was not familiar with the situation on the ground. He didn’t say Durbin’s position could be reconciled with Catholicism, but mostly in the sense he wondered if any politician could be expected to be aligned with the Gospel in America. I would not read too much into Leo’s views beyond what you were already reading into him.

What I would like to focus on is the response, or the lack thereof. If you think the Pope was trying to defend Durbin and Cupich, Cupich announced Durbin had “withdrawn” his name from consideration. (Almost certainly Cardinal Cupich suggested this to him.) Cupich himself issued a rather humiliating statement defending himself in light of the withdrawal. If the pope was riding to the rescue, he clearly didn’t help.

While I don’t think it’s clear he was trying to ride to the rescue, it also didn’t seem to matter to US Bishops what he was thinking. The USCCB was reportedly preparing a document on the matter, and it was almost certainly going to be opposed to the man who, just 9 months ago, was the most powerful Cardinal in America. It appears that the USCCB informed Rome of their intentions, but did not seem interested in seeking guidance on the matter. The USCCB will be meeting shortly as part of their schedule, and it is likely there will be no change: abortion will remain the pre-eminent (though not sole) issue in their eyes. I am reminded of the McCarrick affair, where US Bishops routinely shelved stronger statements against a pedophile because there was fear it was done without Rome’s instruction. Those days are gone.

I think this will be a story that is underreported but increasingly true as we go through Leo’s pontificate. Rightly or wrongly, his words will matter less, at least for the foreseeable future. The Church struggled with credibility before the pontificate of Jorge Bergoglio, who as Francis made a bet that increased favor from mainstream outlets would help restore the respectability of the Church right as those same institutions went into a death spiral of credibility with their wider public. In announcing Durbin’s “withdrawal” of consideration, Cardinal Cupich mused whether it would be an appropriate instance of synodality for the laity and bishops to dialogue with each other on these approaches. What His Eminence does not seem to realize is that this has been happening for quite some time. It is only now has His Eminence decided he should grace us with his presence. Even more, the question is mostly resolved: those in positions of power have made up their mind, and are moving in a direction opposite of the good Cardinal and potentially Rome. I would invite the reader to save these words, as they will become important later.