When Cardinal Robert Prevost - now Pope Leo XIV - emerged as the new Pope, many in the mainstream media, and even within Church circles, reacted with surprise. To them, his election appeared an unlikely outcome. But for me, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. [...]

Peruvians were elated Thursday after a Catholic cardinal who spent years guiding the faithful in the South American country and they see as one of their own was elected pope. [...]

As pope, he has chosen the name Leo. This is the surest sign that he is a safe pair of hands acceptable to all sides in the ecclesiastical culture wars, while being committed to the vision of Pope Francis. He has taken the name after the great pope Leo XIII who wrote what Pope John Paul II called the ‘immortal document’: Rerum Novarum. At the end of the nineteenth century, Leo XIII was concerned about the rights of workers. [...]