People are parsing every word uttered by the new Pope, Leo XIV, eager to see if he will preach the fullness of the Catholic faith, without compromise or confusion.
As the leader of a pro-life, pro-family group, Population Research Institute, which has worked closely with two of the three previous popes (I will let you guess which ones), I am praying that Pope Leo will take a bold stance on the great sins of our age.
And, no, these are not the contrived “sins” of climate change, closed borders, and overpopulation. Rather, they are the real sins that send tens of millions of our fellow humans beings to an early grave—abortion, euthanasia—as well as those others that prevent tens of millions more from being conceived in the first place—the denigration of marriage, the promotion of contraception, and the disparagement of childbearing.
The signs that Pope Leo has given us to date are very positive and becoming more so. Not only is the new pope pro-life, he has been pro-life since his college days. As it happens, his alma mater, Villanova University, not only boasts the oldest collegiate pro-life club in the United States, but one that remains very active today, over a half century later. Villanovans for Life, founded in 1974, has approximately 50 student members and holds regular events on campus. And it had as one of its founders young Robert Prevost, who was a mathematics student there from 1973-77.
Little did I know that, when I spoke at Villanova University some years ago, the pro-life group that invited me, Villanovans for Life, was in part the new Pope’s handiwork.
More evidence of Pope Leo’s deeply held pro-life convictions comes from his time as Bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, where he served from September 26, 2015, until January 30, 2023.
Take his involvement in Peru’s annual March for Life which, under the leadership of the former Cardinal-Archbishop of Lima, Juan Luis Cipriani, became the premier pro-life event in Peru. One of the chief organizers of past events was Carlos Polo, the head of PRI’s Latin American office. And he reports that Bishop Prevost was an active supporter of the March for Life from his Chiclayo diocese.
It’s also true that on his X account we find pro-life re-posts, such as one in support of Mike Pence in his speech at the March for Life in DC on January 29, 2017, and another quoting New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan from the same March.
Then-Bishop Prevost was also willing to criticize pro-abortion politicians, as he did in a November 12, 2016, post that highlighted how Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton’s pro-abortion zealotry had cost her the presidency.
Less well known is the speech he gave in Peru in 2023, when he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Catholic University Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo. Abortion is a hot-button issue in Peru, but Cardinal Prevost, who by then had been given a red hat by Pope Francis, took a strong pro-life stance in his acceptance speech. He argued that society’s laws should protect the right of every unborn child to be born, and that Catholics should work to create a societal consensus that guarantees this protection.
More recently, as has been widely reported, Pope Leo, in praying his first Regina Coeli from the central balcony of St. Peter’s, sent a greeting to those participating in the National March for Life. The marchers, who even at that very moment were marching down the streets of Rome, were thrilled by this clear sign of papal support for the cause of Life.
Then on May 16 came another positive sign. That was the day that Pope Leo addressed all of the diplomats from around the world who were accredited to the Holy See. This is a traditional address given by the sitting pope to the diplomatic corps, and one in which he lays out his positions with regard to international affairs.
Pope Leo, however, took the opportunity to endorse the traditional family. He said to the assembled diplomats, without equivocation, “It is the responsibility of government leaders to work to build harmonious and peaceful civil societies. This can be achieved above all by investing in the family, founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman, ‘a small but genuine society, and prior to all civil society.’ ”
What is notable about this comment is that it was not addressed to his fellow Catholic bishops, or even to Catholics at large, in which context it would be unremarkable. Rather, it was addressed to representatives of the governments of the world, and it insisted that those who wish to build a just society must start by defending the traditional family.
As Dr. Carlos Beltramo, who heads PRI’s European office notes, “Any journalist who continues to claim that Pope Leo XIV is progressive after this talk has lost touch with reality.”
In that same address to diplomats, Pope Leo continued: “No one is exempted from striving to ensure respect for the dignity of every person, especially the most frail and vulnerable, from the unborn to the elderly, from the sick to the unemployed, citizens and immigrants alike.”
Note that the pro-life issues—abortion and euthanasia—have pride of place here. Those who wish to put aside pro-life issues in pursuit of a radical “social justice” agenda have been put on notice. This Pope believes that the pro-life issue is paramount.
On Sunday, June 1, celebrating the Jubilee of Families, came another positive sign. Pope Leo reaffirmed the Church’s teaching on marriage in his homily. He said, “Marriage is not an ideal, but the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful and fruitful.”
As Dr. Beltramo notes, “Describing marriage as ‘total, faithful and fruitful’ is a phrase that is pregnant with meaning. Marriage is total love, and unions that cannot live out the love that man and woman give each other through the intimacy of their bodies are not marriage. Marriage is faithful love, that is to say, if someone divorces and enters into a relationship with a person other than their husband or wife, they are not in a true marriage. There may be many considerations of charity and mercy to be made for such unions, but they are not a marriage. Finally, marriage is fruitful, which means it is necessarily open to life. A true marriage is one between a man and a woman who love life and seek to follow the Lord’s command to ‘be fruitful and multiply.’ Taken as a whole, this phrase—total, faithful and fruitful—is pure Catholic teaching, without circumlocutions or double talk.”
“But there is even more,” Dr. Beltramo goes on. “By saying that marriage is not an unachievable, abstract ideal but a ‘model of true love between a man and a woman,’ Pope Leo is refuting a progressive argument, and one that has been used in recent years to justify calling anything marriage.”
“For some time now, those who would weaken the Church’s teaching on marriage have resorted to calling marital love an ‘abstract ideal’ so exalted that no one can really achieve it in real life. And if no couple can achieve it, they argue, then practically any arrangement between two people can also be called ‘marriage.’ The progressives believe that it is enough for two people to subjectively “feel” that they are married, and if they do so, then the rest of us must accept that this ‘union’—whatever it is—qualifies as a ‘marriage.’ Calling marriage an ‘ideal’ has thus become an excuse for calling anything and everything ‘marriage.’”
“By saying that marriage ‘is not an ideal, but a model,’ and by putting the words ‘male and female’ next to the word ‘model,’ Pope Leo is correcting all those who have wanted to water down the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage. And, tellingly, he does not do it with big words or convoluted sentences, but instead uses the strength and precision of ‘small words.’ These are the ones that really count.”
We at PRI are delighted with the first public statements on Life and Family of a pope who has the difficult task of overcoming the divisions in the Church that were sown by his predecessor. And we are doubly pleased that he is doing so with an apostolic simplicity and a fearless regard for the Truth.
For, after all, the Truth is a man, Jesus Christ.
