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 …
Father Nicola Bux on what Donald Trump has not understood and what Pope Leo has yet to say regarding the Church’s role in peace
Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt (1606–1669) (Wikimedia Commons).
Here below is a guest commentary by Father Nicola Bux, a priest of the Italian Archdiocese of Bari, a professor of theology, and a former consulter to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith:
Popes from John XXIII to Leo XIV have, in different ways, separated the question of peace from the concrete reality of the Church; as a result, their appeals for peace risk becoming utopian — aspirations that lack the means necessary for their fulfilment.
This separation appears when peace is framed primarily as a political or humanitarian goal: ending wars, encouraging dialogue, and fostering cooperation among nations. These aims are good, but when they are presented without reference to the Church’s essential mission — the conversion of persons and peoples to Christ — they lose their foundation. Peace becomes an external arrangement rather than the fruit of an interior transformation.
The Gospel presents a different logic. After His Resurrection, Christ gives peace to His Apostles and immediately commands them to make disciples of all nations (Mt 28:19). The universality of this mission shows that peace is inseparable from the spread of the Gospel and the establishment of the Church. The Church is not merely a promoter of peace; she is its source in history, because she is the body of Christ, who is Himself our peace.
The early Christians understood this unity clearly. For them, peace and communion were inseparable realities. In the Church, divisions of language, ethnicity, and nation were overcome through a shared life in Christ. The inscriptions “pax” and “irene” on Christian tombs expressed the conviction that peace was fulfilled in communion with God and His people. Peace was not an abstract ideal but a lived experience grounded in faith.
When this connection is weakened, the pursuit of peace becomes superficial. Symbolic gestures and diplomatic efforts may express goodwill, but they cannot resolve the deeper disorder within the human person. As Isaiah teaches, “the work of justice will be peace” (Is 32:17), and justice depends on right relationship with God. Without conversion, there is no lasting moral order, and without moral order, peace cannot endure.
For this reason, the Church’s mission is indispensable. Faith comes from hearing the Gospel, and from faith comes conversion — a real change of life. Where this occurs, reconciliation, justice, and solidarity become possible. The spread of the Church is therefore not opposed to peacebuilding; it is its necessary condition. To speak of peace without proclaiming Christ is to propose an effect without its cause.
This helps explain why many modern appeals to peace appear ineffective. They call for universal fraternity without addressing how human beings can truly become brothers and sisters. Detached from the transformative power of the Gospel, such appeals remain aspirations rather than realities.
At the same time, charity requires recognizing that God can act through those outside the Church. Scripture shows this in figures who prophesy or act in God’s name without belonging to the visible community of believers. Political leaders, too, can contribute to peace in partial ways. Yet their role cannot replace the Church’s mission. When the Church adopts primarily political categories or is perceived as just another diplomatic actor, her identity is obscured and her message misunderstood.
This confusion is evident in contemporary tensions between political figures and the papacy. When the Pope is treated chiefly as a head of state, his evangelical mission is reduced to diplomacy. Conversely, when the Church does not speak clearly about conversion and moral truth, some believers seek clarity elsewhere, even in flawed political alternatives. This dynamic reveals a weakening in how the relationship between peace and the Church is understood.
The remedy is not to abandon calls for peace, but to ground them once more in their true source. The Pope and the bishops must place at the center the call that begins the Gospel itself: conversion to God. Peace will not come simply through negotiation or the balancing of interests, but through transformed hearts.
Only in this way can appeals for peace avoid becoming utopian. When peace is understood as the fruit of communion with Christ, and when the Church is recognised as the place where this communion is offered to all, it becomes a real — if never complete — possibility within history. The more the Church fulfils her mission, the more the conditions for peace take root in the world.
The anti Christian Belgian radio hosts who SMASHED statues of Jesus and Our Lady have had a belated and half hearted apology issued on their behalf:
'Eva and Dries apologize. The video was intended as a humorous act, and they underestimated how sensitive religious symbols can be. They understand that this was hurtful to some people and would make different choices today.
VRT considers it important that all its employees show respect for every religion. Our aim is not to compare religions, but to treat everyone's beliefs with care'
Like @BishopBarron points out, Project Hail Mary is drenched in Christian imagery.
A man named Grace inhabits the Hail Mary.
"Hail Mary, full of Grace..."
That's not an accident.
Wonderful film.
@GiancarloSopo
I just saw the much talked about film “Project Hail Mary.” It's very entertaining and uplifting and features a fine performance from Ryan Gosling. But what most intrigued me were the powerful Christian themes at play in it. The title, of course, refers to the Hail Mary pass in football, since the adventure undertaken is a fairly desperate attempt to save the planet. But it also becomes eminently clear that the reference is not just to football but to the Blessed Mother herself, for the Gosling character is undoubtedly a Christ-figure. I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but it involves a willingness to sacrifice one's life utterly in order to deliver the entire human race from disaster. It is, of course, no accident that Gosling's character is called Ryland Grace, for throughout the movie, his presence and actions constitute undeserved favor to others. A particularly intriguing character in the film is a sober German scientist who relentlessly presses Grace to make the supreme sacrifice, even when he is unwilling. She represented for me the great moral demand that presses upon us throughout our lives, continually summoning us to self-gift. A last observation: Jesus had a second in command whom he called Peter (the Rock); Ryland Grace has a very unusual sidekick whom he calls “Rocky.” I'll leave it at that.
I know lots of people say that Christianity is in irreversible decline and that we are inhabiting, at least in the West, a post-Christian society. I'm not so sure. Like it or not, we remain a Christ-haunted culture—and a film like “Project Hail Mary” makes this clear.
N.B. Pope makes point that his speeches prepared well before Trump eruption, but delivered after, are not about Trump. Lambastes “commentary on commentary”.
The Pope in flight: "A certain narrative has spread, not entirely accurate, due to the political situation that arose when, on the first day of the trip, the President of the United States made some statements about me. Much of what has been written since then is nothing more than commentary on commentary, in an attempt to interpret what was said.” An example is the speech delivered at the Prayer Meeting for Peace, on April 16. A speech that “had been prepared two weeks earlier, well before the president commented on me and on the message of peace that I am promoting. Yet, it was interpreted as if I were trying to debate with the president again, which is not at all in my interest. I come to Africa primarily as a pastor, as head of the Catholic Church, to be with, to celebrate with, to encourage and accompany all African Catholics.”
Vatican News Source via @matteomatzuzzi on Twitter/X
As Leo repeats his modernist reading of John 6, Rome probes Benedict’s resignation, pro-lifers demand repentance, and new questions swirl around the January consistory.
The Miracle Leo Keeps Explaining Away
We already saw this pattern in my June 23, 2025 piece, Bread Without Doctrine: Leo XIV’s Corpus Christi and the Vanishing Reality of the Eucharist, where I reported that Leo had been turning Eucharistic theology into a language of solidarity, distribution, and communal sharing rather than sacrifice and supernatural reality. What happened in Douala on April 17, 2026 was a second offense, cleaner and blunter than the first.
In his homily at Japoma Stadium, Leo said that “the multiplication of the loaves and the fish happened while sharing: that is the miracle.” That sentence does not merely stress charity flowing from the miracle. It relocates the miracle itself. The wonder is no longer Christ’s sovereign act over nature. The wonder becomes the crowd’s social behavior. Bread appears, in effect, because people finally learn to stop clutching and start sharing. Christ becomes less the divine Lord who multiplies and more the moral facilitator who teaches redistribution.
This was not a one-off improvisation. On June 30, 2025, in his message to the FAO, Leo had already said that “the real miracle” in the multiplication narratives was to show that hunger is overcome by sharing rather than hoarding. So now the line has been spoken twice, once in an international social setting and once in a liturgical homily on John 6. At that point defenders can stop pretending this is a clumsy phrase. It is a theological habit.
Why This Is Not a Catholic Reading of John 6
The problem is not that Christians should share bread. Of course they should. The problem is that John 6 is not narrated as a lesson in crowd ethics. It is narrated as a miracle of Christ. The text says the people received “as much as they wanted,” and the fragments filled twelve baskets afterward. The Church’s catechetical tradition has treated the multiplication of the loaves as a true miracle and as a prefiguration of the Eucharist’s superabundance. The Catechism does not say the crowd’s generosity is the miracle. It says the miracles of the multiplication of the loaves prefigure the Eucharist. The miracle is the sign. The sign points beyond itself.
Leo’s reading inverts the whole order of the passage. In Scripture, Christ acts first and charity follows. Grace descends and abundance results. The disciples distribute because the Lord has already made provision. Leo reverses the sequence. Sharing becomes the cause and abundance the result. That is ideological ventriloquism. It reads a modern social ethic back into a text whose force lies precisely in the divine intervention of Christ.
Even Leo’s own conciliar Compendium of the Catechism says Jesus performed signs and miracles “to bear witness” that the Kingdom is present in him. Vatican I likewise taught that divine revelation is made credible by “external signs,” and Pascendi restated that condemnation against those who would reduce faith to internal experience and subjective religious sentiment. Once the miracle is no longer an external sign wrought by Christ, but a symbol generated by human sharing, the whole Catholic structure of miracle begins to collapse.
Why the Error Is Modernist
This is exactly where modernism lives. Modernism does not always stride into the sanctuary waving a banner that says, “I deny the supernatural.” It often works more elegantly. It keeps the biblical scene, keeps the religious language, keeps the pastoral application, and quietly evacuates the miracle. The event remains in the text, but its supernatural content is drained away and replaced with a humane message palatable to modern ears.
St. Pius X described the modernist method with unnerving precision. The divine fact is pushed out of history and into the realm of faith language, symbolism, sentiment, and interior meaning. The critic, he says, strips away whatever surpasses man in his natural condition. That is exactly what Leo’s formulation does to John 6. The miraculous multiplication is no longer the stubborn fact that forces you to reckon with Christ’s divinity. It becomes a pious emblem of fraternity. The bread still circulates. The divine vanishes.
And notice how perfectly this fits the postconciliar instinct. The old Catholic instinct looked at the miracle and said: behold the Lord who commands creation, the same Lord who gives His flesh as food and whose sacrifice alone saves. The new instinct looks at the miracle and says: behold the community organizing itself around a moral insight. One approach ends at adoration. The other ends at an NGO.
The Eucharistic Damage
The damage does not stop at biblical interpretation. John 6 is not just any chapter. It is one of the Church’s great Eucharistic texts. The Catechism explicitly links the multiplication miracle to the Eucharist’s superabundance and then moves directly into Christ’s Bread of Life discourse and the institution of the Eucharist as the memorial of His death and Resurrection. When Leo reduces the sign to social sharing, he weakens the very bridge the Church has always used to lead souls from the miracle of the loaves to the mystery of the altar.
This is a doctrinal deformation. Once John 6 is domesticated into a sermon about equitable distribution, the Eucharist itself slides toward symbolism. The altar becomes a table of inclusion. The sacrificial character recedes. The supernatural abundance of grace is translated into human fellowship. My June 2025 article saw that trajectory already. Douala confirms it. The same Leo who once wrapped Corpus Christi in the language of sharing has now taken the biblical miracle itself and done the same surgery to it
Are the military actions the U.S. and Israel have taken against Iran just? Fran Maier lays out his case for the affirmative, first by going over all the ways that the Iranian government is not a good faith actor. He writes, “A reasonable peace assuring mutual security has never been, and is not even now, on Tehran’s agenda.”
For further reading: Just war theory is more difficult to apply in this age of drone strikes an proxy wars, but that does not make it irrelevant. During the tensions with Iran last summer, Richard Cassleman argued that just war still applies today (“Is Just War Theory Still Relevant?” 2025).
Pope Leo was said to have been elected because he was the “least American American.” And yet, this pope is entangled with his native country’s politics, as the recent tousle with Trump over the Iran war has shown. Of course, it’s the pope’s prerogative to call for peace, but James F. Keating writes that “what is new, at least to my ears, is the harshness of Leo’s rhetoric” and his apparent abandonment of the just war tradition. “Leo is here going beyond the application of Catholic moral principles and entering into the political fray.”
JAMES F. KEATING
When it comes to papal matters in Rhode Island, I am often interviewed on the local news. Thus, I get my “fifteen minutes of fame” whenever a pope dies or is about to be elected. I am called upon to make predictions about the next pope. My record is not great. I predicted Bergoglio to succeed St. John Paul II, but said he was too old to follow Benedict XVI. With respect to our present pope, I confidently ruled out an American being elected. My reasoning was that it would give the United States too much power in the world, throne as well as altar. In my defense, Robert Prevost is an unusual American prelate, having been a bishop in Peru. Once elected, I predicted that he would stay out of American politics or at least avoid fighting with Donald Trump. I was wrong on this as well and spectacularly so.
Over the past months, Pope Leo has become a harsh critic of the policies of the Trump administration. The first salvo concerned immigration. Leo’s statements were finely balanced, acknowledging, on the one hand, that every nation has a right to regulate its borders and, on the other, insisting that immigrants, regardless of their legal status, must be treated with dignity and fairness. Not much to see here. Things took a drastic turn, however, when the pope objected to the attacks on Iran by the militaries of Israel and the United States. The problem was not, of course, that the pope opposed the war and, once it started, urged an immediate cessation of violence in favor of dialogue. Wars are always accompanied by great evils and are never permissible when a peaceful alternative is available. Papal statements against this or that war go back, at least, to Benedict XV’s impassioned but ultimately fruitless efforts to stop World War I, a conflict he described as “useless slaughter” and the “suicide of civilized Europe.” St. John Paul II, at the end of his life, spoke out forcefully against the Iraq War.
What is new, at least to my ears, is the harshness of Leo’s rhetoric. He seems to have determined that Trump’s actions stem from a lust for domination and nothing more. The president’s stated reason to ensure that the radical government of Iran never procures a nuclear weapon is wholly ignored. Moreover, some of the pope’s statements veer toward pacifism. For example, the pope stated the following in his homily for Palm Sunday:“Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood’(Is. 1:15).”
Whether or not he was countering Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s questionable use of Psalm 144:1 in support of the military operations against Iran, it is presumptuous for any human being, even a pope, to pronounce on whose prayers God attends. Moreover, is the pope referring to those who wage unjust wars or any war? In other words, is Pope Leo signaling an abandonment of the just war tradition, despite its connection to St. Augustine, the patron of his religious order? Given his predecessor’s alteration of the Church’s teaching on the death penalty, this possibility is not far-fetched.
Whatever is the case, the recent fireworks can be traced to a series of events beginning with Leo’s denunciation of Trump’s threat against Iran that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” The pope was as right as rain to condemn such language but took the extra step of encouraging Americans to contact their congressmen to end the war. Leo is here going beyond the application of Catholic moral principles and entering into the political fray of his native country. Even if other popes have done this, no American pope, for obvious reasons, has. We are in uncharted territory. The next extra step was an April 9 meeting between the pope and David Axelrod, the Chicago Democratic operative and fierce critic of Trump. Three days later, a trio of American cardinals, Blase Cupich, Joseph Tobin, and Robert McElroy, were interviewed by the partisan journalist Norah O’Donnell on 60 Minutes. They trashed the president with the vigor of politicians.
It is at this point that Trump attacked the pope in a Truth Social post and in subsequent comments made to reporters. The language was, as it often is with Trump, over the top and gross. It is an undeniable aspect of our current president that he often speaks in ways that bring shame to the country he leads. Like Bishop Barron, I think he should apologize. In Trumpian fashion, the president responded to Barron’s request by doubling down on his criticism. So it terribly goes. What strikes me about Trump’s comments is that he treats the pope like any other politician. “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” and only got elected “because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”
Be offended if you like (I am), but do not miss the sheer novelty and perils of the moment. As the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo must be free to speak out on events anywhere in the world. As an American, however, he would be wise to avoid getting too involved in a back and forth with any American politician, especially an unrestrained pugilist like Trump. He is surely correct to say that he does not “fear” the president or any other worldly leader. He should fear, however, being entangled in his country’s dysfunctional politics. It is safe to say that Leo is learning about what it means to be an American pope in the present context.
Card. Burke: "Prophétis meis"
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Non relíquit hóminem nocére eis: et corrípuit pro eis reges.
Nolíte tángere christos meos: et in prophétis meis nolíte malignári.
-- Sanctae Mariae in Sabbat...
