Pope Leo XIV inherits a packaged

Vation City – Pope Leo XIV has inherited not only for the soul of the Catholic Church, but also its place in the geopolitical world.

The new Pope has to decide whether his global pulpit will continue to be progressive or return to a more conservative approach. The first American Pope will sit down with the spiritual decline of the Church's European power base, combined with its rise in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. And he will be forced to face the inheritance of the decades of sexual abuse scandals.

“Usually the most important thing is what the Pope has to worry, the Catholic church-at the moment it is much more complicated because we are in a time of global disorder,” said Massimo Faggioli, professor and worldwide leading expert in the internal work of the church at Villanova University. “The church is much more global than ever, so in this situation the cardinals have to consider what it means to choose a global leader of the Catholic Church.”

Here is a look at what is in the church inbox:

Sex abuse scandal

After hundreds of thousands of cases were created in dozens of countries in the past century, the endemic scandal of the church is anything but determined.

Cases are still being uncovered, and although Francis continued than his predecessors, activists said that he did not do enough.

“The next Pope must initiate a zero tolerance law for sexual abuse that immediately removed abuse clergymen and managers who covered up abuse by the ministry,” said Survivors Network of the wax dog based in Chicago, before the choice of Leo.

“He has to use his authority to create basic, institutional changes in order to end the systematic practice of sexual abuse and its veiling,” he said.

ideology

Francis was generally considered a progressive force, at least compared to predecessors and colleagues. He allowed priests to bless same -sex couples informally and asked: “Who am I to judge?” And he favored topics such as global capitalism and the climate crisis through doctrinal dogma.

Although this was not cut (he compared the abortions with the cessation of a killer)), his message annoyed the traditional conservative, including those on the American hard right, which would like to see that Francis' successor from the core teachings of the church will return to the information of the church.

“At a time when illiberalism is gaining internationally,” was Francis' “messaging was an unexpected oasis for many and relentlessly from the step for others,” said Effie Fokas, a research assistant specializing in the London School of Economics and Political Science before the election of Leo on Thursday.

“So there is great anticipation of whether the church will be an oasis on the one hand or rather in a step with the waves of right conservatism over the United States and a lot of Europe and beyond.”

geopolitics

Whether Leo likes it or not, the new guide of 1.4 billion Catholics becomes a leading voice in an emerging world. Francis decided to use this platform against the war in the Gaza Strip, for example, and even blame President Donald Trump's attitude to immigration.

The next Pope can choose to continue these fulmination or not. But even a less pronounced Pope would be remarkable due to its absence on the world stage.

“Francis was a hop of the world, probably the only ethical helmet in the (falling) ship of global politics,” said Sara Silvestri, lecturer in international politics at City St. George's, University of London.

She hoped that the new Pope would not “go into the trap of the siding with a political faction”, but “bypass the universality of the Christian message and its basic values ​​of justice and mercy that are not negotiable and cannot fit into the narrow box of a political party or political ideology”.

geography

An important element of how the new Pope navigates these roaring waters will be his approach to the rapidly changing demography of the church.

The Catholic population in Europe fell by almost half a million in 2022, according to the recent figures in the Vatican, which were released at the end of last year. In the meantime, the Catholic population in Africa grew by 7.3 million, 5.9 million in North and South America and around 900,000 in Asia.

The number of priests pursues European decline and rises elsewhere, as the numbers show.

A big problem for the new Pope will therefore be how to meet the needs of a church, the followers of which are increasingly based in the global south.

“We need a Pope who understands the problems of the Third World,” said Piere Domerson, a priest from Haiti who studies in Rome, to NBC News shortly before the announcement of Leos Wahl.

“We always remember how Pope Francis understood this universality of the church,” he said at St. Peter's Square. “And because he has appointed more cardinals from outside of Europe, we also saw that they are also becoming more universal.”

Néstor Medina, professor of religious ethics and culture at the University of Toronto, said that the people in the global south are “more about the commitment of the church with colonization.”

This means that if the new Pope wants to keep people in the church, social justice, ecology and criticism of capitalism still have to be ahead and the center of the new papacy, ”he said.

Management of these changing currents is not easy – the development world is not a monolith. While many progressive Catholic voices come from Latin America, a number of African bishops can be the most conservative, for example, when it comes to same -sex couples, divorce and together outside of marriage.