Pope Leo Reckons With the Latin American Right
The Atlantic · Francis X. Rocca ·
Leo’s upcoming trip to South America is an early test of how he’ll handle a geopolitical challenge that will shape his pontificate.
Leo’s upcoming trip to South America is an early test of how he’ll handle a geopolitical challenge that will shape his pontificate.
Less than a month after losing part of a lung, Pope Leo XIV set out this morning on one of the longest and most ambitious trips of his pontificate. Over the course of 11 days and 12 flights, Leo will travel from South America’s Southern Cone to the high Andes and the Amazon Rainforest. Much of the Catholic world will be focused on how its 71-year-old leader, just a few weeks removed from cancer surgery, bears the physical challenge that the trip presents. But perhaps the most important challenge he will face is political.
Catholic social teaching does not line up with the ideological commitments of either the left or the right. Yet the global rise of right-wing populism has determined many of the political battles that Leo will confront as pope, particularly over the next week and a half. The center-left recently scored a victory in Brazil, but most countries in Latin America are governed by right-wing or center-right leaders, many of them populist. These include two stops on the pope’s itinerary: Argentina and his adopted home of Peru, where he served as a missionary and bishop for about two decades.
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