The Native

Pope Leo XIV made a statement this week about capital punishment. He said he condemns it. The full statement: "I condemn the taking of people's lives. I condemn capital punishment. Human life must be respected from conception to natural death. When a regime or country makes decisions that end human life arbitrarily, it is committing a serious moral offense."

He did not name the regimes or countries. He did not need to. The list is available.

He is from Chicago.

(Chicago is in Illinois. Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011. The Governor at the time described capital punishment as a "flawed system." The state agreed and has not resumed. The rest of the country has been reviewing this conclusion for fifteen years. The review is ongoing.)

He is the first American ever elected to lead the Catholic Church. The Church has operated for approximately two thousand years. The United States has operated for approximately two hundred and fifty. The institution that has existed eight times longer finally selected someone from the newer one, and he took an Italian name. This is the traditional approach. When the institution that invented Latin selects its first American, the American chooses a name from a country that already had its turn.

I want to be precise about the timeline. He was selected. He accepted. He chose a name. He then made a statement about the moral obligations of regimes and countries regarding human life. This all happened within the same general period.

Several states in the country he is from are reviewing the statement. The review is expected to take some time. Some of those states have execution schedules. The schedules have not been adjusted to accommodate the review.

The office of the United States government that manages relations with the Holy See has not issued a response. It is unclear what the response would say. It is also unclear who would be asked to write it, given the relevant experience required.

The states will continue their review. The schedules will continue to run. The Pope will continue to be from Chicago.

I am not making this up.