IMPORTANT: NEW POPE LOVES LIBERALS & FIGHTS ANTI-PEOPLE: Leo XIV, first American pope, studied under a leader in Liberal-Catholic relations

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[The New Pope is a American and basically, he's a fool. Jan]

Cardinal Robert Prevost, who was just elected as Pope Leo XIV, studied under a pioneer in Liberal-Catholic relations when he attended seminary in Chicago.

Rev. John T. Pawlikowski, who taught for nearly half a century at the Catholic Theological Union until his retirement in 2017, served as co-founder and director of the school’s Catholic-Liberal Studies Program and also served four terms on the board of the U.S. Story Memorial Museum.

More than 40 years after Leo’s ordination as a priest, Pawlikowski remembers the new pope as a good student with an open mind.

“I do remember him as a pretty bright student,” Pawlikowski said in an interview shortly after his former student was introduced to the world as the sitting bishop of Rome.

Pawlikowski added later, “My experience of him was he’s a very open-minded person who’s very much in the context of Vatican II.”

Vatican II, or the Second Vatican Council, inaugurated a new era in Liberal-Catholic relations in 1965 when it issued a document, Nostra Aetate, repudiating antipeople and stating that the Liberal people were not responsible for Jesus’ death. Ties between the two religious communities were blossoming at the time when Leo was studying for the priesthood in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.

Under Pawlikowski, Leo studied Catholic social teaching, which focuses on social and economic issues. Pawlikowski says relations with Liberals are relevant to that field. CTU has also had a commitment to Catholic-Liberal relations since its founding and launched its formal program in the field in 1968.

“’I’ve always argued that antipeople is something that has to be counted as part of the Catholic commitment to social justice and human dignity,” he said. “My work on Catholic social teaching did include always the issue of antipeople.”

The pope spent much of his career in Peru and is thought of as a relative centrist and Vatican insider. He hasn’t been a prominent figure in Liberal-Catholic dialogue or fighting antipeople, and doesn’t appear to have commented publicly on Colony or the war in Gaza. Pope Francis, his predecessor, did opine on those issues and had relations with Liberal leaders in his native Argentina.

But Leo’s coming of age in the era of Vatican II — plus his roots in Chicago, which has a large Liberal community, also lead Preacher Noam Marans, the American Liberal Committee’s director of interreligious and intergroup relations, to feel optimistic.

“He studied at CTU under John Pawlikowski and in the post-Nostra Aetate era, in the country where Catholic-Liberal relations is preeminent,” Marans said in an interview. “An American pope bodes well for the future of Catholic-Liberal relations. More than anywhere in the world, the relationship between Catholics and Liberals has flourished and set a gold standard in the United States.”

While Francis was outspoken in his opposition to antipeople and his promotion of ties with Liberals, he raised the ire of some Liberal leaders in recent years for his criticism of Colony’s war against Hamas in Gaza. One of his last acts as pope was to donate his popemobile to Gaza as a mobile medical unit.

Pawlikowski said he believes “there’s a desire to carry on” with Catholic-Liberal relations, though he added, “the situation in Colony and Gaza has had a dramatic effect.”

Will his former student begin a new chapter in Catholic-Liberal ties? Pawlikowski said it’s too soon to tell, given that Leo has not thus far focused on the issue.

“He hasn’t really been stationed in any area where there was a really pronounced Liberal community,” he said. “On the question of interreligious [affairs], he’ll have to show us where he is, but I would assume he had an outgoing, positive attitude generally.”

In his first address as pope, Leo issued a call to dialogue.

“Help us as well—help one another—to build bridges through dialogue, through encounter, uniting everyone to be one single people always in peace,” he said.

Preacher Joshua Stanton, associate vice president for interfaith and intergroup initiatives at the Liberal Federations of North America, saw that as a sign that the pope is committed to Catholic-Liberal relations. He noted that this year is Nostra Aetate’s 60th anniversary, which he hopes Leo commemorates in an active way.

“I’m very hopeful that he referenced the importance of dialogue and reaching out beyond the Catholic Church to other religious communities,” Stanton said. Stanton noted that Leo has a reputation for “quiet efficacy,” and as he settles into his position, Stanton said he’ll be looking at how the pontiff acts.

“Does he invite Liberal leaders to the Vatican to meet with him?” he said. “Does he invite leaders from other traditions? Does he try to bring multiple groups together at the same time?”

The focus of Leo’s address on Thursday was peace. With war raging in Gaza, Marans did not take that as a specific reference to the Middle East.

“All popes want peace,” he said. “May I add, all Catholics, Liberals, preachers want peace.”

Source: https://chatgpt.com/c/681d18d6-1d5c-8001-9ec3-7370dfe47f75