New Pontiff, Same Old Catholic Church

Opinion | Jacob Montag

On Thursday (May 8), the papal conclave convened in response to the death of Pope Francis elected American-born Catholic missionary and cardinal Robert Prevost to become the new head of the Catholic Church. Prevost is a dual citizen of the United States and Peru and the first American in the history of the Church to serve as Pontiff. Upon his ascension to the Papacy, Prevost’s papal name was declared to be Leo XIV, which was described as “a clear reference to Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum” by the Holy See Press Office.

Leo XIII led the Catholic Church from 1878 until 1903. During this period, the popularity of Marxism was spreading throughout Europe, with the Second International being founded by the great revolutionary Friedrich Engels in 1889. In this context, Leo XIII issued his aforementioned Rerum novarum encyclical, also known as the “Rights and Duties of Labor and Capital”, in 1891. In this open letter, the Catholic Church sought to strike a “middle ground” between socialism and free market capitalism, calling for measures to alleviate the suffering of the working class while defending the institution of private property and condemning socialism. This encyclical from Leo XIII was highly politically influential, playing a role in the development of mass Catholic political parties in Europe and the liberation theology movement in Latin America. In the 1930s, it was codified into law in Portugal as the fascist regime of Antonio Salazar implemented its corporatist economic model.

Like his predecessor Leo XIII, Pope Leo XIV takes a “moderate” stand in relation to the ultra-reactionary wing of the Church at a time of growing social and political turmoil throughout the world. The new Pontiff’s public criticism of U.S. Vice President JD Vance on the subject of immigration has received significant public attention. Just as the Industrial Revolution drove most of the European working class into poverty and destitution in the late 19th century, the modern-day crisis of imperialism has forced an unprecedented number of workers and peasants throughout the world to flee their home countries and seek refuge elsewhere. Both the new Pope and his immediate predecessor have sought to traffick in the masses outrage towards the migrant crisis, seeking to direct popular anger into reactionary channels and away from revolutionary proletarian political consciousness.

Prevost’s career in the Catholic Church has served the imperialists’ counter-insurgency strategies since long before his rise to the Papacy. In the 1980s and 90s, Prevost worked as a Catholic missionary in Peru at a time when the workers and peasants of Peru, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP), had seized significant sections of the country’s territory and posed the threat of seizing state power right in the heart of the so-called “backyard” of U.S. imperialism. Christian missionaries of various sects have long played a key role in the low-intensity warfare strategies of U.S. imperialism, and during this period U.S. intelligence services took a particularly keen interest in intervening in Peru to stifle the development of the Communist insurgency. During his missionary work, Prevost was based in Chulucanas and later Trujillo, both of which, despite remaining under government control, were rife with extreme poverty and thus became hotbeds of Communist activity.

The low intensity warfare strategy of U.S. imperialism sought to suppress the revolution in Peru by presenting its people with a combination of carrot and stick. On the one hand, the U.S. imperialists armed the reactionary Peruvian army to the teeth, facilitating widespread massacres, human rights abuses, and genocide against the people of Peru, especially in areas either controlled by Communist forces or where the Communists received significant popular support. On the other hand, the U.S. imperialists sought to present the impoverished masses of Peru with “alternatives” to revolutionary political struggle for alleviating their immense suffering, including the philanthropic efforts of the Catholic Church and its missionaries such as Prevost.

In order to fill his role as a fake friend of the Peruvian people on behalf of U.S. imperialism, Prevost rhetorically situated himself in the “middle ground” of the conflict, criticizing both the war effort of the Communist Party of Peru and the reactionary violence of the Peruvian state, especially under the dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori. Despite being a supposed critic of both sides of the conflict, Prevost, like the rest of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the Catholic Church, only called on one side of the conflict to unilaterally disarm, namely the Communists. In May 1988, the contemporary head of the Catholic Church Pope John Paul II visited Peru, in response to which Chairman Gonzalo, the leader of the Communist Party of Peru, stated the following in his Interview with El Diario:

“[The leaders of the Catholic Church] are, consequently, trying to use the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America to push forward a so-called movement of ‘new evangelism’. In sum, this is what they hope for: since evangelism officially began in 1494 following the discovery of America, with this new centennial they want to develop a ‘new evangelism’ in defense of their bastion, this half of the ‘parish’, half of the bastion that sustains them in power. This is their goal. In this way, the hierarchy and the Papacy aim to defend their position in America and serve US imperialism, the dominant imperialist power in Latin America. (…) In general, [the Pope’s] visits to Latin America have to do with the importance of Latin America. And his visits to Peru have to do with how he called on us to lay down our arms while blessing the weapons of genocide as he did various times during his two visits to Peru.”

The election of Prevost to the position of Pontiff represents the continuation of the Catholic Church’s efforts to provide a progressive façade to the maintenance of their power in service to reaction and imperialism. His trafficking in the masses grievances with regard to the migrant crisis serves to obscure his commitment to the Church’s long-standing reactionary doctrinal positions on a wide range of issues. Prevost has actively campaigned against the reproductive rights of women in the United States, expressed opposition to the ordination of women as Catholic priests, and condemned the portrayal of same-sex relationships on television and in film. Additionally, Prevost has been widely criticized for his role in covering up numerous cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and harboring several priests who faced accusations of sexual misconduct throughout the course of his career, both in the United States and in Peru.

Pope Leo XIV, like his most recent namesake and his immediate predecessor, seeks to provide a “moderate” face to one of the most reactionary and criminal institutions in human history. Despite his professed sympathies with the immense masses of people displaced by imperialism, in reality he serves to prop up the very system that has consigned them to their horrific fates. Throughout his career, the new head of the Papacy has consistently facilitated the oppression imposed upon workers, peasants, and women throughout the world by U.S. imperialism. His election in no way represents a turning of a new page in the history of the Catholic Church, but yet another chapter in its long-standing efforts to deceive and mislead the masses of people.

Image: Pope Leo XIV at an audience for journalists May 12, Catholic Church in England and Wales

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