- The mysterious geography of a pontificate
- A choice that speaks louder than words
- Spain, the Mediterranean, and the rejection of American geopolitical logic
- «"No one is a prophet in their own land."»
- American expectation: between sincere piety and unacknowledged politics
- Seventy million faithful looking towards Rome
- The silent conflict with Washington
- The temptation of national idolatry
- What Spain says to Catholic America
- Madrid, Barcelona, Montserrat: a pilgrimage to the roots
- The mirror held up to America
- The question of peace and the stakes of an upcoming visit
- Leo XIV and the legacy of the name he chose
- Towards a necessary reconciliation
- ✝ Biblical references
There's something slightly painful about the position of the American Catholic who turns on their screen in early June 2026 and watches the images unfold: immense crowds in Madrid, the Sagrada Família illuminated, Leo XIV acclaimed in Barcelona and the Canary Islands, a pope of American origin received like a son by Spain—this Spain that is not his native country. The apostolic journey taking place from June 6 to 12, 2026, is one of the most important ecclesiastical events of this nascent pontificate. And the seventy million American Catholics are watching from across the Atlantic, with a fascination that closely resembles envy.
The feeling is understandable, almost human in its frankness. Robert Francis Prevost was born in Chicago. He grew up in American parishes, was educated in American seminaries, wore the habit of Saint Augustine under an American sky before crossing the Andes to dedicate decades to Peru. When he emerged onto the loggia of St. Peter's on May 8, 2025, as Leo XIV, Catholic America experienced a moment of national pride unprecedented in its two-thousand-year history. Yet, more than a year after that historic election, the pope has not set foot on American soil. Instead, he is traveling in Spain. And before Spain, it was Peru he had planned to visit. For many faithful in Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles, this absence is beginning to feel like a message.
The mysterious geography of a pontificate
A choice that speaks louder than words
The geography of papal journeys is never neutral. Each papal trip is an act of interpretation: it reveals who matters, what is urgent, where the wounds to be healed lie, and where the vitality to be encouraged. When John Paul II traveled to Poland in 1979, everyone knew that this trip was a political and spiritual declaration addressed simultaneously to the communist world and the universal Church. When Francis went to Lampedusa in 2013—an island that Leo XIV himself chose as a symbolic destination in place of the American Fourth of July celebrations—this trip constituted a prophetic act regarding the migration crisis.
The choice of Spain for one of Leo XIV's first major apostolic journeys is consistent with this logic. Spain was not chosen by chance: it is the historical cradle of the evangelization of the Americas, the spiritual matrix of a Catholic Latinity that stretched from Seville to Lima, passing through Mexico City and Buenos Aires. For an Augustinian pope educated in Latin America, going to Spain was, in a way, honoring the source—traveling upstream to its source. There is an inner coherence in this gesture that political commentators, always quick to seek a political calculation, tend to miss.
Spain, the Mediterranean, and the rejection of American geopolitical logic
But there is also something more deliberate in this choice. The Vatican officially confirmed in February 2026 that Leo XIV would not be traveling to the United States that year—not even for the festivities marking the 250th anniversary of American independence, for which he had received an official invitation from the White House. The decision was carefully presented as a matter of pastoral timing, but no one is fooled by the deep tensions underlying this geographical silence.
Since his election, Leo XIV has inherited a difficult relationship with the Trump administration. Deep disagreements over immigration policies, American military operations in the Middle East, nationalist rhetoric, and its effects on the most vulnerable Catholic communities have created an atmosphere in which a visit to the United States would inevitably be perceived as endorsing a government whose fundamental policies the Pope publicly opposes. The Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago and one of the closest figures to the pontiff in the American episcopate, himself declared it with remarkable candor: war, he recalled, quoting Leo XIV, "has once again become the first option for settling disputes," this "zeal for war" that the pope had denounced in his speech to the diplomatic corps on January 9, 2026.
In this context, traveling to Spain—a country not under direct tension with the Vatican, a land of ancient and vibrant Christianity—is a way of affirming that the pontificate of Leo XIV will not be captured by Washington's geopolitics. It is not an escape: it is an act of freedom.
«"No one is a prophet in their own land."»
There is a passage from the Gospel of Luke that is quoted less often than it should be, precisely because it is unsettling. At the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus returns to Nazareth, unfolds the scroll of Isaiah, announces "the year of the Lord's favor"—and encounters the incomprehension of his own fellow citizens. He then tells them: «Truly I tell you, no prophet is welcomed in his hometown.» (Luke 4:24). The furious crowd drove him to the edge of a precipice. This is not an anecdote: it is a spiritual law. Familiarity breeds appropriation, and appropriation breeds resentment as soon as the prophet refuses to confirm the group's expectations.
We wouldn't go so far as to compare Leo XIV to a rejected prophet. But the structure of the situation is revealing. American Catholics spontaneously wanted to make him their pope—not just the pope of the universal Church, but their national pope, the crowning achievement of their history, proof that Catholic America had finally reached the pinnacle of Christendom. This temptation toward national appropriation is perfectly understandable, and it's not inherently bad. But Leo XIV, from the moment of his election, made it clear that he rejected this role. He is the successor of Peter, not the standard-bearer of Catholic America.
American expectation: between sincere piety and unacknowledged politics
Seventy million faithful looking towards Rome
The American Catholic community is the largest Christian denomination in the United States, with some seventy million baptized members. It is also one of the most heterogeneous in the world: from Latino Catholics living in the underprivileged neighborhoods of Los Angeles to conservative Catholics in the white suburbs of the Midwest, and Catholic intellectuals at Jesuit universities on the East Coast, there is not one American Catholicism, but many American Catholicisms that often regard each other with suspicion. What unites them at this moment is precisely the anticipation of the visit.
The cardinal Blase Cupich, The Archbishop of Chicago, a leading figure in the American episcopate, embodies this impatience. Close to the Pope, he maintains regular contact with Rome and received Leo XIV in audience during recent labor delegations from Chicago. When he echoes the Pope's words about "zeal for war" becoming a global threat, it becomes clear that the Archbishop of Chicago is trying to convey the core of the papal message to his compatriots—a message that is not exactly the one Washington wants to hear.
For this is the crux of the fascination-jealousy that the American Catholic press displays toward the trip to Spain. It is not merely touristic envy or poorly digested chauvinism. It is a theological and political question: what does it mean to have a compatriot on the throne of Peter if that compatriot begins by going everywhere except to your own country? What does this silence say about the relationship between the universal Church and the most powerful nation in the world? And above all: what does it say about the tension between evangelical fidelity and the demands of American realpolitik?
The silent conflict with Washington
It would be naive to think that the decision not to visit the United States stems solely from pastoral imperatives. Since his election, Leo XIV has repeatedly signaled his resolute independence from the current administration. He declined the invitation to participate in the Fourth of July celebrations—a gesture of profound symbolic significance, since these festivities marked the 250th anniversary of a nation that considers its own history providentially rich. He has, on several occasions, taken public stances on immigration and military issues that directly contradict Washington's policies. And when administration officials have attempted to pressure the Vatican, the Pope has not yielded.
This stance is part of a long papal tradition. The Church is not the private chapel of a government, even that of the most Catholic nation in the West. Pope Leo XIII, whose name Leo XIV chose to adopt in homage to his social commitment and his defense of the dignity of workers, had already stated this unequivocally in the encyclical Immortal God (1885): Church and State have distinct ends, and no temporal power can dictate to the successor of Peter his spiritual priorities. This lesson remains strikingly relevant today.
The temptation of national idolatry
There is a form of temptation that Saint Paul identified with striking precision in his Letter to the Galatians: «There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.» (Gal 3:28). These words are not a distant ideal: they are an ontological description of what the Church is in its deepest being. The Catholic Church is not a confederation of national Catholicisms where each country awaits "its" pope in return for its financial and demographic contributions. It is a single body, whose head is in Rome and whose every member belongs to the universality before belonging to a nation.
When American Catholics demand "their turn," they speak a truth—the pastoral visit is legitimate, it is expected, and it will likely come in 2027 at the earliest, according to the Vatican spokesman. But when this expectation is tinged with jealousy toward Spanish Catholics, it veers toward something less evangelical: a form of national idolatry that reduces the Pope to a symbol of identity rather than a universal shepherd. It is this slide that Leo XIV, through his deliberate choice of locations, seems to want to correct even before setting foot on the tarmac in Chicago or New York.
What Spain says to Catholic America
Madrid, Barcelona, Montserrat: a pilgrimage to the roots
The journey through Spain—Madrid, Barcelona, Montserrat, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Santa Cruz de Tenerife—is not a tourist trip. It is a theological itinerary. Montserrat, the Benedictine sanctuary nestled in the rocky heights of Catalonia, is one of the most Marian spiritually significant places in Europe. The Canary Islands, at the crossroads of the Atlantic, are symbolically the last port in Europe before the Americas: it was from their shores that some of Christopher Columbus's ships departed, laden with crosses and hope as much as with gold and iron. That Leo XIV should travel to the Canary Islands at this precise moment, when the issue of migration in the Mediterranean is of such dramatic urgency, is not insignificant.
The Church in Spain is itself undergoing profound transformation. After decades of accelerated secularization and scandals that have shaken the faith of the faithful, Spanish Catholicism is seeking a new lease on life. The visit of Leo XIV is received as confirmation that Rome is not abandoning it, that its efforts at pastoral renewal deserve the attention and support of the successor of Peter. In this sense, the trip is also a message of encouragement addressed to a Church that is suffering—and Leo XIV, by choosing this particular focus, clearly states that his pontificate is more concerned with Churches that are struggling than with nations that are triumphant.
The mirror held up to America
But there is more. By choosing Spain rather than the United States for this pivotal moment in his pontificate, Leo XIV indirectly held up a mirror to American Catholics. The mirror said: here is a Church that has known glory and is now facing hardship. Here is a Christendom that evangelized an entire continent and must now relearn how to evangelize its own neighborhoods. Do American Catholics, who also live in a country undergoing profound cultural and spiritual transformation, recognize something of their own face in this reflection?
In the thought of Saint Augustine of Hippo—of whom Leo XIV is a spiritual son through his membership in the Augustinian order—there is a constant meditation on the vanity of human glories and the permanence of the City of God. City of God, Written in the aftermath of the sack of Rome by Alaric in 410, this treatise on saving disillusionment tells Christians that their future is not guaranteed by the power of the empire in which they live, but by fidelity to a transcendent allegiance. For an Augustinian pope looking at America in 2026—an America torn apart politically, riddled with violence, and prey to nationalist temptations that Cardinal Cupich himself described as alarming—this lesson has an urgent pastoral significance.
The question of peace and the stakes of an upcoming visit
The tension between Rome and Washington does not mean the visit will not take place. It will take place—the Vatican spokesman has confirmed this, and Leo XIV himself has stated that he will travel to the United States «at some point.» But when it does take place, it will be different from a routine visit. It will carry the weight of all that has been said and left unsaid since the election, of all the pontiff’s courageous stances on migration, on war, on the dignity of the poorest. It will be a pastoral visit in the truest sense of the word, not an act of political legitimation.
The Letter to the Hebrews offers an image that we would readily invoke here: «"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."» (Hebrews 11:1). American Catholics who eagerly await the visit are invited, in a way, to exercise this theological virtue in their relationship to the pontificate: to hope for what they do not yet see realized, to trust in a providence that leads the pope where the flock needs him most, and not where national pride would have him plant his flag.
Leo XIV and the legacy of the name he chose
The choice of the name Leo XIV is not a historical affectation. Leo XIII, his illustrious predecessor, is the author of the encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), a foundational text of the Church's social doctrine, which resolutely sided with workers against the excesses of industrial capitalism. This programmatic legacy illuminates the priorities of the current pontiff: his defense of migrants, his distrust of the logic of power, his solidarity with the peoples of Latin America, and his caution regarding national celebrations that risk conflating divine providence with American national destiny.
When the Pope visits Spain now, he is not choosing Spain over America. He is choosing a Church that is suffering, a history that bears the scars of its failings as much as the marks of its holiness, a people who need to be strengthened in hope rather than used as a backdrop for geopolitical ambitions. This choice is in itself a lesson in spiritual governance: the shepherd goes to the lost sheep, not to the flock that believes itself safe.
Towards a necessary reconciliation
None of this means that Leo XIV rejected Catholic America. That was certainly not the case. Chicago remained his hometown, and the emotional ties were real: his regular meetings with delegations from the city, including labor unions, demonstrated that his attachment to his native community was deep and sincere. Cardinal Cupich, despite the tensions within the American episcopate that sometimes set him apart from other members of the episcopal conference, remained a leading figure in this dialogue between Rome and America.
But the reconciliation that is taking shape will be all the more fruitful for not being rushed. A visit to the United States that took place in the heat of the first anniversary of the pontificate, under the spotlight of American nationalism and in the shadow of tensions with the Trump administration, would have risked being hijacked by agendas that have nothing to do with proclaiming the Gospel. By taking his time, by going first where the mission calls him—Spain, Peru, Lampedusa—Leo XIV is preparing an American visit that can be genuinely pastoral.
In the Augustinian monastic tradition, there is an expression that sums up this wisdom: cor ad cor loquitur — heart to heart. When Leo XIV finally visits the United States, it will be a heart-to-heart, not a staged event. And for that, he will have had to endure the ordeal of waiting, the purging of jealousy, and the detachment from a national appropriation too hastily assumed.
The universal Church does not belong to any nation. Not even to the one which, by the grace of history, gave its son as successor to Peter.
✝ Biblical references
3 passages · 3 books
It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. (Galatians 2:20)
Liberation from the Law through faith: against legalism, for life according to the Spirit.
→ Explore the Codex Galates- When Rome is no longer in Rome: Leo XIV, Alvarado and the silent transformation of the Church
- When the Church entrusts its word to a woman: the silent revolution of Leo XIV
- Madrid, gateway to the world: Leo XIV, Spain and the refusal to be used as a tool
- Africa at the heart of digital power: Magnifica Humanitas and the voice of the voiceless
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)
Jesus, high priest of the new covenant: Christ's superiority over Moses and the Temple.
→ Explore the Hebrew Codex- Madrid, Montserrat, Arguineguín: the grammar of a pontificate in three places
- Silent witnesses at the crossroads of the East: Georgian Catholics, sentinels of Christian unity
- At Djamaa el-Djazaïr, Leo XIV opens a new era of Abrahamic dialogue
- The Sagrada Família finally completed: when stone becomes prayer under the gaze of Leo XIV
The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost. (Luke 19:10)
The Gospel of Mercy: Jesus close to the poor, women and sinners.
→ Explore the Codex Luc- «"Our heart is restless until it rests in You": Saint Augustine, 4th-century theologian and guiding light of the pontificate of Leo XIV
- Magnifica Humanitas: When the Church Says No to the Soulless Machine
- When Latin America calls on Rome: Magnifica Humanitas or the promise of social reconciliation
- «Peace is not built in palaces, but in wounded hearts»: Francisco de Roux in dialogue with the teachings of Leo XIV
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