An Interview with Pope Leo from 2012

Here's an interview with Robert Prevost from more than a decade ago.

https://youtu.be/QXVkJ5TQi1s?si=7vOTQmkS354s1DXp

It feels surreal to have a native English speaker as the Pope. That will take a lot of getting used to.

Although he doesn't say anything terribly revelatory or original on the face of it, I find his demeanour very encouraging. He seems very sincere, gentle and thoughtful. He clearly doesn't think in soundbites. (I liked his measured answer on the digital media, a subject that tends to provoke sweeping statements.)

Pope Francis, for all his many virtues, always had something disconcertingly manic about him. Pope Leo seems like a return to the temperament of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. For all John Paul's charisma, when you read his writings he was always very careful, tempered and nuanced.

I suspect that Pope Leo will be solid on the life issues and the gender issues, as indeed was Francis-- for the most part. I further suspect that Pope Leo will be more solid than Pope Francis on the uniqueness of Christianity and the importance of doctrine.

It seems inevitable, going on various indications, that Leo will also be vaguely left-wing on other political questions, such as economics, environmentalism, immigration, and international relations. For all I loved JPII and Benedict XVI, they both seemed sunk in a deep naivety about supranational institutions, treaties, and charters, even as those things grew increasingly anti-life and anti-Christian.