Wednesday, January 07, 2026
People Who Give Us Hope: Pope Leo XIV
Last week, I mentioned a new feature here at the Razor about people who give us hope in turbulent times. Most of them, I expect, will not be famous but to start out I thought I would go big.
I'm not Catholic, but I work at a Catholic school and have been strongly influenced by some strands of Catholic social teaching. Even for us non-Catholics, the Pope often is a strong voice on the national stage, and that certainly has been true of Leo since he was elected Pope in May of last year.
As most people know, he is the first American Pope, and only the second from the Western Hemisphere (the first was his predecessor, Pope Francis). He actually began his ordained work as a deacon in Grosse Pointe, at St. Clare de Montefalco. There, he was ordained by the legendary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, who earlier had co-founded the Michigan Commission on Human Rights (along with a prominent Rabbi and an Episcopal Bishop).
As Pope, Leo took that name to honor late-19th-century Pope Leo XIII, who established modern Catholic social teaching and promoted labor rights. His own speaking reveals a deep care for the hurting and the rejected within our society, and for peace.
After the horrific shooting of children at Annunciation Church here in Minneapolis, he said this, which sums up my own view: "We hold in our prayers the countless children killed and injured every day around the world. Let us plead to God to stop the pandemic of arms, large and small, with infects our world."
There is a long road ahead of this Pope, but he is already someone who gives me hope.
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Chicagoans are immensely proud of this great and good man. My favorite headline the day after his papacy was announced was on the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times: “Da Pope!”
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