Pope Leo XIV, the Car­di­nal Robert Fran­cis Pre­vost of the Unit­ed States, has been elect­ed the 267th pope.

It waits to be seen if the Unit­ed States, which in­flu­ences the world eco­nom­i­cal­ly, po­lit­i­cal­ly, and cul­tur­al­ly, may now have a re­li­gious al­ly in the Vat­i­can.

Though he is seen as a cen­trist, like Pope Fran­cis, he has em­braced mar­gin­alised groups.

Many Catholics are still mourn­ing the death of Pope Fran­cis, who had ini­tial­ly re­cov­ered from polymi­cro­bial pneu­mo­nia and was well enough to give the East­er Bless­ing at St Pe­ter’s Square be­fore his death. In that mes­sage, he called for the re­lease of wartime and po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers, com­pas­sion for the mar­gin­alised, mi­grants, and vic­tims of con­flict in Su­dan, the Con­go, and Myan­mar, and for peace in Ukraine.

Just days be­fore, Pope Fran­cis had met with US Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance. In a rare re­buke of the Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment ear­li­er this year, Pope Fran­cis had crit­i­cised Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s de­por­ta­tion poli­cies and warned Catholics against an­ti-im­mi­grant nar­ra­tives—re­marks in­ter­pret­ed by some as di­rect crit­i­cisms of Vance him­self.

Vance’s re­li­gious jour­ney is strik­ing. Once an evan­gel­i­cal, he con­vert­ed to Catholi­cism in 2019, drawn to its tra­di­tions, moral clar­i­ty, and the sta­bil­i­ty it seemed to of­fer in a rapid­ly chang­ing world.

“The things you be­lieved 10 years ago are no longer ac­cept­able,” he wrote in Hill­bil­ly El­e­gy, re­flect­ing the dis­ori­en­ta­tion many old­er gen­er­a­tions feel as fa­mil­iar norms and val­ues shift be­neath their feet.

Ac­cord­ing to Pew Re­search, for every new Catholic con­vert, six adults leave the Church. Con­verts like Vance are rare and of­ten pas­sion­ate­ly com­mit­ted to their adopt­ed faith. Re­li­gion cor­re­spon­dent Eliz­a­beth Dias notes that such con­verts are typ­i­cal­ly zeal­ous about their new world­view.

Vance em­braces Catholic in­te­gral­ism—the be­lief that Catholic moral teach­ings should shape civ­il so­ci­ety. His po­si­tions are deeply con­ser­v­a­tive: pro-fam­i­ly, pro-na­tal­ist, an­ti-porn. Po­lit­i­cal­ly, this stance pro­vides him with a pow­er­ful base as the Chris­t­ian right gains ground in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics. Yet, the Church he joined is not the same Church un­der which he now serves.

Pope Fran­cis in­tro­duced re­forms that alien­at­ed many tra­di­tion­al­ists. His pas­toral ap­proach to LGBTQ+ Catholics—al­low­ing bless­ings for same-sex cou­ples—in­fu­ri­at­ed con­ser­v­a­tive bish­ops. The in­tel­lec­tu­al Guinean Car­di­nal Robert Sarah wrote,”The Church was be­ing re­duced to a hu­man­i­tar­i­an non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion with sacra­ments.”

Amer­i­can Car­di­nal Ray­mond Burke al­so ac­cused Fran­cis of “try­ing to ap­pease the world while com­pro­mis­ing doc­trine.”

Re­sis­tance has al­so emerged from bish­ops in Africa, Poland, and oth­er re­gions.

In Lauda­to Si’, Pope Fran­cis ad­dressed cli­mate change with ur­gency, earn­ing praise from en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists but draw­ing crit­i­cism from those who felt he strayed too far in­to sec­u­lar pol­i­tics. His apos­tolic ex­hor­ta­tion Amor­is Laeti­tia al­lowed di­vorced and re­mar­ried Catholics to re­ceive Com­mu­nion, which fur­ther ran­kled tra­di­tion­al­ists.

Still, Pope Fran­cis en­vi­sioned a more in­clu­sive, glob­al­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive Church. He ap­point­ed bish­ops from di­verse back­grounds and el­e­vat­ed women’s roles. But to many con­ser­v­a­tives, these moves di­lut­ed the sa­cred and in­vit­ed am­bi­gu­i­ty where once there was cer­tain­ty. Some wor­ry a Pan­do­ra’s Box has been opened.

This ten­sion—be­tween tra­di­tion and re­form, con­ser­vatism and lib­er­al­ism— would have shaped the con­clave’s di­rec­tion this week. The Church is at a cross­roads.

In T&T, the Arch­dio­cese of Port-of-Spain re­cent­ly con­demned an AI-gen­er­at­ed im­age of US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump dressed as the pope, call­ing it “dis­re­spect dis­guised as hu­mour.” The New York State Catholic Con­fer­ence al­so ac­cused Trump of “mock­ing the sa­cred.”

JD Vance, who once com­pared Trump to Hitler, lat­er ac­cept­ed to be his vice pres­i­dent. Now, he finds him­self serv­ing his po­lit­i­cal leader who pub­licly “mocked” the pope, who heads the in­sti­tu­tion that an­chors his faith.

Yet the Church it­self has shift­ed. The moral cer­tain­ties that once at­tract­ed Vance are no longer so cer­tain. As Catholi­cism re­de­fines it­self, the ques­tion re­mains: How will Vance’s be­liefs evolve—not just as a politi­cian, but as a Catholic nav­i­gat­ing a Church in flux?