A family of seagulls — two adults feeding a chick — had gathered by the papal chimney a couple of minutes before white smoke billowed out to announce the election of a new pope. The Holy Spirit is usually represented by a dove, so what to make of this trinity?

In any case, it’s just one small detail in a poignant day. There are already many other portents to sift through.

Habemus papam — we have a pope, as the official Latin declaration goes — and consistent with the Roman Catholic Church’s recent penchant for pontifical surprises, we have our first ever pope from the U.S. Taking the name Leo XIV is Cardinal Robert Prevost, 69, born in Chicago and an Augustinian missionary who served in Latin America — specifically the diocese of Chiclayo in Peru.

The previous Leo — the 13th — was the pontiff of modern Catholic social action, whose encyclical Rerum Novarum (“New Things”) was the church’s 1891 riposte to socialism and capitalism, upholding the dignity of labor. In his first remarks, the American spoke Italian, Latin and Spanish. Not English. Might he become a foil to President Donald Trump?

Like all newly elected leaders, Leo will get a honeymoon period as people ponder what he might do with his pontificate, as I just have. They will watch to see if he might be manipulated by the American president — who will almost certainly try to take credit for his election (though Trump was probably rooting for someone like conservative Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York).

At least one Catholic prelate has already said Leo is not a positive for Trump’s America. Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota quoted a late mentor as saying “Look, until America goes into political decline, there won't be an American pope.”

American Catholics will have to realize that though they have a fellow citizen as the successor of Saint Peter, they have lost him to the universal church. He is now the pastor of a global flock of nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics. The U.S. is just the place where he was born.

The late Pope Francis never made it back to his native Argentina, though he dearly wanted to. The work of the church kept him away. Service to Christ — as Jesus himself said in the gospels — means abandoning one’s home and loved ones. As the Bible says, “It is a fearful and terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Apart from the goodwill the public gifts fledgling leaders for a brief period, Leo has an additional advantage as he assumes his office: the charisma of the modern papacy. His predecessors Francis and John Paul II exuded personal qualities that drew the admiration of an audience beyond the faithful. But even the shy (but resolute) Benedict XVI benefited from the mystique of the office. And while the theocracy has roots going back more than two millennia, the papacy’s contemporary magnetism really only dates back to the second half of the 20th century.

That would be to the papacy of John XXIII. Elected at age 70, he was expected to be a transitional pontiff. He turned out perfectly charismatic for the age of television — and revolutionary as he unleashed the reforms of the Second Vatican Council to bring the Roman Catholic Church into the 20th century. His successor Paul VI would spend his 15-year pontificate ironing out and calming the tremendous amount of unruly energy John released into the church: the questioning of ancient doctrine, the clamor for greater participation of lay people and religious women, liberation theology, the vibrant appeal of compassion and salvation in the post-colonial world.

Pope John’s reforms began to transform the Vatican from a 19th century vestigial European superpower into a factor in global culture and politics. The spectacle of an antique institution trying to project its ancient powers in newfound ways captured the imagination of the world. Pope Paul VI made sure John’s changes had a chance to stick. The sadly brief 33-day reign of John Paul I achieved one thing: His chosen reign name moved the church toward uniting the innovative predilections of John XXIII and the instinct to consolidate of Paul VI.

It was left to the titanic papacy of his successor John Paul II — the first non-Italian pontiff in centuries — to weld both revolution and authority to further mesmerize the world. Indeed, he helped transform it by inspiring his fellow Poles to begin the dissolution of the Soviet empire.

Benedict helped re-anchor his predecessor’s legacy in theology and dogma, while launching a belated campaign to cleanse the church from the scandal of priestly sexual abuse that John Paul II — who ruled from 1978 to 2005 — almost willfully ignored. The taint of those crimes have yet to be expunged. After Benedict retired, Francis injected his much-lauded compassion into the church’s outreach — even as doctrine remained unchanged and the Vatican’s practical problems of governance — among them, how to finance pensions and planet-spanning budgets with no real tax base — persisted.

That is what the last three pontiffs have bequeathed to Leo XIV. Which paths will he choose?

Might he become a warrior pope like John Paul II, delivering hope to the oppressed? Or will he define and clarify faith as the scholarly Benedict tried to do? Or will he continue the ways of Francis, whose compassion spoke louder than dogma? Or will he try to bring all three legacies together?

The Vatican is physically tiny: the smallest country in the world at 0.17 square miles. But Leo’s decisions will be magnified beyond its bounds, amplified by hundreds of millions of believers, by social media and technology, by a global culture yearning for moral certitude.

Which way do I think he should go? I hope he listens to Saint Paul, who wrote in the middle of the first century: “Now abide faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

_____

This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Howard Chua-Eoan is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion covering culture and business. He previously served as Bloomberg Opinion's international editor and is a former news director at Time magazine.

_____

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com/opinion. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.