Father Morris reacts to first American pope

The election of the new pope has shocked, in a good way, the Catholic community of Lawrence County.

On Thursday, May 8, Augustinian missionary Robert Prevost, of Chicago, became Pope Leo XIV. He is the first American in the Catholic Church’s history to be named pope.

“It was shock and delight when they said it was an American who was the next pope,” said Father Wayne Morris, pastor of the St. Joseph,  St. Lawrence O’Toole and St. Mary parishes in Lawrence County.

He added that his congregants were also shocked by the news. “We have always been told among ourselves that there would never be an American to be a pope. We are Americans and the world doesn’t always like what we do. Now it shows that this is not just a European thing that spread around the world, it is small letter catholic, meaning universal. People are very happy.”

Morris said he doesn’t know a lot about Pope Leo XIV because he had previously been in South America for many years, but thinks it is a good thing.

“It is amazing and wonderful,” Morris said. “He can actually bring both America and the Latin American world to the center there in Rome. He will be able to reach out and connect with so many people. It’s beautiful. He just seems like a very humble guy. It’s wonderful.”

Pope Leo XIV is not the first one from the American continents. His predecessor, Pope Francis, was from South America, specifically Argentina. Pope Francis died at age 88 on April 21. He was chosen as the pope in 2013.

Recently, when Pope Leo XIV was asked if he had a message for America, he replied with just a single word:  – “Many.”

Father Morris said he doesn’t know what the actual message is, he could speculate a bit.

“What we can glean from just watching what is going on and his history, I think he is going to challenge America to really look at ourselves and say ‘How do we reach out to the poor?’ That is something he is very well known for when he was bishop in South America. How do we live up to the Gospel standards as we are called to do?” Morris said. “I think those types of things that he is really going to challenge us on because the church in many aspects was into social justice issues long before we had welfare and other type of things like City Mission and food banks. The church has been doing that for years and I think he is going to call us back to that in some aspects. And then the question is how do we treat the people around us. I think that is going to be a large part of his life.”

Pope Leo XIV was the bishop of Chiclayo in Peru and was known to his congregants there as Padre Prevost and they also lay claim that the new pope is from there since he got Peruvian citizenship in 2015, making him a dual citizen of the U.S. and Peru. He served in Peru for 20 years before Pope Francis called him to Rome in 2017 and made him a cardinal.