Catholic Peas or anyone following the Pope election

I’m not really seeing any conflict here  it just seems like you might be feeling a bit frustrated on your own.

For those who appear to be afraid that his American birthright will somehow correspond to a fealty towards Trump/MAGA, from Bluesky:

bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3looh2t6zhc2e

"The new Pope didn't tweet once in 2024. In 2025, he's posted 5 times, in which he:

- Criticized JD Vance's views on Catholicism and Jesus
- Posted an article opposing Trump's immigration policies
- Retweeted twice about the Pope's health
- Retweeted a criticism of Trump & Bukele's laughter at KAG."

Since I’m apparently too dense or dumb, feel free to block me and never interact with me again. I’ll do the same for you.

I'm guessing somehow this isn't "God's will."

Is an American Pope a sign that the American government is on the decline on the world stage? Because the world no longer sees the U.S. as a trusted ally at this point. Maybe that helped some cardinals be more willing to vote for an American as Pope? There is no concern that an American Pope would fall in line with a U.S. President. This might be a stretch, I admit.

This particular American pope has been very critical in the past year of the US administration’s stance on immigration and comment Vance made on who we should love. There is no way he’d fall in line with the current president. If it had been Dolan or Burke - well that’s another story that I’m glad didn’t come to pass.

He will say that, but the new Pope has been very critical of Trump's policies. I assume will continue to be critical.

I am glad for that. I'm just not looking forward to some Americans putting forth the egotistical idea that we have anything at all to do with this.

As a practicing Catholic , I have been following al of 8t. An American one Pope is still a surprise even though he has lived abroad his adult life.

I live Cardinal Dolan ands follow him on FBand Sirius radio. I hope to catch him at a Mass whe. We are there in July.

I don't think this choice can be used to benchmark what a group of people think about the US on the world stage. The new Pope hasn't lived in the US in 25 years, and the 20 years prior to that he only lived in the US a couple of years so I don't think his fellow cardinals see him an "an American" with any sort of allegiance to the US. He has been a naturalized citizen of Peru for the past decade.  I personally tend to think when someone naturalizes to another nation they don't have a really strong affinity to the nation they were born to, and will be looking for a safe port in the storm so to speak. For Catholic Cardinals that is going to be the Vatican.  I don't think ANY man who is viewed as being prone to falling in line with their birth government is going to even make it into the priesthood much less get enough favorable attention to be elected as the Pope.  I do think the US is on a major decline on the world stage but that is due to other indicators outside of the Catholic church.

Pope Leo XIII, who was pope at the end of the 19th/ start of the 20th century was best known for his encyclical ‘Rerum Novarum’ or ‘revolutionary change’
From Wikipedia, because they state it more clearly than I could right now:

Pope Leo XIII outlined the rights of workers to a fair wage, safe working conditions, and the formation of trade unions, while affirming the rights to property and free enterprise, opposing both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism. With that encyclical, he became popularly called the "Social Pope" and the "Pope of the Workers", also having created the foundations for modern thinking in the social doctrines of the Catholic Church, influencing his successors. 

The new pope has been outspoken on inequality and refugees. He believes that the church leadership should prioritize faith over administration. The first priority is to "communicate the beauty of the faith, the beauty and joy of knowing Jesus".His first message as Pope emphasized the greeting of peace of the risen Jesus "who gave his life for the flock of God", giving "a disarmed and disarming peace". He said he wanted to continue the blessing of Pope Francis: "God cares for you, God loves you all, and evil will not prevail! We are all in God's hands."
He was considered to be an ally of Pope Francis, and a moderate ‘middle of the road’ choice. He was thought to be a ‘dark horse’ in this conclave - not one of the big names, but a possible compromise between the extreme progressives and the ultra conservatives.

That is so interesting. So Leo XIII spoke up for workers during what happened to be our first “gilded” age, and Leo XIV will do so during the “gilded” age Trump hopes to bring about now.

Thanks for that information. Unfortunately, those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

It's a different "80" stat.  Kiwi Jo did the fact checking and it was 80%.  That really seems like a staggering number. I wonder what the turnover is in a decade? Off to do some checking...

ETA: well, that's falling down the proverbial rabbit hole.  In case someone is interested...

The number of cardinals has steadily rose over the years with the increase in Catholics and the desire to include cardinals from other non-traditional countries. So, overall there were fewer cardinals under JPII than under Francis (the largest number of cardinals yet.) They are selected in consistories which are not necessarily held on a yearly basis. Every 3 years or so seems the norm.

I didn't see any handy dandy charts of percentages of the voting conclave elected by the previous pope to "stack the deck" in their favor and if one conclave's influence was more than another. That's really my big question and I got bored before I found the answer!

So hopefully I have my numbers correct--math is not my first love. But I was curious. The size of the College of Cardinals has been capped on and off over the centuries. Increases seem to be politically motivated, especially in the early church.  But as the congregation grew and the world got smaller, increases were made as well.  In the last 50 years or so, there was an effort to include more cardinals of color and from outside of Rome.

As of yesterday, there were 251 serving cardinals in the Catholic church, but only 134 were eligible to vote. There are 4 cardinals in the US, of whom Robert Prevost was not considered to be from the US.

STATS:
Francis was elected in 2013. He selected 163 cardinals in his 12 year reign, adding to the College of Cardinals. That was an average of 13.5 per year of his papacy.
Benedict was elected in 2005. He selected 90 cardinals in his 8 year reign, also adding to the College.  That was an average of 11.25 per year of his papacy.
John Paul II was elected in 1978. He selected 231 cardinals in his 27 year reign. Just a brief look seems to indicate that he did not increase the size of the voting college. His average was 8.5 per year.
John Paul I was elected in 1978 and did not live long enough to select any cardinals.
Paul VI was elected in 1963. He selected 143 cardinals in his 15 year reign. He seems to have substantially increased the overall number of cardinals. His average was 9.5 per year.
John XXIII was elected in 1958. He selected 52 cardinals in his 6 year reign. His average was 8.5 per year.

So Francis did average choosing more cardinals than his predecessors by holding more consistories and electing more for each. But not by a lot. And I'm still in the dark as to how much that influenced the voting.  But I'm choosing to remain in ignorance there!