Many positives worth noting about Pope Leo XIV

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper

Michael Commane

Maybe it’s well I did not write about the conclave before the vote. I had suggested three cardinals; two Dominicans, Timothy Radcliffe and Jean-Paul Vesco and the former secretary of state Pietro Parolin.

It was a little similar to the Grand National, all 133 were in the running. Dare I say it, I placed €2 bet on each of the above. At first the woman in the betting shop asked me what’s the race. We both had a good laugh when I told her, no not horses, cardinals. 

I’ve been thinking about the papacy, Pope Francis’ death and funeral Mass, and the lead up to the conclave and the election of the first American pope. 

He’s a truly American pope, representing both South and North America.

From my church experience I have always been impressed with women and men who have worked on the ‘missions’ but especially so in South America. 

They return to Ireland with a new vision of church and what it means to be part of the Christian community. Don’t forget Liberation Theology has its genesis in South America. John Paul II was nervous about what was happening in the South American church but Pope Francis came from that world, indeed, it had a significant influence on his papacy.

Pope Leo has worked many years in Peru, indeed, he obviously was greatly in love with the people and the place, why else would he have taken out Peruvian citizenship.

It was interesting he spoke in Italian and Spanish as his first public words as pope.

At his first Mass as pope the first two readers  of the Scripture were women. Also to be noted was the simple bare altar, no pious clutter. I’m always saying it’s the little things that give us away.

It’s also interesting that we have now had two popes one after the other  from religious congregations, Francis the Jesuit and now Leo, an Augustinian friar. 

I’ve always found the Augustinians extremely friendly. I recall my student days in Rome and well remember how friendly my fellow Augustinian friends at university were, they were always helpful and friendly, a lovely human touch about them. 

At the same time students from the Legionaries of Christ were not allowed talk to Dominicans and they all walked about dressed in identical clerical garb. 

On that score when people were talking about Irish man Cardinal Kevin Farrell for pope I was anxious and nervous. While he is no longer a member of the Legionaries of Christ, he joined the congregation as a young man and was with them for a period of time as a priest. They scared me then and still scare me today.

I can just about add and subtract but I have great respect for mathematicians. Pope Leo studied maths at university.

On a sad note. These days I’m thinking of my friend, the late Fr Ben O’Brien. He was an Augustinian priest. Wonderful man and no doubt he would have met the then Fr Robert Prevost either here in Ireland or in Rome. I can just imagine him filling me in on what sort of a man Pope Leo XIV is.

And something else in Leo’s favour, Maga does not like him.