Orville Taylor | Pope of America

Whew! All over the Internet, memes had images of American President Donald Trump as the new Pope. Though incredulous, it took the black smoke emanating from the Sistine Chapel’s to jerk us back to reality.

A few days later; white smoke, and as tempting as it was to think it; this was not Capleton’s Chalice, lit 31 years ago. There was no froth to foam, just the 14th. American Cardinal Robert Prevost, emerged as Pope Leo XIV, a name he carefully chose.

Close though, not the president, but an American made history as the second Pope from the Americas and the first from the US.

Hmm! Maybe Trump does get his 51st state indeed. Well, that is going to be the only way that Leo can remain an American citizen; because to the best of my knowledge, one cannot be American and be head of a foreign country or serve in a foreign military.

As Pope, he is head of state of the smallest country and is chief of the Swiss Guard, the Vatican’s curiously dressed like court jesters but extremely well trained and effective military.

Anyway, Prevost became a naturalised Peruvian in 2015. Like Francis before him, he broke centuries of tradition, becoming the first from the tiny Augustine order, to rise to the pinnacle of the Catholic Church.

His warm relations with his predecessor Pope Francisco well known, he was only made cardinal two years ago by Francisco himself. Interestingly, an important development within the Vatican was his decision, clearly with Francisco’s blessing, to break centuries of rigidity and appoint three women to the critical electoral college.

One would be hard-pressed not to conclude that these devout women of God might not have tipped the scale in his selection.

For the record, however, this strategic move might not be a bad or good thing. After all, if one examines the history of the Catholic Church and the selection processes of popes, this is indeed one of the cases of best practices in succession, given some of the shameful activities involved, unfortunately in the name of Christ.

Seen in some quarters as an interesting balance between traditional elements within the Catholic Church and more progressive ones, one should not expect him to be as bold as Francisco was. The Catholic Church is still the Catholic Church, and with well established catechisms and structured beliefs and practices, one should not expect any radical shift in policy or practice.

For example, the likelihood of the ordination of female priests still remain at ‘nun’.

And despite the multicoloured uniform of the Swiss Guard, it is still expected that he will not bless gay unions or any kind of sexual activity outside of a legally-endorsed marriage between man and woman, and preferably Catholic standard.

Historically, the Catholic Church has been the ‘sex police,’ because the family and natural procreation of humanity are fundamental precepts. Thus, there is no way that apart from celibacy and abstinence, where it can support interruption to natural conception and gestation.

It should be noted that the church does not condemn homosexuals or other sexual minorities. Indeed, one can be a member of the faith with gay desires, as long as one doesn’t act on them.

Years ago, it took four weeks for a good friend of mine to understand that our sodomy laws, like the churches, only sanction actus reus but never the mens rea.

Just to be straight, the church is attempting to make amends for the shortcomings of men who went into the priesthood and got lost and misplaced the predicate in their vows. Accepting responsibility for the evil people in a good system is an ongoing task.

In this 21st century reality Pope Leo has a lot on his plate. Like Leo I, it is hoped that he might be able to persuade those hegemonic nations who trample on human rights, disrespect borders, are hell-bent on invading other independent nations, and perpetuating global inequality, to just simply live by the internationally agreed standards of the United Nations.

Leo I in 452 AD met and persuaded Attila the Hun from invading Rome. What says Leo XIV about Ukraine, Gaza, Burkina Faso and Greenland?

Our Leo has a lot to apologise for and possibly to make reparations for some of the Church’s crimes against humanity.

Pope John Paul II apologised in 2000 for the persecution of the Jews, campaigns against Muslims and implicitly the horrendous crusades in the name of Jesus Christ, where millions of ‘infidels’ were slaughtered, because they had a different view of how believers could reach God.

Thankfully, the current leadership of the Catholic Church in this country of 93 per cent African and at least 60 per cent Akan/Asante, embraces the Adinkra symbol Gye Nyame, which means, nothing above the one God,

Again, the Catholics win in Jamaica, because when other secular and protestant schools were denying Rastafarian children access to education, the Pope’s local base St George’s College (STGC), in the 1970s, facilitated African studies clubs and the wearing of dreadlocks. In fact, the old STGC never punished boys who, for whatever reason, could not meet the dress code.

Still, like the Anglicans, the Catholics did benefit from the proceeds of slavery and own slaves as well. Moreover, it was the papacy which gave the thumbs up for the conquest of the Americas, the enslavement of Africans and the colonialisation of the non-Christian world. True, reparations is a complex matter, because continental Africans were participants, there were black cardinals and black popes too.

Catholicism is the world’s largest Christian denomination with 1.4 billion members, the same as the population of China.

But back to America; the biggest Christian group, more than 53 million Americans, some 22 per cent, are Catholics. Despite the narrative of being a secular country, Catholics take ‘In God we trust’ seriously. Apart from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, most Latinos are Catholic and so is Vice President J.D. Vance.

Trust me, Leo XIV could become the most powerful since the 18th century.

Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.