Very interesting that an American was chosen, as the entire world turns against Trump's America. One might have thought it would be fashionable to pick anyone but an American out of protest. But if you wanted to maximize your influence as Trump creates a tsunami of suffering around the planet, this might be your best bet. To be clear, I …
Very interesting that an American was chosen, as the entire world turns against Trump's America. One might have thought it would be fashionable to pick anyone but an American out of protest. But if you wanted to maximize your influence as Trump creates a tsunami of suffering around the planet, this might be your best bet. To be clear, I don't think an American Pope will influence Trump and MAGA any more than a Nigerian one would. But I do think an American Pope may be better positioned to criticize the Trump regime, not only to an audience of American Catholic voters but also globally, perhaps helping to preserve some of our dignity on the global stage. It's also highly possible none of this had anything to do with his selection and it was merely about maintaining the ideology of the Pope who appointed most of them.
I'm very hopeful that this will help preserve our political dominance in New England. New England Catholics have felt increasingly isolated from the larger American church, causing many of them to drift rightward politically to maintain their connection. This would have been far more pronounced with a more traditional, less-MAGA GOP and without Francis enlarging social issues beyond abortion and LGBT+. With a pope that will hopefully continue to do so and is even more demographically similar to them, I'm optimistic he'll help in NE as well in the restoration of a politically moderate church in the rest of the country.
I'm more surprised an American was chosen because it has seemed like an unwritten rule that an American shouldn't be Pope. It seemed to be for similar reasons as for why there has never been an American Secretary-General of the UN.
I don't think residents of the Security Council nations are allowed to be Secretary-General. Even if they were, recommendations come from the Council, and there's no way China or Russia would allow an American or vice-versa. Actually, America probably would allow a Russian now.
The very first Secretary-General was actually from the UK but only served in an Acting capacity until the first true Sec-Gen could be appointed.
Also, small- to middle-sized nations have generally been chosen, so it definitely seems there is an effort to avoid giving too much power to nations that already have a lot of power and influence globally (German, Japan, Italy, etc.). South Korea seems to be the largest economy to have had a Sec-Gen. States in near-perpetual conflict with other nations like Israel and India are probably not going to make it either.
Korea is a weird case. I think for most people it's an easy conflict to reduce to out of sight, out of mind.
It's a conflict that could escalate into a high intensity war, and would be an extremely terrible one were it to do so. Millions dead, lots of damage to the global economy, millions more displaced, geopolitical saber rattling between the world's two largest militaries, risks of nuclear weapon use... It could get very bad, very fast.
Despite all of that, for generations now it's been very low intensity. Makes it easy for people to brush it aside, mentally.
He’s spent most of his adult life out of the country and has Peruvian citizenship. And
The last X post from the new pope was April 14, when he shared a post about the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, with the questions, “Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?”
All the Popes were Italian for about 450 years, until a Pole was chosen. So the sample size since then is quite small (4: Poland,Germany, Argentina, USA/Peru).
Very interesting that an American was chosen, as the entire world turns against Trump's America. One might have thought it would be fashionable to pick anyone but an American out of protest. But if you wanted to maximize your influence as Trump creates a tsunami of suffering around the planet, this might be your best bet. To be clear, I don't think an American Pope will influence Trump and MAGA any more than a Nigerian one would. But I do think an American Pope may be better positioned to criticize the Trump regime, not only to an audience of American Catholic voters but also globally, perhaps helping to preserve some of our dignity on the global stage. It's also highly possible none of this had anything to do with his selection and it was merely about maintaining the ideology of the Pope who appointed most of them.
I'm very hopeful that this will help preserve our political dominance in New England. New England Catholics have felt increasingly isolated from the larger American church, causing many of them to drift rightward politically to maintain their connection. This would have been far more pronounced with a more traditional, less-MAGA GOP and without Francis enlarging social issues beyond abortion and LGBT+. With a pope that will hopefully continue to do so and is even more demographically similar to them, I'm optimistic he'll help in NE as well in the restoration of a politically moderate church in the rest of the country.
I'm more surprised an American was chosen because it has seemed like an unwritten rule that an American shouldn't be Pope. It seemed to be for similar reasons as for why there has never been an American Secretary-General of the UN.
I disagree on the analogy because the U.N. is in the U.S., and I feel like that's a major reason for that unwritten rule.
I don't think residents of the Security Council nations are allowed to be Secretary-General. Even if they were, recommendations come from the Council, and there's no way China or Russia would allow an American or vice-versa. Actually, America probably would allow a Russian now.
The very first Secretary-General was actually from the UK but only served in an Acting capacity until the first true Sec-Gen could be appointed.
Also, small- to middle-sized nations have generally been chosen, so it definitely seems there is an effort to avoid giving too much power to nations that already have a lot of power and influence globally (German, Japan, Italy, etc.). South Korea seems to be the largest economy to have had a Sec-Gen. States in near-perpetual conflict with other nations like Israel and India are probably not going to make it either.
Well, the two Koreas are at war, with only an armistice and occasional flareups.
Korea is a weird case. I think for most people it's an easy conflict to reduce to out of sight, out of mind.
It's a conflict that could escalate into a high intensity war, and would be an extremely terrible one were it to do so. Millions dead, lots of damage to the global economy, millions more displaced, geopolitical saber rattling between the world's two largest militaries, risks of nuclear weapon use... It could get very bad, very fast.
Despite all of that, for generations now it's been very low intensity. Makes it easy for people to brush it aside, mentally.
They can also meet in Geneva. It doesn't have to be the US. The US being a permanent member of the Security Council is probably the biggest reason.
That's valid.
He’s spent most of his adult life out of the country and has Peruvian citizenship. And
The last X post from the new pope was April 14, when he shared a post about the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, with the questions, “Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?”
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5290771-robert-prevost-pope-leo/
All the Popes were Italian for about 450 years, until a Pole was chosen. So the sample size since then is quite small (4: Poland,Germany, Argentina, USA/Peru).