The Michael Knowles Show - May 08, 2025


BREAKING： The Pope Has Been Chosen


Episode Stats

Length

6 minutes

Words per Minute

168.8206

Word Count

1,106

Sentence Count

81


Summary

Cardinal Francis P. Prevost, who was previously known as Cardinal Francis Prevost and now has taken the regnal name, Leo XIX, is the new Pope of the United States and the first Latin American pope in the history of the Catholic Church.


Transcript

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00:00:30.900 Habemus Papam!
00:00:32.220 We have a new pope.
00:00:33.460 This conclave was rather short, wrapped up quickly just today.
00:00:38.220 And we have a new pope who was previously known as Cardinal Francis Prevost
00:00:43.240 and now has taken the regnal name Leo XIV.
00:00:48.300 You know I sometimes say, I hate to say I told you so.
00:00:51.100 I actually called the papal name.
00:00:53.900 And this was a name not merely that I was predicting,
00:00:57.400 but that I was hoping for.
00:00:58.660 I've said this for a long time,
00:00:59.840 but then right before as we were sort of waiting for the conclave
00:01:03.580 to fully wrap up and for the new pope to walk out,
00:01:06.800 I asked on Twitter, I said,
00:01:09.020 what regnal name are you hoping for?
00:01:11.400 I'm hoping for Leo XIV.
00:01:13.260 And then it came out, announced the pope and the name in Latin,
00:01:17.760 and it was Leo XIV.
00:01:18.840 This is a good sign.
00:01:21.800 The reason Leo XIV is a good sign is because Leo XIII is one of the great popes.
00:01:27.060 I have actually a beautiful rosary that was given by a friend to me
00:01:30.220 from Leo XIII's pontificate.
00:01:33.600 He was wonderful.
00:01:35.100 He's the first pope that ever appeared on film, by the way,
00:01:37.400 because he was very, very old right when moving pictures were coming out.
00:01:40.540 And so you can actually see a little film of Pope Leo blessing people.
00:01:44.020 He is beloved by conservatives.
00:01:45.800 John Paul II loved Leo XIII.
00:01:49.040 Leo XIII was very strong against socialism.
00:01:51.960 Leo XIII was strong in tradition, orthodoxy,
00:01:56.660 Thomistic philosophy and theology.
00:02:00.280 He also was a wonderful man to articulate Catholic social teaching.
00:02:08.580 So when John Paul II was writing Centesi Musanos,
00:02:12.600 he was writing about an encyclical by Leo XIII,
00:02:14.940 which is called Rerum Novarum,
00:02:17.160 and about these kind of new ideas and these new systems and politics.
00:02:21.300 And in Centesi Musanos,
00:02:23.320 John Paul II was saying communism's terrible,
00:02:25.620 free markets are an efficient way to allocate resources.
00:02:28.400 This is the conservative's pope, right?
00:02:31.300 We really love this.
00:02:32.420 Okay, so that's all a good sign.
00:02:34.220 But I mentioned Catholic social teaching because
00:02:36.320 there are a lot of other signs about the new pope
00:02:41.100 that raised some eyebrows.
00:02:43.180 He's from Chicago,
00:02:44.260 and a priest friend of mine said that nothing good ever comes out of Chicago.
00:02:47.360 He's joking a little bit,
00:02:48.700 but he's from Chicago.
00:02:51.480 Some liberal prelates and priests and lay people
00:02:55.460 seem to be really excited about this.
00:02:57.620 He mentioned Pope Francis a lot in his first speech to everyone,
00:03:03.280 to the whole crowd in St. Peter's,
00:03:05.800 talked a lot about Francis,
00:03:07.660 talked a lot about the synodal way,
00:03:10.280 synodal way being a way of inclusivity
00:03:13.560 and listening and dialogue,
00:03:15.580 and many conservatives and traditional people in the church
00:03:19.380 are a little worried about this,
00:03:20.640 that this could water down doctrine,
00:03:22.440 that this is ambiguous,
00:03:23.440 this opens the gate to innovation,
00:03:25.640 the synodal way is the way that Pope Francis was advocating.
00:03:29.200 So that's all a little bit troubling.
00:03:31.360 Some people are pointing out that the new pope,
00:03:34.440 Pope Leo XIV,
00:03:36.460 when he was Cardinal Prevost,
00:03:38.780 wrote a piece going after J.D. Vance,
00:03:42.320 J.D. Vance specifically for articulating the Ordo Amoris,
00:03:45.720 the hierarchy of love,
00:03:46.580 the Ordo Caritatis in the language of St. Thomas Aquinas.
00:03:49.140 So maybe that's not a great sign.
00:03:50.660 Some people are wondering,
00:03:51.760 I guess I should mention,
00:03:53.700 we're three minutes in,
00:03:54.440 I haven't mentioned,
00:03:54.940 this is the first American pope ever,
00:03:57.220 from the United States, that is.
00:03:59.080 Second Latin American pope,
00:04:00.440 now that we've had two in a row.
00:04:02.240 He's American,
00:04:03.300 but he's also a dual citizen of Peru.
00:04:05.780 Some are wondering,
00:04:07.560 was this pope picked in part
00:04:09.360 to provide a counter political balance to Trump
00:04:13.900 and to the turn against mass migration in the West?
00:04:17.380 And so again,
00:04:18.080 we don't know what the cardinals were thinking exactly in there.
00:04:20.620 I'll leave on a little sign of hope though.
00:04:22.500 The name is a very hopeful sign.
00:04:25.200 The fact that he walked out in the formal vestments
00:04:29.180 is a hopeful sign.
00:04:31.260 The formal vestments are something
00:04:33.300 that Pope Francis didn't really like,
00:04:35.500 but the formal vestments are important.
00:04:37.560 They're actually,
00:04:37.980 I think,
00:04:38.340 a sign of humility
00:04:39.200 because you're recognizing
00:04:40.020 it's not about the personality of the individual,
00:04:42.140 but he is now,
00:04:42.700 he's taking on a new name.
00:04:43.900 He is the Bishop of Rome.
00:04:45.140 He is the Vicar of Christ.
00:04:46.260 He is subduing his personality
00:04:50.220 and maybe some of his personal preferences
00:04:51.760 to the magisterium,
00:04:53.600 to orthodoxy,
00:04:54.380 to the church.
00:04:54.900 That's what one hopes for that kind of a signal.
00:04:58.280 I think we saw that a lot with Pope Benedict.
00:05:00.680 Also,
00:05:01.480 he gave the blessing in Latin,
00:05:02.840 which is a good sign for continuity.
00:05:05.160 However,
00:05:07.280 there is some cause for eyebrows being raised.
00:05:11.740 There is some cause for concern
00:05:13.240 about things that he has said
00:05:14.520 on LGBT issues,
00:05:17.800 on,
00:05:18.760 there's some cause to wonder
00:05:19.660 what he thinks about the traditional liturgy.
00:05:21.400 Really,
00:05:22.000 with this pick,
00:05:22.680 who no one was guessing,
00:05:24.960 he hasn't said very much.
00:05:27.920 We don't really know.
00:05:29.400 And people who tell you
00:05:30.080 they know for sure exactly
00:05:31.000 what he thinks
00:05:31.440 and what he'll do
00:05:32.120 are full of it.
00:05:36.580 This is someone
00:05:37.480 that no one saw coming
00:05:38.700 that we don't know a lot about.
00:05:41.000 There are some good signs.
00:05:42.400 There are some bad signs.
00:05:44.240 And he's a young man,
00:05:46.320 69 years old,
00:05:47.560 the Holy Father.
00:05:49.280 He will most likely be Pope
00:05:51.680 for a very,
00:05:53.020 very long time.
00:05:55.100 Decades.
00:05:56.300 And we will have to see
00:05:57.460 how that pontificate unfolds.
00:05:58.780 I have a lot more to say
00:06:00.240 about some of the signs
00:06:02.380 we're getting out of the new Pope
00:06:03.340 on LGBT issues,
00:06:04.540 on the environment,
00:06:05.900 on tradition,
00:06:08.260 on the very structure of the church.
00:06:10.720 I have a lot more to say about this,
00:06:12.100 but I've gone over time
00:06:13.040 for my instant reaction.
00:06:13.920 So if you want to hear more
00:06:14.920 about what this new papacy means,
00:06:17.340 this new pontificate means,
00:06:18.980 you've got to watch the show tomorrow.
00:06:21.140 See you there
00:06:21.780 on the Michael and Oles show.
00:06:22.640 Now we're going to go.
00:06:28.700 Thank you.
00:06:29.800 Thank you.
00:06:29.900 Thank you.
00:06:30.700 Thank you.