Following the Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope!) announcement on May 8 Louisville Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre welcomed our new Holy Father with these words:
“We pray that he will be blessed with the same qualities of holiness and wisdom that his recent predecessors have shown. I hope he is able to continue to have the pastoral heart of Pope Francis; I hope he has the intellectual, philosophical ability of Pope John Paul II, and I hope he has the theological insight of Pope Benedict. As the successor of St. Peter, I think he will bring all those things to his ministry. And we trust that God will grant him gifts of humility, patience, purity of heart, and obedience to the Divine will as he seeks to promote the good of Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church.”
Pope Leo XIV is not a replacement for (or a carbon copy of) Pope Francis. He is the 267th successor of St. Peter. He brings to this sacred responsibility his own gifts, talents and experiences, as well as his human frailty and shortcomings.
Guided by the Holy Spirit, and with the love and support of Catholics and people of goodwill from every region of the world, he will strive to serve God’s people in the self-sacrificing way that our Lord Jesus Christ served everyone.
Our job as Catholics is to pray for the man who has been chosen to lead us as the Bishop of Rome and the pastor of the Universal Church.
As Pope Francis said so forcefully, the pope is a sinner, an ordinary man called to serve others humbly and faithfully after the model of the Good Shepherd who gave his life for his sheep. The one thing that we know for certain about our new pope, Leo XIV, is that he will not be perfect. He will make mistakes, and he will have to seek God’s forgiveness for his sins. He will need all of us to pray for him and to help him carry the burdens of his ministry.
As we pray for Pope Leo, we should also pray for ourselves.
May God grant us the grace to support him, listen to him and obey him, even when we aren’t sure we agree with everything he has to say to us.
Pope Francis had his critics and his dissenters. Pope Leo will also. We should pray that he will have the courage and the strength to rely on God’s grace to carry out his Petrine ministry as he understands it, and that, at the same time, he will be open and attentive to God’s Word and to the voices of the people he serves in Jesus’ name.
Pope Leo has said that he wants to unite us all in Christ. As Christ’s Vicar, may he challenge us, encourage us and love us as Jesus does. And may we listen to him and obey him with open and generous hearts.
Dan Conway, a member of Holy Trinity Church, is a writer, consultant and stewardship educator.
