Pope Leo 'deliberately' downplayed being American to make sure he won Papacy

Pope Leo XIV made a "deliberate" move to downplay his Americanness that ultimately saw him win the race for the papacy, an expert has told the .

Cardinals rapidly congregated around Chicago-born Robert Prevost, naming him the first American Pope in the Catholic Church's history. Despite being widely considered to be a moderate who could satisfy both conservative and liberal wings in the Vatican, his Americanness was viewed as being a major stumbling block that could topple his chances even before the first ballot was cast. But, remarkably, a brief with leading the Catholic Church following the death of the influential Francis.

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Dr Miles Pattenden, programme director at the Europeaum network of leading universities faculty of history, said Pope Leo's experience as an administrator had won him plaudits in the Vatican. But his chances of ascending to the papacy were seen as limited due to his American background.

Fortunately for Pope Leo, Cardinals were also aware he had spent many years working among the poor in Peru and has been at the heart of the Vatican since being made Cardinal by his predecessor Francis.

"They [Cardinals] picked an American who also has a Peruvian passport and I suspect he identifies as much as a Peruvian as an American and that I think made it possible in a way that wouldn't have been for the Archbishop of New York (Timothy Dolan)," Dr Pattenden told the Mirror. There's long been a reflective anti Americanism in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church as they view America as having enough global power without having the papacy as well, that's what we thought."

But there was a telling note that Pope Leo wanted to downplay his Americanness during his first outing as pontiff. "All of this is one of the most important things we've already seen about Pope Leo is that he didn't speak in English yesterday," Dr Pattenden added.

"I'm sure that was deliberate. He wants to distance himself from his Americanness in a certain way. He spoke in Italian, in Spanish but not in English."

While Pope Leo has been celebrated by millions of Americans, many MAGA conservatives lashed out against the pontiff who they view as "woke" due to his stances against the administration and his apparent support for refugees.

Allies of Mr Trump, such as Laura Loomer, Loomer posted on X/: "The new Pope @drprevost supports illegal aliens and open borders. He retweeted tweets in support of 'dreamers' aka illegals and attacked President Trump’s use of the phrase “bad hombres” to describe violent illegal aliens. He thinks it’s a 'racist phrase.'"

The move might startle some Cardinals who cast their ballot for Pope Leo in the hope of avoiding more confrontation with the Trump administration. Dr Pattenden added: "I think they would have had a general sense that he was not aligned with the Trump administration. We just have to see how he acts.

"In the last months of Francis (papacy), there was an unease in the Vatican as well as elsewhere about the extent to which Francis was coming into conflict with the Trump regime which the Vatican had been keen to avoid. In the end you can cross a line where you end up making Catholics choose between their politics and their faith and it's not clear exactly where that line is.

"It's a reason why I think we saw JD Vance meet with Pope Francis the day before he died was to try and defuse that situation. I'd be surprised if the new Pope wants to see [that] ignited but you never know how things will develop with trump himself."