By Alvise Armellini
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – U.S. Cardinal Robert Prevost, who on Thursday was elected as the new leader of the Catholic Church taking up the name of Leo XIV, is a soft-spoken figure who has shunned the limelight during his priestly career.
The 69-year-old from Chicago has served as a missionary in Peru and has given few media interviews. However, he spoke to Vatican News in May 2023, upon his appointment as head of the Vatican department that oversees bishops’ appointments, and to RAI Italian public television before the conclave.
Here are some extracts from those interviews:
ON HIS FAMILY BACKGROUND:
“I was born in the United States … But my grandparents were all immigrants, French, Spanish … I was raised in a very Catholic family, both of my parents were very engaged in the parish.” (RAI)
ON CONSIDERING DROPPING PLANS FOR PRIESTHOOD:
He talked with his father about “very concrete things, doubts that a young man may have (such as) ‘perhaps it is better (that) I leave this life and I get married, I have children, a normal life”. (RAI)
ON BEING PROMOTED TO A TOP VATICAN JOB IN 2023:
“I still consider myself a missionary. My vocation, like that of every Christian, is to be a missionary, to proclaim the Gospel wherever one is.” (Vatican News)
ON HOW TO BE A BISHOP:
“We are often preoccupied with teaching doctrine, the way of living our faith, but we risk forgetting that our first task is to teach what it means to know Jesus Christ and to bear witness to our closeness to the Lord.” (Vatican News)
ON CHURCH DIVISIONS:
“Divisions and polemics in the Church do not help anything. We bishops especially must accelerate this movement towards unity, towards communion in the Church.” (Vatican News)
ON THE CHURCH AS AN INSTITUTION:
“Too many times we have allowed the Church to become an institution in part or in its entirety… One thinks of the Vatican, the Holy See, there are institutional dimensions, but that is not the heart of what the Church is and must be.” (RAI)
ON WOMEN BEING APPOINTED AS MEMBERS OF THE VATICAN’S DICASTERY FOR BISHOPS, AN INNOVATION BY POPE FRANCIS:
“On several occasions we have seen that their point of view is an enrichment.” (Vatican News)
ON THE DUTY OF BISHOPS TO ACT AGAINST SEX ABUSE:
“We cannot close our hearts, the door of the Church, to people who have suffered from abuse. The responsibility of the bishop is great, and I think we still have to make great efforts to respond to this situation that is causing so much pain in the Church. It will take time.”
“In any case, silence is not an answer. Silence is not the solution. We must be transparent and honest, we must accompany and assist the victims, because otherwise their wounds will never heal. There is a great responsibility in this, for all of us.” (Vatican News)
ON FINANCIAL CHALLENGES FOR THE CHURCH:
“The (late) Pope (Francis) has told us that he wants a Church that is poor and for the poor (…) Personally, I am not of the opinion that the Church should sell everything and ‘only’ preach the Gospel in the streets. However, this is a very big responsibility, there are no one-size-fits-all answers.” (Vatican News)
ON THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
“Social media can be an important tool to communicate the Gospel message reaching millions of people. We must prepare ourselves to use social media well.”
“(There are) situations where we really have to think several times before speaking or before writing a message on Twitter, in order to answer or even just to ask questions in a public form, in full view of everyone. Sometimes there is a risk of fuelling divisions and controversy.” (Vatican News)
(Writing by Alvise Armellini; Editing by Diane Craft)
