The Identity Challenge of the Catholic Church

CHRONIC. Among the many challenges that the new Pope Leo XIV will have to face, there is one that seems to be particularly evocative: to establish clearly that Christian universalism is by no means synonymous with a unified globalism.

The new head of the church was one of Pope Francis' closest associates, whom Francis had just brought to Rome, appointed as a cardinal, and then made the influential head of the organization that appoints bishops.

At a time when the Catholic Church has chosen a new pope, there is growing evidence: for many people, the Catholic Church today looks like a project of seductive counterculture. Faced with capitalist and progressive Western society, it embodies a conservative alternative on [...]