Is Pope Leo XIV a hail Mary Pass in our country?

It’s not just that one of his brothers, a new Pope American, lives in Florida.

My son also once bought me the traditional “pope” red socks as a light Christmas present.

We’ll connect these two facts soon.

Louis Prevast, one of Pope Leo XIV’s two older brothers, lives 70 miles south of Tampa in Port Charlotte. He was an outspoken, Trump supporter, and now he laughed at the television reporter who “has to act.” Another Chicago brother, John Pribull, said he had teased him over the phone about packing a pair of Red Soxes just in case, before his cardinal brother Robert entered the Conclave.

John Prevast, rumors say, amid a break from the 3,000-year church tradition and a change of colour, John Prost also revealed that the new Chicago-born Pope is actually a fan of white socks. This is everything I have for you in this column about Pose and Socks.

But it is a good place to pause and reflect on the historic May 8 election of the first American clergy. I argue that this is not only an event of global historical importance, but it is more narrow-minded.

After four months of Trump-born chaos, when Mopping Democrats continued to despair to find bailout, something completely unexpected happened. Early in the game, the amazed Mary Pass, published in the distance of St. Peter’s Basilica: American Pope, an obvious progressive (with mainstream Republican voting record), which published support for immigration and the poor and the rule of law, some pointed criticism of J.D. Vance is suddenly a spiritual leader of 140 million.

To some liberals and moderates, that must have seemed like a set of hope. This idea crept in as our politics are so depressingly biased by the levers of power in the hands of Maga Trump enforcers and immigrant bashers: is this a change of momentum? Is this election a moral counterweight to the November election and the chaos and turmoil that followed?

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My family has Catholic roots, but over time it has become secular. I went to Catechism, served as the altar boy, and my wife’s family rounded up six children for Sunday Mass. We left the church before university, but we married a priest. We had to do that to avoid the hysterics of our parents. As pragmatists, we had to pledge to raise our children as Catholics to continue our church wedding. My fingers crossed.

But what do you know? We raised our children as skeptics, but the Jesuits were chosen when it was time to decide where to send them to high school. Rather than keeping the boys in a good public school system, I went looking for something more strict and more classic. A few years later, they graduated from Jesuit high school, and although still skeptical of God, the Latin and Greek scholars were scholars. (I bragged to my resourceful friends that our sons “speaked ancient Greek and Latin.”

His son, Tyler (for Indiana Jones), who became Arabic, met the artist’s wife, Lina, during a stint in Syria. They raised our granddaughter without formal religion. But as part of immigrant families, they have co-opted the lessons of tolerance and research for generations, where we all worked together. Lina’s family is safe in America today due to her personal courage and our humanitarian asylum policy in 2010.

Along with other son Blair, who spent years in Mexico and Peru, we are multilingual Floridians in an international bundle that resists the horrific demonization of immigration by the country’s miserable naturalist regime. Like so many Americans, we have been blinking in the sunlight lately, and amazed at the way that one man whose basic escalator ride is a sedative of hatred towards others can turn our government into a tool of greed and vengeance.

And you have the heart of my Jesuit debate. Maybe another special guy can help inspire another national vibe – perhaps even moving. In the most unlikely plot, what I imagined was perhaps the American Pope, a scholar who spoke six languages ​​and spent his missionary life among the poor in Peru, who could move on to our greedy golden age.

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It is said that history does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it rhymes. I am old enough to remember the 1978 historic election of the last surprising Pope, John Paul II of Poland.

There was also high tension at the time. The Americans were in a slump. The 1979 Iran’s hostage crisis helped Jimmy Carter re-election.

John Paul II became the first non-Italian pope in over four centuries, becoming the first communist nation. On his 1979 visit to Poland, he delivered a powerful sermon that emphasized human rights, spiritual freedom and personal dignity. Millions of Paul attended his masses and was galvanized by his message that challenged the ideology of the communist regime.

His words and presence encouraged the Polish people and influenced the rise of solidarity, the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc. King John Paul II gave the movement moral and quiet diplomatic support.

(In my Zelig-esque publishing career, I interviewed an unlikely playboy with the heroic Lech Walesa in 1982. Despite his reservations, the conservative Polish Catholic union leader was persuaded to speak to a risqué American magazine for its 20 million readers. Solidarity, overthrowing Polish communist government.)

Behind the scenes, John Paul II worked with Western leaders such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher to use the Vatican as a diplomatic channel to help resist Soviet rule. His international height helped to unravel the ideology of the Soviet Empire and lends legitimacy to the anti-communist movement.

No, John Paul II did not defeat Communism alone, but his leadership provided a moral foundation for Eastern Europeans to regain freedom from the authoritarian grip.

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It’s too early to tell if another pope with their Chicago and Florida families could provide similar inspiration. He is not planning on becoming a regular working crowd in the US.

Despite the doctrine of the Pope’s unfallability, the Pope is not perfect. Leo XIV isn’t particularly the case with the billion internet detectives who already flood the zone.

Even from the liberal side, he doesn’t seem to have the open mind of Pope Francis. One of Leo’s earliest messages was to warn against atheistic creep, despite the non-believers making up for the size of the public today. His record of church leaders after the abuse scandal was nothing special.

But the other side is already burning. Magazinet tore his hair over the “awakening Marxist Pope,” citing Leo XIV’s incredible progressive tide. His pre-papacifism post sympathizes with immigrants, and the poor are whites’ fads. In fact, almost all of his important retweets were about immigration. When the Prevost family was discovered to be part of Black Creole, internet burners surged like they were incandescent.

The outlook for the progressive American Augustine, focusing on world poverty, is at least offset by this code-crazed mad Magazine White House in a way that Argentine Pope Francis never could. Leo is an American and a White Sox fan, which should mean another kind of coverage at home.

This is happening as the countdown approaches a Congressional vote on new tax cuts in favor of the rich. No matter what happens with Trump’s Harkey Jerky tariffs, working-class Trump voters are mostly affected by uncertainty and shortages. Needless to say, Trump’s Crackpot Health Agency appointments, VA firing, and possible Medicaid reductions.

My older age tells me that most of my life is timing, everything is seasonal and things often happen in a chunk. It’s neatly coincidence (or not) that Bill Gates announced this week a plan to give 99% of his $106 billion fortune to charities.

Gates also took the moment to take Elon Musk down, saying that Mask’s destructive doge efforts were responsible for the deaths of millions. The arbitrary reductions made in foreign aid, particularly in the now-closed program of the US International Development Agency, was “stellar,” Gates said.

“The person who cut the USAID budget. He put it in a wooden chipper… The world’s wealthiest man is involved in the deaths of the poorest children in the world,” Gates added.

Bill Gates, where did you go? Maybe you’re waiting for the right moment.

At yet another strange timing, Trump’s aide, Stephen Miller, announced that for more than a decade, the perplexed and unforgiving Javert of immigrants, has suspended the constitutional rights of habeasists for immigrants. In other words, one of the few times that have happened in the past “if the courts don’t cooperate”: civil war. From Habemus Papam to Stephen Miller’s Habeas Corpus, non-EST in a week. Strange times!

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How powerful does the Pope have? When they carved out Europe in Yalta, Churchill is said to have turned to Stalin and insisted that a small pontifical state should be considered. Stalin, who ruled one of the world’s largest troops, would have adorned Churchill and said, “Pope! And how many divisions does he have?”

That becomes the problem. Even if Leo XIV has a well-known and sophisticated platform, what practical tools should the original missionary make for impressive power politics? One answer is a question of personal courage and will. He was preceded by spiritual leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Paul II, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Alexei Navalny and Pope Francis. Bill Gates welcomed boldness, if not courage, at least this week.

Leo XIV may require something else, a strength essential to modern times, or a skill to attract attention. It is not enough to restore the occasional pope. In this field, he is against the best in his home country, including tireless salesmen and reality TV stars with supporters of semi-religious cults. So far, Pope Leo appears to be a mild kind. He is on social media and has posted enough to spark controversy. He is well-versed in the internet and created video shorts that ended up on YouTube on topics such as discovering misinformation online. However, the missionary priest is not trained to compete with a monster showman like Trump, or his personal Igor, J.D. Vance.

That might be where the magician begins. With his white robe and pointed mittle, the Pope features Bernini and Michelangelo sculptures and possesses higher attention assets than the flashy Mar Lago. The Golden Grail is the real thing. Mother Church knows how to start a ceremony. That’s what she does. It is true that Trump’s cult has remained solid loyal for almost a decade, but Leo XIV’s church followers have been stuck for 2,000 years. (It’s certainly not without a lot of bloodshed.)

Such long-term shows, leading up to the goodness of purpose, can gain a unique focus and act as an anti-program. Pew reports that more young people, especially younger men, are looking for communities and looking to religion and rituals.

Like my family, even if they are no longer actively involved, many Catholics have expired or become active, and they retain their nostalgia. Convictions about the supernatural can be diminished. But what still flourishes is respect for the ethics of the church (with the exceptions), its school, its good work, its engagement with the poor and the underprivileged.

So, despite the looming year, we may have seen sparkles and turn.

That’s why I got my red socks for Christmas.

Guest columnist Barry Golson covers the Tampa Bay senior scene. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Playboy, Forbes and Earp. He is the author of “The Gringos of Paradise” (Scribner). Contact him at gbarrygolson@gmail.com.