Pope Leo XIV is cut from the same cloth as his predecessor, ministering to the poor in the barrios of Latin America; but the new pope has as much in common with Benedict XVI, the keeper of the faith, the enforcer of Catholic dogma, and the most recent pope to insist on doctrinal purity, as he does with Francis.
Although progressives would like to think that Leo shares their sympathies and will support their commitment to inclusivity, Leo is clearly of two minds. The Vatican, he believes, has strayed far from the teachings of the Early Church Fathers who focused on the nature of divinity, the mystery of the Trinity, and the meaning of redemption - that is the complex theological premises of the Catholic Church, those that distinguish it from the born-again simplicity of Protestantism.
Augustine, Aquinas, and Athanasius are the new pope's heroes and provide the logical foundation of belief. Aquinas' Summa Theologica above all is the Church's seminal work which ponders the existence and nature of God, the divinity and humanity of Christ in an exegetical treatise which is central to Christian belief.
At the same time Leo for decades was an activist priest, a disciple of the missionary Jesus and missionary to the poor. This dichotomy - or at least duality - is why, say many, he is the ideal pope for our times, a man committed to spiritual renewal and social justice.
He has made no statements about the presidency of Donald Trump, but from his few remarks about the state of the world he has inherited, some have read criticism. How could the pope, such a holy man, a veteran of a sincere mission to the disenfranchised, possibly not dismiss the American president as disruptor of the moral order, an indifferent Christian, and a secular danger?
However, Leo is an American and one not ignorant of his country's history. In fact one of Leo's earliest writings as a young seminarian was on the religious foundation of America, and how the principles of the Enlightenment provide the foundation of the new republic.
The scholars of the Enlightenment, just like the early Church theologians, relied on reason to arrive at faith. For all its emphasis on logic, the philosophers of the Enlightenment said its only purpose was to find God.
The famous individualism of America was, according to Thomas Jefferson, essential to the success of the nation, for it was the engine of moral reasoning. Each person has an immortal soul and only through individual effort, introspection, and diligence can its divinity be realized. Individualism, of course, was also the key to entrepreneurial success and the secular progress of the nation.
Donald Trump, confessed Leo to his closest advisors, is the very embodiment of that originalist, Jeffersonian, Aquinian thinking. Trump's focus on individualism, individual enterprise, and individual expression is closer to the Christian ideal than that of other world leaders who are mired in a flaccid secularism and progressive venality.
'But many in America say Trump is the Anti-Christ, Your Holiness, a man of moral indifference who not only cannot be trusted with the nation's well-being, but is a danger to polity, commonwealth, and social integrity', said one of Leo's advisors.
At this the Pope, a holy man but also a Chicagoan, uttered a familiar but crude expletive. 'Nonsense', the Pope corrected himself and smiled at his colleague. 'Nothing of the sort' and went on to dismiss what he considered were 'the febrile, intemperate, and erroneous challenges' that faced the American president.
'Look not at what a man does', Leo said, quoting Luke 14:23-24, 'but what he believes'. Individualism, the very foundational principle of the Church, is the basis for everything the President does. Although to the unschooled it may look like a harsh secularism, but it is indeed foundational. 'The rest', the Pope concluded, 'is nothing but scurrility'.
An American cardinal also familiar with his country's history but one who sided with those who favored a more progressive, secular attuned pope, remembered how the Robber Barons of the early Twentieth Century engineered the election of William Howard Taft, feeling that he would do nothing to stay, restrict, or slow their aggressive capitalism.
However, no sooner did Taft get into the Oval Office, he began to do just that, an apostate. We elected Leo because he would carry on the tradition of Francis, the American cardinal said to a colleague, and now he is turning his back on those who elected him.
'Patience', replied the colleague. 'Patience, my brother. The Holy Father will never forget the poor'; but his public utterances belied that notion. Leo increasingly expressed his admiration for America's return to originalism, and the historical imperative of individualism, 'the vehicle of the soul'.
Yet few in the Vatican or in the secular world realized how influential the pope's American heritage was. Although his brothers often talked of Rob's early calling - he played with figurines of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as a young boy instead of He-Man figures - others who knew him as a young man remembered his fierce patriotism and admiration of the Stars and Stripes. Although that attribute soon became subsumed within the larger world view of religion, it never went away. Leo admired Donald Trump for the very reasons that he had loved America and still did.
'Don't drift too far from Jesus' warned another Vatican colleague of the Pope. 'Your esteemed predecessor wandered too far into the progressive weeds and was criticized for his abandonment of spiritual faith'; but Rob - Leo - was unmoved. He like the evangelist Luke looked only to meaning, not temporal, distracting acts.
The new pope was emerging as truly revolutionary, another John XXIII whose ecclesiastical reforms changed the Church. Leo in his originalist beliefs and acknowledgment of the same individualist spirit embraced by the American President, reversed the secular trends of the Church.
Some inside the Vatican said that power had gone to Leo's head, for in a very short time on the papal throne he had defied tradition, the counsel of cardinals, and the compassionate nature of Our Lord.
When he invited Donald Trump to the Vatican - an invitation the President readily accepted - the restiveness in the College of Cardinals increased, and seditious whispers were heard among the most progressive-minded of them; and when Leo actually, unbelievably, unconscionably began the process of beatification of the President, the first step to canonization, the cardinals were outraged. Where were the miracles? Where were the blessed events?
Leo persisted, and the rumors of forced retirement - the de facto decommissioning of a sitting pope - increased; but cooler heads prevailed. After all the man had only been in office for a short time, and they did not want to appear like Cassius and Brutus and their pre-crime murder of Caesar.
In any case, the Pope's public endorsement of Donald Trump made waves, strengthened the case for the President's own radical structural reforms, and created a new alliance resonant of the early days of the Papacy when such allegiances were common.
'I knew it', said Rob's (Leo's) older brother. 'You couldn't fool me. I saw it coming' and with a book deal in the offing, he began collecting telling anecdotes about the future pope's preferences.
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