UI Catholicism expert hopes new pope could be ‘bridge builder’

IOWA CITY — As white smoke poured from the Sistine Chapel chimney at 6:08 p.m. May 8 in Vatican City, University of Iowa Catholic Studies Chair Kristy Nabhan-Warren — although 5,000 miles from the action — felt uniquely positioned to understand its meaning and potential implications in today’s conflicted world of both increasing interconnectedness and growing division.

“It’s kind of like my Super Bowl,” said Nabhan-Warren — who joined the UI faculty in 2012 as an expert in American religions and Catholic and Latinx studies, putting the new Pope Leo XIV in the center of her Venn diagram of interests.

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“He seems to be really the first pope who is truly a global pope in terms of all of the different positions he's held,” she said. “He's been U.S. trained at Villanova, at the Catholic Theological Union … but he's also been in Peru, and he's been in the Vatican.

“So I think more so than any other pope before him, he’s in the best position to lead the global church into the future, into the next iteration.”

Q: Are you Catholic and how did you get interested in studying Catholicism?

A: “I was raised Lutheran. I was very involved in the American Lutheran Church growing up,” and as a religious studies student who did her doctorate dissertation on Mexican American Catholic women in South Phoenix, Nabhan-Warren found herself in a unique position to take a scholarly view of Catholicism — rather than a personal one. “Most Catholic studies chairs are at Catholic institutions, and they have Catholics who preside over them … So that was appealing to me, to be at a state institution. I feel like I have a lot more intellectual freedom because of that.”

Q: Given your three-plus decades of religious studies and Catholicism research, can you talk about the current state of the church, the papacy, and its relevance right now?

A: “I think that the pope's significance for the United States has always been important, but I think even more now with social media and technology, the pope — like all world leaders, whether they're religious or secular — can have more of an impact on the global level. And it's faster. It's like seconds. Nanoseconds. I think what is so important about the papacy is that he's the religious leader of one of the largest Christian denominations in the world. There are 1.4 billion Catholics. But also it’s a political position in a lot of ways.”

Q: How is the pope political and has that changed over time?

A: “I think the pope has always been politically relevant. Popes have always been called upon to make statements about whatever war is going on. I think popes have always been brought in — whether they wanted to or not — to have a voice in the political-social sphere. We really can’t separate the religious from the secular from the political and the social.”

Q: So what do you expect politically out of the new pope?

A: “He represents a lot of different interesting facets — so the Augustinian order, his mixed race, diverse background, the fact that he chose the name Leo,” Nabhan-Warren said, noting the last Pope Leo was pro-worker and Leo XIV has roots in social justice. “So even though the language of liberation theology hasn't really been used by him or by the Vatican, I would say — as a scholar — that he is very much rooted in liberation theological thought.”

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Q: You mentioned social media earlier. What has the new pope’s online presence been?

A: “Before he was pope, when he was Robert, he was very critical of President Donald Trump and JD Vance, and that is going to be really interesting to see what happens.”

As a widely-publicized Catholic, Vance has spoken respectfully about the new pope, Nabhan-Warren said.

“But I'm just really interested in how that's going to play out in terms of your question about politics, because now the man who is pope has been very, very critical of JD Vance — especially on how immigrants and refugees are being treated. We know even legal citizens and migrants who came into the country legally are being deported, and this current pope has no patience for that.”

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Q: Is the pope among the few leaders nationally and internationally without anything to lose — in terms of dealing with the Trump administration?

A: “That’s right. And that's pretty amazing, actually … And there's a kind of freedom. He has this position for life. There’s no one who could run against them. So in a lot of ways, a lot of freedom comes with the position.”

Q: What are the main issues you expect Pope Leo to take up during his tenure?

A: “Migration and work, I think, are going to be two areas that he is going to be really tuned into … In line with Pope Francis, this pope I think is going to be a strong advocate for the dignity of humans, with a special love in his heart for immigrants and refugees. And that's where I think he and our current vice president will have a lot to talk about.”

Q: What about other social issues? Has he had anything to say about abortion or LGTBQ rights?

A: “If I’ve read any critiques on him, it has been in the area of the sex abuse scandal and how he has maybe not addressed it as well as he could have. And also on pro-life and LGBTQ.”

Noting that viewpoints change over time, Nabhan-Warren said Pope Leo more than a decade ago made statements that seemed “not very friendly toward LGBTQ.”

“He called it the homosexual lifestyle. And I think even more recently, he has reiterated marriage as being … between him and she, a man and a woman. So he is reiterating church doctrine.”

Q: Didn’t the late Pope Francis bless same-sex unions?

A: “Yes. Pope Francis really came around. He came around on a lot of issues. Pope Francis came around on LGBTQ. He also came around on women, on behalf of leadership in the church. He became more flexible, but not opening the conversation for women to become priests. I would be really surprised if this pope did that too. But I am curious if he will move in the direction of blessing same-sex unions.”

Q: What are you most hopeful for from this new pope?

A: “I have a lot of hope in my heart that Leo can be a real bridge builder. I was thinking about it a lot as he stood on the balcony over the plaza. Plazas represent places where people come together, right? Piazzas. And so maybe, even more so than being a bridge builder, maybe he could be the plaza pope. Like opening up a space where people can really come together. People like JD Vance. And say, ‘OK, we're not going to agree on everything. But what can we agree on? And how do we move forward?’ And wouldn't that be a great thing to see in society at large? We're never going to all agree on everything, or maybe not a lot. But we can agree on some things, I hope.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com