Two Weighty Words & One Gentle Lion

The Election of Pope Leo XIV:

Lateral Leadership & Incremental Change

Habemus Papam | We Have a Pope

Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV.

An American original from Chi-town and a naturalized Peruvian citizen, Leo is an Augustinian priest, a mathematician, and a canon lawyer. He’s not a celebrity pope. He’s not a culture war pope. He’s a synodality pope.

Which is our first of two really cool vocab words for today.

The Opposite of Supremacy

Synodality literally means traveling together.

It’s leadership rooted in dialogue, consensus, and the radical idea that power exists to serve, not control.

Synodality emphasizes:

consent of the governed;

welcome instead of walls;

mercy over punishment.

Leo has a track-record, most notably from his tenure at the Dicastery for Bishops (think Chief HR Officer for the Vatican ). In that role, he consistently emphasized listening, shared discernment, and walking with others rather than ruling over them. Making pathways, not walls.

What an interesting , timely choice the College of Cardinals made today.

Enter our second cool word. Breach.

Tear Down a Wall

Breach is a fancy way of saying a crack in a wall, defense, or system.

Cracks can be good. Even necessary.

Sometimes, humanity needs to tear down walls, crack by crack, brick by brick.

So please take heart. If all you see right now are fractures and fault lines, remember this: cracks are signs of change.  That’s how 90s kids dismantled the Berlin Wall. That’s how liberation begins.

Let in Some Light

"There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in."

~ Leonard Cohen

Real talk, Catholicism does not change fast. (Hence my drift from the faith.) I don't expect we'll wake up tomorrow to a suddenly tolerant and equitable world. But check it out: the planet's most immovable institution, notoriously comprised of traditionalists and conservatives, all men, just elected a midwestern math teacher to the papacy. Bam! That's a shift.

I certainly don't know Leo well (beyond the intense research of an afternoon). But I feel confident making the following two assumptions:

First, he and I will disagree on many points.

Second, it's fair to hope he will champion some of Christianity's best values during his papacy:

• Alleviate suffering.

• Challenge injustice.

• Tell the truth.

• Love your neighbor.

Those are the kind of principles with the power to raze Retribution Walls.

Increments. One act of resistance. One breach at a time.

You don't have to be Catholic or even Christian to appreciate that we're not alone in this.