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> "Cardinal George of Chicago, of happy memory, was one of my great mentors, and he said: 'Look, until America goes into political decline, there won't be an Am
by afavour 1y ago
> "Cardinal George of Chicago, of happy memory, was one of my great mentors, and he said: 'Look, until America goes into political decline, there won't be an American pope.' And his point was, if America is kind of running the world politically, culturally, economically, they don't want America running the world religiously. So, I think there's some truth to that, that we're such a superpower and so dominant, they don't wanna give us, also, control over the church."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-pope-could-it-be-american-cardinal-robert-prevost/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-pope-could-it-be-american-c...
- bbor 1y agoFor what it’s worth, I was just reading that Leo wasn’t seen as “completely” American due to his many years in Peru — he’s even a citizen. Take that as you will.
- rootsudo 1y agoFor what it's worth, Peru is in South America. Still American, Technically.
- bitshiftfaced 1y agoFrom reading online comments, I'm starting to believe that those who reside outside the US are more strident defenders of the idea that "US citizens only" = "American" than US citizens themselves.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- catlikesshrimp 1y agoNot in Central America. We call US citizens "Gringos" Unfortunately, this does carry a variable negative weight. Now, Latin Americans living in the US proudly call themselves "Americans" Edit: Albeit long, the correct gentilice for the US is "Estadounidenses" as in "Estados Unidos de América"
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> the correct gentilice for the US is "Estadounidenses" Which nobody uses. (It’s also meaningful to note that I would call myself an American in English but not in Spanish.)
- amalcon 1y ago"Estadounidense" is also a bit odd, since there are Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos (the formal name for Mexico). I don't think it is likely to confuse very many people, but still odd.
- temp0826 1y agoIf you say "Mexico" in Mexico, most people will think you're referring to Mexico City.
- catlikesshrimp 1y agoMexico City was "Mexico DF", but was changed years ago to CDMX. That stands for "Ciudad de mexico" I think there are legal implications. Akin to "Washington District of Columbia" Decades ago, Mexicans refered to the capital as "el DF" But I dont know about more recently.
- School-Cotton 1y agoReally? Do people call the city just "México", by itself, not "Ciudad de México" or similar? There is a similar situation in Quebec (the province and its capital city are both just called "Québec" in French, whereas in English we use Quebec/Quebec City). However, there is usually no ambiguity because French grammar requires the definite article for (masculine) names of large territories like countries and provinces, but not for cities. E.g. "Je vais au Québec"[1] = I'm going to Quebec (the province) vs. "Je vais à Québec" = I'm going to Quebec City. I'm not sure if there is any similar grammatical distinction in Spanish. 1: au is a mandatory contraction for à + le
- temp0826 1y ago
- fernandopj 1y agoYes, there's true to that, if only because "we" (latin americans) have given up to that discussion and just don't want to be confused with USA citizens.
- bee_rider 1y agoI think most people worldwide basically know what you mean when you say American, but are actually referring to a person from the US, via context. It is pragmatic label. They aren’t from the US so they don’t have to worry about some identity based thing or feeling like they are stealing the name from two continents, for their one country. On the other hand, some of more conscientious people in the US are feeling a little awkward about the name these days. So it isn’t surprising that we’d be the ones objecting.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> some of more conscientious people in the US are feeling a little awkward about the name these days. So it isn’t surprising that we’d be the ones objecting If the folks who got us into this mess with label obsession move on to something less charged like USian, that’s probably for the net good.
- dingnuts 1y agoif the language police want to tell Americans what they're allowed to call themselves and expect any actual adoption they had better come up with a better word than "USian". How do you even pronounce that? Oosh-an? But also sure, telling Americans to rename things, that hasn't caused ANY backlash now resulting in the renaming of huge bodies of water to stupid things, keep up the cultural dictates, it's totally working!
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoThe whole enterprise of constantly renaming things is stuoid. But there are groups on the idiot left (LatinX, USian, xey/xem) and right (freedom fries, Gulf of America) who enjoy it. Between gender and race-based language policing and a nationality-based one, I think the latter is a safer place to constrain them.
- bee_rider 1y agoI think ultimately we won’t be able to refer to anything without offending somebody, given how polarized the US is. Of course my side’s backlash is totally reasonable, actually, it is an inevitable response that was caused by the other side trying to force some top-down change via the language police.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- kklisura 1y agoThen Pope Francis was American as well.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- School-Cotton 1y ago"American" in English is the demonym for the US. It doesn't have any other meaning except in rare and unusual circumstances. The fact that it means something different in some other languages doesn't change that fact.
- moogly 1y ago[flagged]
- tptacek 1y ago1955 born (chicago) 1977 seminary grad (chicago) 1982 ordination (->rome) 1985 canon law doctor (->peru) 1999 midwest augustinians (->chicago) 2001 global augustinians (->rome) 2015 bishop (->peru) 2021 dicasterate (->rome)
- fblp 1y agoSeems like he's spent 2 years in the US since he was 27.
- cjbgkagh 1y agoAt 69 that's pretty close to half of his life, and since it's the early half there is more weight to it as it forms the context from which the rest is understood.
- brailsafe 1y agoWell, I don't know if it would be fair to compare him to your typical midwest American boomer who's been living in the suburbs since they were 27 and shows up in the middle of the day to protest against apartments going up in their neighborhood. /s
- ekianjo 1y ago> the context from which the rest is understood. What? Speaking from experience, the country you go to after 20s is the one you choose, not the one you were forced to live in. This has a huge factor in your thinking more than the number of years on paper.
- cjbgkagh 1y agoOn the nature/nature aspect people are already predominantly nature. For the nurture component of the residual the early years are very formative. As an expat who has spent much more of my life outside my country of birth than in it, and knows many other expats who have done the same, from my observation our upbringing still dominates our behavior. It is also a selection criteria bias where expats are more likely to identify with other expats even when not from the same country or residing in the same country which is one of the reasons expats tend to form communities with other expats. The problem with self assessing behavior is that the same biases which determine behavior is used for assessing the behavior where much of what is considered merely normal is ignored leading to over-weighting the size of the unusual component.
- CobrastanJorji 1y agoI think it was Aristotle who said "Give me a child until his mid-twenties, and I will give you a complete American."
- yieldcrv 1y agoeven as a joke of Aristotle living 2,000 years before the United States existed, I don't get the comedic affect
- calebkaiser 1y agoIt's a play on the popular quote "Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man", attributed to Aristotle
- andyjohnson0 1y agoAttributed to Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, although this is disputed.
- protocolture 1y agoNo the quote is "Show me a child in his mid twenties, and I will show you an american"
- mvieira38 1y agoAmericans will say they are Italian because their great grandma ate spaghetti once, but God forbid someone is American because he was born there
- johnnyanmac 1y agoWell, Trump is trying to prove otherwise. I guess this would be one of the few backfires if such an act did make it through.
- carlosjobim 1y agoWhen the war comes, dual citizenship might become complicated. Certainly a pope cannot be a citizen, but for others.
- GuB-42 1y agoGP is right, he is not "completely" American in the sense that he is both American and Peruvian because of his dual citizenship. He also spent most of his life outside of the USA. Which I think is a great thing as the representative of a worldwide religion. Born in the US, an English-speaking country in North America, lived in Peru, a Spanish-speaking country in the South America, then in Italy, an Italian-speaking country in Europe.
- froh 1y agohe is completely US American because he was born and raised there and studied there, maths and philosophy amongst other things. and in addition he is also Peruvian. so he's more than American. hyper American if you will. and now he's the head of state of the Vatican, too. a triple whopper of sorts ;-)
- davidw 1y agoDefinitely a "yes, and" thing. I'm working on dual citizenship and I would not consider myself "less American" once I got it.
- 1y ago
- brudgers 1y agoI suspect that’s going to be a political talking point sooner, not later.
- swat535 1y agoHe is moderate. Even, with his speech and choice of clothing, somewhat confrontational with Francis. Traditional papal symbols of Benedict XVI return and that whole speech of “Do not be afraid to evangelize with the truth” gave me a sense of confrontation with the modern ideology.
- javiramos 1y ago[flagged]
- Clubber 1y agoTechnically 2.
- dmayle 1y agoYou could educate yourself, you know, instead of trying to regurgitate something that someone else said that you thought looked clever. What would you call Americans? United Statesians? There are two countries called the United States in North America, there's the United States of Mexico, and the United States of America. People from the United States of Mexico are called Mexicans, and people from the United States of America are called Americans. And what about people from the continent of North America? There's called North Americans, just like people from South America are called South Americans.
- dragonwriter 1y ago> There are two countries called the United States in North America No, actually, there aren't. > there's the United States of Mexico, and the United States of America. No, México’s formal English name (which is an exact literal translation of its Spanish name) is United Mexican States (it is Estados Unidos Mexicanos not Estados Unidos de México)
- sebastiennight 1y ago> Estados Unidos Mexicanos I think this would translate to Mexican United States ; you're mixing up the word order.
- dragonwriter 1y ago> I think this would translate to Mexican United States If Estados Unidos existed in Spanish as a compound, non-proper, noun phrase—that is, if "a united states" was a generic name for a thing—rather than Unidos and Mexicanos both being adjectives that modify Estados, then that would be a plausible translation. But that's (1) not the case, and (2) even if it was the case, that's not how it is used in the actual official name of the country of México. > you're mixing up the word order. To be clear, you are asserting that the government of México messed up the word order in its own official English name.
- samsepi01 1y agoIf Peru gets to claim this pope, then the US gets to claim Tesla, Einstein, etc. lol
- StopDisinfo910 1y agoNobody claims the pope. This is a weird take. We are not talking about some sport celebrity. It’s true that the man was born in the USA and was a bishop in Peru. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Peruvian catholics were happy to have a pope who lived their country.
- madcaptenor 1y agoThe Peruvians definitely seem to be happy about it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/08/pope-leo-xiv-peru-latin-america https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/08/pope-leo-xiv-p... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewdl4e57v7o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewdl4e57v7o https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/for-us-pope-is-peruvian-andean-nation-cheers-election-pope-leo-xiv-2025-05-08/ https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/for-us-pope-is-peruvi... and, unsurprisingly, the Peruvian-Americans: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/paterson-nj-new-pope-leo-xiv-peru/ https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/paterson-nj-new-pope-le...
- StopDisinfo910 1y ago> The Peruvians definitely seem to be happy about it I don’t really see that from the articles you linked. It’s all quotes about how the Pope is Peruvian (definitely true as he indeed has the Peruvian nationality) and how Peruvian people feel blessed in that. Even your last article reinforces that he is a dual citizen with knowledge of both culture which obviously makes people joyful. I have yet to see people argue if he is more American or more Peruvian apart from here.
- raddan 1y ago[flagged]
- jsnider3 1y agoHe wasn't a Trump appointee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_George https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_George
- senderista 1y ago"Robert Barron, bishop of the Diocese of Winona–Rochester in Minnesota, was appointed less than a week ago by President Trump to the new White House Commission on Religious Liberty."
- michaelt 1y agoHonestly it looks like we've got a HNer quoting a journalist quoting a bishop quoting a cardinal. The cardinal who said 'until America goes into political decline, there won't be an American pope' died in 2015 (i.e. before Trump's first term) The bishop who quoted them does hold the post you mention - but they didn't originate the quote, they just quoted it.
- CGamesPlay 1y agoThanks for this. The quote-of-a-quote in the original article was confusing, made worse by the fact that it was said by Robert who is not the new Pope, formerly known as Robert.
- skissane 1y agoI wouldn’t assume that just because Trump appoints someone to a commission, they and Trump see eye-to-eye about whatever. Bishop Barron is pretty middle-of-the-road as far as US Catholic bishops go - he’s not much of a progressive, but nor is he a traditionalist or hardline conservative. On most issues on which Pope Francis and President Trump disagreed, Barron’s views and instincts are closer to the late Pope (who made him a bishop and then gave him a diocese) than to Trump’s
- ivape 1y ago[flagged]
- myvoiceismypass 1y agoAmerican Christianity != American Catholicism
- ivape 1y ago[flagged]
- taylodl 1y agoI know many American evangelicals who believe Catholics are not true Christians, and as such, when they're talking about Christians they are not including Catholics in that discussion.
- nashashmi 1y agoWhat makes someone an evangelical? Protestant faith?
- michaelsbradley 1y agoMore or less, though it's such an umbrella term at this point that a self-described "evangelical" may disclaim Protestant identity, not having an awareness of the historical link and intending to convey that they don't feel aligned with a Protestant denomination such as Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, etc. I've met many Evangelicals who said something along those lines when the subject came up in conversation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism
- dragonwriter 1y agoEvangelicalism and Fundamentalism are distinct and relatively recent (18th and 19th century in origin) strands within Protestantism (both being particularly prominent in the US.) They aren't equivalent to Protestantism.
- snickerbockers 1y agoThat's an interesting thought but if they're actually that concerned about it then they'd wait longer than four months. It probably has more to do with America's predominant religion being protestantism by a very wife margin for most of the country's existence. We didn't have a Catholic president until Kennedy and even then proving to the common American that Catholics aren't insane Vatican mindslaves was considered a hurdle he had to overcome. If there's a political motive in not choosing an American pope until now it's that for most of American history it wouldn't have granted them any influence over American politics. If there's a personal motive it's that until recently they felt insulted that America went for almost 200 years before finally electing a Catholic president.
- scheme271 1y agoOTOH, 6 of the 9 supreme court justices are catholic so there might be some influence there although I think the influence is probably more from the somewhat uniquely American brand of conservative Catholicism.
- remarkEon 1y agoFor whatever reason, and I guess this is mostly based on my experience with my Catholic friends and family, even if they are not lawyers the Catholics just love arguing about rules. Perhaps that's because Catholic Dogma and Tradition is complicated. In any case, I suppose that means it should be unsurprising that a lot of Catholics end up studying Law and as a result provide a wide pool to draw from when it's time to nominate Justices to the Supreme Court.
- petesergeant 1y ago‘The next Pope is from Chicago’ sounds like the kind of thing 1800s American nativists would panic about
- w0de0 1y agoGive Twitter another 24 hours to stew over his past ministry and his Peruvian citizenship, and one will find our modern Know Nothings making similar hullabaloo.
- refurb 1y agoIt’s funny seeing people talk about the decline of America. I can remember the same conversations in the 1970’s, late 2000’s as well.
- harimau777 1y agoBack then we didn't have a fascist for president or a court full of people who will make up anything to get the results that they want.
- api 1y agoIf we ever hit a point where nobody is talking about America being in decline, that will mean we are entering decline. I do think we’ve been in a down period when it comes to politics for a while but I am mid to long term optimistic about things getting better. This is not the first time we’ve had crazy massively divisive politics or populist crackpottery. Overall I do not think we are in any kind of terminal decline. What is happening is that other countries are rising. I think that’s good for us. When America was the only superpower it made us lazy and foolish. Look at how it works out in the corporate world. Take Intel for instance. They had a near monopoly for about a decade on top performing CPUs and it destroyed the company. Google carved out a monopoly on search and they are complete trash now. Pride cometh before a fall because pride causes the fall.
- zelphirkalt 1y agoMy optimism for the US is quite limited, because they have kinda knowingly dismantled their own democracy, and are in the process of dismantling it even more, while the president tries as hard as possible to become a Putin-like dictator, and important decisions are made by tech giant owning oligarchs. A while longer and the US might enter a civil war or will simply lose all good will it had directed towards it in the world and will then stand alone, while other countries enable the US' competitors. If Americans do not change something about their trajectory soon, it will not end well for them, and probably not end well for many other countries either.
- api 1y ago
- mcv 1y agoI've heard people expressing disappointment (or triumph) because there's an American pope now, as if that would somehow strengthen Trump's position, but I don't see how. Trump doesn't control him and the pope owes no allegiance to Trump, but as an American pope, I think American Catholics are more likely to listen to him, and I think his moderate views could do a lot of good to the extremism of US politics.
- graemep 1y agoI agree. There is no reason to expect the Pope to just back the country he is a citizen of, let alone the current government of his country. Popes have not usually done so in the past.
- 71bw 1y agoWith their almost religious following of Trump, I find it more likely for them to ignore the Pope.
- throw90897349 1y ago[flagged]
- dotancohen 1y agoWhen I Google for massacres of Christians, all I find are links to Islamic factions in Africa and the Middle East. Where in America are Christian communities being wiped out by terrorists?
- pasquinelli 1y agoisrael killing christian palestinians is what i assume they're talking about.