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“He’s like a dual passport holder, he’s the perfect pontiff for the present moment,” said Miles Pattenden, papal historian and lecturer at Oxford University.
Prevost’s predecessor Pope Francis, née Jorge Mario Bergoglio, wrestled with widening divisions in a Church split along geographical and ideological lines. Traditionalists who continued to see the institution as a fundamentally Western one were pitted against the millions of new Catholics being minted outside the Old Continent — as well as progressives who ached for the Church to adapt to the modern, liberal world.
While he made some headway, Francis’ efforts to please everyone wrought theological chaos and cultivated a fierce conservative opposition, as well as resistance from Vatican veterans who disliked his reformist agenda.
Prevost — at least in theory — could be the compromise candidate the Church needs.
While born in Chicago, the 69-year-old has spent much of his clerical life abroad as a missionary and teacher in Peru and speaks French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian as well as English. But he’s also familiar with the cutthroat world of Vatican politics and protocol, serving as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America in Vatican City, where he was also in charge of appointing new bishops.
During the pre-conclave lobbying sessions, the Latin American cardinals saw him as one of their own, and it is likely the Europeans and Americans agreed to go for him as a compromise candidate after much-hyped frontrunner Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s top diplomat, failed to secure the necessary ballots, one Vatican insider told POLITICO.
