OPINION:
A man named Robert Prevost was elected by his peers a few weeks ago to become the most important man in the world. His election, which was watched closely by dozens of self-styled experts, was, of course, neither predicted nor foreseen by any of them, nor was it anticipated by the media or any members of the organization that Mr. Prevost now leads.
In short, his ascendance was pretty much a complete surprise to everyone, including (and perhaps especially) Mr. Prevost himself, who was elected to be the next bishop of Rome — or, if you prefer the informal, il papa, the pope.
Here’s the striking thing: Before his election, hardly anyone in the entire 1.5 billion-member operation that is the Roman Catholic Church had even heard of the person who is now Pope Leo XIV. Yet a few weeks later, just about every single one of those people now recognizes him as the vicar of Christ here on earth, the successor to St. Peter and the unquestioned leader of the Catholic Church.
How does that happen? How does the world’s largest and most durably successful organization transition from one leader to another without seams and with barely a ripple? Why did no one see this relative newcomer as one of the front-runners to step into the shoes of the fisherman?
There are two reasons for all that. First and most important, the Catholic Church is characterized by a high degree of organizational and personal humility. Everyone from folks in the pews to the cardinals in the Curia know that each and every one of them is replaceable and will ultimately be replaced. This is an important advantage of an organization based on a clear line of sight into one’s own mortality. Catholicism was here before you and will be here after you, no matter how important you might be.
As Charles DeGaulle once noted: “The graveyards are full of indispensable men.” The Catholic Church proceeds on that correct theory every day. All of us are simply passing through, pilgrims and temporary stewards of what we have. The Catholic Church as a collective owns the physical things: the land, the buildings, the art, whatever. No one person in Catholicism owns anything.
Second, Catholicism tolerates a variety of individual preferences. It is a religion that can comfortably find room for St. Ignatius and St. Francis of Assisi, for Dorothy Day and Pat Buchanan. It is built to attract and retain the widest possible range of human beings.
Third, as a consequence of its natural tendency to humility and its tolerance for all sorts of sinners, responsibility within the Catholic Church is diffused. People are encouraged to address the challenges they see, helped along by the fact that it is a lean organization. There are only two levels of managers between folks in the pews and the pontiff. It is not an accident that most of the institutions worth anything in our civilization — hospitals, orphanages, universities, nursing homes, etc. — were started by Catholics meeting a perceived need.
That brings us back to Leo, who spent a good chunk of his life trying to address the needs of his parishioners in Peru. Because he is an American, the chattering class in the United States will spend a lot of time trying to ascertain whether he is a man of the right or a man of the left and whether his country of origin matters.
He is, of course, neither right nor left, and the fact that he is an American doesn’t and won’t matter. He is, however, deeply invested in the pervasive and healthy humility, in the broad tolerance and in the diffusion of responsibility within the Catholic Church.
His new flock, which did not vote for Leo but had the humility to understand that the God who guided all things made sure he was selected, expects and deserves no less.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
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