HE may have similar views to Pope Francis, but he didn’t look like Pope Francis when he emerged on the balcony. While Francis appeared dressed in white, Leo wore a red mozzetta and stole. With his upright, dignified demeanour, he reminded me more of the Pope Pius XII of my boyhood. 

Add to that his measured tone and his general appearance, quietly authoritative, he brought to mind another man recently elected: Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney. Both Leo and Carney are economical with words, measured in their use – bombastic they ain’t. And as Mark Carney brought a striking contrast to the Man-Baby across the US border, so too Pope Leo XIV brought an adulthood  to his new role, again sharply different from Trump, who says the first thing to enter his head, usually self-praise. 

Half the Catholic Church throughout the world is hoping Pope Leo will be another saintly Pope in the mould of Francis; the other half are longing for a Pope who’ll reassert the boundaries, tell the faithful throughout the world  what is right and what is wrong.

In some ways Leo is the prisoner of the late Pope Francis. Remember that modest apartment into which Francis moved? The smaller, undemonstrative car in which he travelled? The obvious question is, will the new Pope continue this more modest style of living? He's a prisoner in that if he returns to the simple quarters and modest vehicle, it’ll be seen as a continuation of  Pope Francis’ undemonstrative lifestye. If he goes back to the more sumptuous Papal accommodation and travel adopted by pretty well all the Popes preceding him, Leo will look as if he’s buying into the majesty of the papacy once more. Francis, as Leo is probably aware, will be a hard act to follow.

Leo is the first American Pope,  but what a different human he is to the Orange Babby in the White House. You remember that doctored pic of Trump in papal garb, made by a  Trump flunkey? The notion of Leo putting out a picture of himself in the Oval Office pretending to be president is simply inconceivable. That’s because he’s all growed up.

What about doctrine with Leo, the rules of right and wrong as declared by the Catholic Church?  One thing you’ll not hear Leo say are the words of his predecessor, “Who am I to judge?" Leo long ago made clear that he rejects divorce, same-sex marriage, women priests and abortion. The liberal, secular world may press hard on these items of Catholic teaching, but the new Pope doesn’t look like a man likely to be pushed around by voices from the secular world.

The new Pope  has chosen the name Leo, in honour of Leo XIII, who, in his encyclical Rerum Novarum, identified Catholicism with those at the bottom of society, those struggling to make a living. What the gold-plated crazy in the White House and his bloated billionaires will make of that remains to be seen.

Pope Leo is a mere 69 years old, once thought of as the years of retirement, but  by Papal standards a comparative freshman. He faces a violent, self-congratulatory world which, once the excitement of the Papal election diminishes, will have no further interest in him, except he says something not totally in line with Trumpthink, and then watch for the pile-on.

Watching the pitch-perfect choreography in St Peter’s Square when he was elected, it was difficult to think of the Catholic Church as other than hugely powerful and strong in numbers. But it’s not. The tens of thousands in Ireland and the EU and the US, who for one reason or another have abandoned their faith, will not be coming back. But as so often happens, Gen Z (those born in the late 1990s and early 2000s) may take the opposite tack to our generation and may well find meaning and worth in a Church led by this quiet, dignified, nobody’s fool to whom  over 2.1 billion people all over the world look for guidance.

Oh, and did I mention that Leo’s brother Lou lives in Florida and is a vocal MAGA supporter?