Crossroads Podcast: A New Pope Unleashes ‘Groundhog Day’ Inside Newsrooms

All together now, let’s flash back to “Groundhog Day,” a Zen-perfect flick that folks in pulpits have been quoting for decades.

Here’s my favorite line of dialogue, which captures the movie’s depressed-weatherman vibe: “I'll give you a winter prediction. It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life.”

That’s exactly how I feel these days when reading most mainstream news coverage of Catholic life in the age of Donald Trump. I know that it’s going to be cold, it’s going to be black and white and it’s going to stay that way until a blue, “progressive” politician seizes the White House. And I say that as a former blue-dog, pro-life Democrat who is now a #NeverTrump third-party voter.

This leads us to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, which focuses on some New York Times and USA Today ink of political angles (What else?) linked to the rise of Pope Leo XIV.

Couldn’t you have predicted this Gray Lady headline? “An American Pope Emerges as a Potential Contrast to Trump on the World Stage.” Or how about this dramatic double-decker headline from the same media-zeitgeist newsroom:

How Will Pope Leo Approach the Rising Right Wing of the U.S. Church?

The first American pope arrives at a time of extraordinary complexity and tension in the church in the United States.

The sermonic overture is pitch perfect.

The last several months for American Catholics have been a story about the ascent of the Catholic right. In January, a parade of right-wing Catholic power began streaming into President Trump’s remade Washington. Just weeks later came the hospitalization and decline of Pope Francis, who often seemed to stand alone in offering a different vision of global Christian influence.

Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic in the new conservative style, was one of the last people to see Pope Francis alive, a brief meeting between representatives of two contrasting visions for Catholic values in the world.

Then came the stunning arrival … of a new pope: an American, Chicago-born — and a prelate whose priorities for the church seemed to place him in the mold of Francis. He is potentially another countervailing voice against the country’s newly powerful strain of right-leaning Catholics.

Wait a minute! I’ve been here before! 

As the prophet Yogi Berra (from New York City) is alleged to have quipped: “It’s déjà vu all over again." I also endorse this haunting anthem from the great John Fogerty. 

Or I can serve up another “Groundhog Day” quote: “What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?”

Let’s stick with some of the crucial material in the Times. I’ll add some questions and commentary along the way:

Now the new pope, Leo XIV, faces the task not just of shepherding the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, but of unifying a fractured American church where the church hierarchy, ordinary Catholics, an influential right-wing Catholic media ecosystem and Catholic power in Washington are often at odds.

OK, I will ask two questions: Who are the leaders in the U.S. church hierarchy? Would that be the U.S. cardinals who are archbishops? Three of the four were strong, progressive members of Team Francis? Would that be the leadership of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops? Doctrinal (not political) conservatives have held important posts there, but the conference staff (to say the least) is not known as a sanctuary for conservatives.

Also, who are these “ordinary Catholics”? Surveys show that vast majority of “American Catholics” are ex-Catholics or “cultural Catholics” who rarely visit a kneller. Are the “ordinary” Catholics those who go to church every week or so? Are they the most loyal participants in all of the Sacraments of the faith? 

Back to the Times: 

… Catholic doctrine does not map neatly onto American political disputes, and it’s not clear whether Pope Leo will have his predecessor’s appetite for sparring. Inserting himself directly into the American political landscape could be thornier for an American.

Read that first sentence several times. Does anyone else sense the tensions? 

The whole point of this Times piece is to view the election of Pope Leo XIV through a political lens. That simply doesn’t work in the United States and, especially not in the growing churches of the Global South. That leads us to one more clip:

Leaders of the American church, who are generally more conservative than much of the global church, expressed their welcome and emphasized that the new pope now belongs to the world.

This made me laugh out loud. 

Again, who are these “leaders of the American church”? Liberal American members of Team Francis have been way more progressive than bishops in the growing (there’s that word again) churches of the Global South.

One more time: This conclave was not about American politics.

There isn’t as much to discuss in the USA Today feature: “How Pope Leo XIV may lead church and navigate an increasingly vocal Catholic right in US.” But there are two important doctrinal points to make here:

This emergent Catholic right in the United States has deepened in its loyalty to President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert. Vance is among several Catholics in Trump’s Cabinet, some of whom are allies of this emergent Catholic right and its belief in applying narrow religious criteria to government policy.

These tensions contributed to clashes between Francis and the Trump administration, such as a February dispute between the late pope and Vance over immigration enforcement. Likewise, Francis' proponents in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also expressed concern about Trump’s immigration agenda.

Wait a minute: I thought the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was a center for conservative Catholics? 

Debates about immigration — fittingly— play a major role in stories about the election of Leo XIV. The key here is that this is an issue were Catholic social teachings come into play in a way that journalists respect.

However, there are at the very least three different policy stances that need to be discussed, when considering how Catholics in public life address this issue. Which of these options is supported by Catholic doctrine?

(1) Open borders or borders that are functionally open?

(2) Border security, but with liberalized laws shaping the process leading to legal immigration? Debates get complex on this, when Catholic labor leaders speak out.

(3) Border security, while leaving immigration laws where they are right now. I have rarely heard conservative Catholic clergy back that stance.

I would argue No. 2, while we have just been through a scary dose of No. 1. Meanwhile, the Vatican — including the cardinal who is now pope — has clearly seen America camped out in option No. 3. Once again, Catholic social teachings are hard to label, in terms of politics.

Let’s end with one more quotation from USA Today:

Conservatives over time revolted against reforms that Francis championed to change how the church operated due to fears they could alter Catholic doctrine. …

Leo has said little about other major social and cultural issues that have animated the emergent Catholic right, especially inclusion for LGBTQ+ Catholics and women’s ordination as deacons. 

Note the vague word “inclusion” in that reference to issues of marriage, sexuality and gender. However, this passage finally moves the coverage beyond immigration and into other issues that have caused conflicts in the Francis era, especially tensions between the fading (but rich) churches of Europe and the growing (but poor) churches of Africa and much of Asia.

I suggest that readers who want to know what happened in this conclave need to explore the complex process linked to the Dubia (“doubt”) documents sent to Francis by a global circle of conservative cardinals — part of a legal process, under canon law, demanding clarifications on some of the pope’s statements and deeds.

A number of doctrinal questions dominate the Dubia letters. Here is my attempt to list most of them, in as concise a form as possible.

— Can divorced Catholics — those with secular divorces — receive Holy Communion? 

— Can the claims of human conscience trump doctrines in the Catholic Catechism?

— Does it matter if, during Confession, Catholics do not repent of “sins” — as stated in church doctrines — that they do not believe are sins?

— What does “synodality” mean and what is the process to select participants in these gatherings?

— Can the Catholic church ordain women as deacons, priests, bishops, etc.?

— Can the church bless same-sex relationships? What about Catholics who plan to get married, but are already cohabitating?

With those Dubia in mind, let me go full circle — “Groundhog Day” style — to my questions I placed at the top of that recent podcast post stressing that “this conclave was “not about America.”

No. 1 — What role has President Donald Trump played in the decades of rapid growth in Catholic churches in Africa?

No. 2 — What role have Catholic doctrines on family, marriage, sexuality and fertility played in the faith’s recent decades of rapid growth in Africa?

No. 3 — If tensions between bishops in Africa (and in some other parts of the Global South) and the Vatican play a role in the upcoming conclave to select a new pope, will the Africans be influenced by political ideology or by Catholic doctrines?

That’s all, for now. Enjoy the podcast and, please, share it with others.