Fox News TV Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo speaks with 'The Will Cain Show' from Rome about the election of Pope Leo XIV. #foxnews #fox #news #pope #religion #rome #catholic #world #us #american
00:30From Vatican City to Texas, this is the Will Cain Show.
00:49History is made as the first ever American is chosen as the new pope of the Catholic Church.
00:55Cardinal Robert Prevost is now Pope Leo XIV.
00:59He's 69 years old, from Chicago, and a graduate of Villanova University.
01:04This was the scene in Vatican City as he addressed the crowd for the first time as pope.
01:09God loves everyone.
01:13Evil will not prevail.
01:17We are all in the hands of God.
01:24So without fear, united, hand in hand, with God and among ourselves, we go forward.
01:32And reaction from his home city of Chicago in just the last hour.
01:37Pope Leo XIV is going to serve with great, obviously, great faith.
01:43He's a very humble, a very kind person, and someone who really does look to the Lord for guidance in all that he does.
01:52He's a very prayerful and spiritual man, and he's going to take that sense of God's love and do all that he can to care for all of God's children.
02:01Here now is what we know about Pope Leo XIV and where he stands on some key issues in the church.
02:08He's been against ordaining female deacons.
02:12He has been somewhat ambiguous on blessing same-sex couples.
02:15He's been in favor of making the church structure more inclusive and participatory.
02:19He supported Pope Francis' change in allowing divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive communion.
02:26Let's bring in now Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo.
02:29He's covered three conclaves and joins us now from Rome.
02:33Raymond, I'm glad and honored to have you on the program today.
02:36You know a great amount about the Catholic Church, and I think everybody is interested today in hearing your reaction to Pope Leo XIV.
02:45Well, I was there in St. Peter's Square, and look, it takes your breath away.
02:49Whenever a new pope comes out, we have to remember, this is the 267th successor of the apostle Peter, the one that Jesus gave the keys to the kingdom of heaven to.
03:01So that's what this is all about.
03:03When you look at the man himself, Robert Prevost now, Leo XIV, you have to step back because the one caveat I'm going to add to everything I'm about to say, Will, is this.
03:15When a man begins to assume this office of the papacy, it inevitably changes him.
03:22There's something that happens to the personality, even the teaching of the man.
03:26So we can't say that the man that he was will necessarily be the pope that he'll be tomorrow.
03:32But here are the general outlines.
03:34You know he's from Chicago.
03:35He's known as more of a progressive in the church.
03:38If you liked Pope Francis, you're going to love Leo XIV.
03:42That would be my bumper sticker on this, OK?
03:46He's very much in the same model.
03:47Even in his speech there at the Logia today, he said we have to be a synodal church to go out and encounter and dialogue with each other in the world, that we have to walk with one another.
03:57That is classic Pope Francis lingo.
04:00And I'll tell you what it means, because who knows what synodal means.
04:03They don't even know.
04:03The bishops don't even know.
04:05What it basically means is to democratize and open up the decision-making in the church, even the practice and the doctrine of the faith.
04:14Pope Francis believed not just bringing cardinals together to help him shape the teaching or perfect it for the time, but inviting everybody in, including atheists and nonbelievers and young people.
04:26And, you know, a selected hand group of priests he liked and a few other cardinals, but not the entire college of cardinals.
04:32And part of the result of this particular pope, Will, is because Pope Francis chose 108 of the 133 electors.
04:40So you imagined it might tend this way, even though you thought, well, they're from such far-flung parts of the world, they may not be ideologically cohered.
04:49But it turns out they may have been.
04:51One of the major—I've spoken to a couple of cardinals since the election.
04:54Money was a big issue, Will.
04:57The church is basically broke.
04:59The Wall Street Journal did a piece the other day.
05:01$2 billion in deficits, $400 million in pension debts that they can't pay off.
05:09So a lot of these African cardinals and Asian cardinals and those from other parts of the world thought, get an American in here.
05:17They can help clean up and get the books in order, make the trains run on time.
05:22This guy's been working here for three years in the Vatican.
05:25He's head of the Bishop's Dicastery, Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo.
05:29Right.
05:30So he knows a bit of the machinations here, but he's a little bit of an outsider.
05:35So they thought maybe he can help reform the place and at least bring it to financial solvency.
05:40That's a piece of it.
05:41But there's a much bigger challenge for this pope, Will, and that is to clarify Christian and Catholic doctrine, to make it clear.
05:49Pope Francis muddied the waters in many, many ways and caused a lot of confusion.
05:53One hopes Pope Leo will steady this bark of Peter.
05:57So let me ask you this question, Raymond, based upon that important part of the papacy.
06:02And I ask this with a great amount of humility, Raymond, because I am not Catholic.
06:05And I understand that the pope is selected and ordained by God.
06:09And it is not a political office.
06:11It's not the same thing as an electing a United States senator.
06:14So in some ways it's inappropriate to say, is he conservative?
06:17Is he liberal?
06:18But is he progressive in the vein of Pope Francis?
06:22That seems to be the great question.
06:23And I hear you saying the answer is yes.
06:25And why that matters is where he may stand and where he may lead his flock on issues as far and as wide as climate change, on DEI, on LGBTQ, on a whole host of issues.
06:37And we wonder where will this new vision be for the Catholic Church?
06:42Well, hope springs eternal, Will, even in the eternal city.
06:47And here's what I'd say.
06:48It's a mixed bag.
06:49The record is a mixed bag.
06:51But there are indications.
06:53When you saw the pope come out today, OK, he was wearing the traditional mazzetto, that red garment, you know, atop his white cassock.
07:01That is a that's kind of a cry back to the past.
07:04That's a wink at tradition.
07:06So a lot of traditionalists and conservative people said, oh, look, he's dressing like a pope.
07:11We frankly haven't seen this in 12 years with Pope Francis.
07:14So maybe Leo will be, as he mentioned in his speech today, a bridge builder.
07:19One hopes.
07:20I mean, when you look at his Twitter feed, you know, he was for open borders in the United States and kind of took pot shots at J.D. Vance and the Trump administration.
07:27But look, all popes are going to support migrants, support the poor, support peace.
07:33That is their heart goes out to humanity.
07:35That's with the job.
07:36I don't Jesus would do the same.
07:38I don't know if he'd get so political and that they're going to have to be careful of.
07:41But maybe Pope Leo can bring together the broken parts of this church and Christianity and our society and offer a countercultural moral clarion call that I think we need now.
07:56Let's pray and hope that's what becomes of this pontificate and all these other concerns fade away in the coming days.
08:02I hope that's what I'm glad to have you today.
08:05Live from Rome.
08:06Thank you, Raymond.
08:07Thank you, my friend.
08:08Hey, Sean Hannity here.
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