Leo XIV and the Global Church

The historic pontificate of an American Pope connects the questions of unity in the church and peace in the world.

The election of Leo XIV on May 8, 2025—the first pope from the United States—signifies one of the most historic developments in the church. His election occurred in the context of a collapse in the international order created by the end of the Second World War and the post-Cold War peace process. This breakdown represents a political and institutional challenge for the papacy as the Holy See's primary international representative. It also brings with it a series of religious and theological uncertainties that concern not only the transatlantic axis but also relations between the church and the world, and within the global church.

In Leo XIV and the Global Church, world renowned theologian Massimo Faggioli details how the breakdown in the international order stems from the MAGA movement in the United States, in which the relationship between religion and politics, between church and state, is being redefined by the first pope born in the United States and the first from the Augustinian Order. In this context, the tensions and influences within Catholicism play a key role in the crisis of the liberal order—in the United States, the other Americas, and Europe—and consequently in relations between the papacy, the global church, and the international community.

Massimo Faggioli is professor in the department of theology and religious studies at Villanova University. He is an internationally established scholar in the area of Vatican II and the papacy especially, and a renowned public commentator on church affairs. He is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II (edited with Catherine Clifford, 2023). Among his books with Liturgical Press are The Legacy and Limits of Vatican II in an Age of Crisis (2025); Catholicism and Citizenship: Political Cultures of the Church in the Twenty-First Century (2017); Sorting Out Catholicism: A Brief History of the New Ecclesial Movements (2014); Pope John XXIII: The Medicine of Mercy (2014); and True Reform: Liturgy and Ecclesiology in Sacrosanctum Concilium (2012).