Was Leo XIV Chosen by Francis...or Not?

 

Examining the evidence behind the “chosen successor” narrative

Ever since Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected Pope Leo XIV of the Catholic Church, there have been attempts to portray him as Francis’s intended successor, as his protegé and closest collaborator. Such notions have been pushed by Christopher Hale and modernist commentators such as Austen Ivereigh, and recently Gerard O'Connell and his wife Elisabetta Piqué. Two things that these various narratives have in common are that they were constructed entirely after the fact and that they tend to show a blatant ignorance of curial politics.

Before Prevost was elected, few if any sources portrayed him as particularly close to Francis, nor was he said to be his intended successor. While Francis was ailing in the hospital, Zuppi was again rumored to be his desired heir; and Aveline as well, but not Prevost.

Yet, now it is suddenly claimed that Francis prepared Prevost to be his successor. Key to this narrative is the claim that Francis showed special favour to Prevost by making him bishop and later prefect and cardinal, as well as allegedly showing him membership in other dicasteries.

That Francis made Prevost a bishop is not indicative of personal favor at all.

- Prevost had not just been a two-time prior general of the Augustinian order, but also was a trained canon lawyer, ecclesial judge, missionary, mission director, rector of a seminary and seminary teacher. Being made a bishop was a completely logical next step which was to be expected.

- Chiclayo is a regular diocese, not an archdiocese. It’s not an exceptional position by any standard. Prevost also wasn’t moved from Chiclayo to a bigger archdiocese after a few years, as some of Francis’s favorites were. From 2014 till 2019 he served there as a bishop completely uneventfully, without any favors whatsoever.

- He was not invited to synods, given any curial functions or any meaningful honours. Had Francis died after about five years as Pope, something he suggested could happen early in his papacy, then Prevost would simply have been some local bishop he appointed in Peru.

- Prevost largely remained an unknown till 2023. For ten years of Francis’s papacy, he was largely invisible. Francis did make Prevost a member of the Dicastery for Bishops in 2019 and then of the Dicastery for the Clergy in 2020, but that rightfully got little attention. Francis appointed other smaller bishops to such dicastery memberships, without especially favouring them as well, including Bishop Gregory Bennet of the Diocese of Sale in Australia for the Dicastery for the Clergy and Bishop José Antonio Satué Huerto of the Diocese Teruel and Albarracín in Spain.

- Prevost's two memberships didn’t lead to anything else for years. Inside-sources are virtually unanimous on the fact that Prevost was not Francis’s first choice as prefect for the then Congregation for …

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