Pope Leo XIV Is Certainly No Clone of Pope Francis

Pope Leo XIV, the first pope with American roots, is profiled by some as being in solidarity with the progressivism of Pope Francis, but a closer look is required.

May 10, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae

We are posting this days before our usual Wednesday post day, but we did not want to wait. On Thursday, May 8, 2025 Robert Francis Cardinal Prevost became the 267th Pontiff of the Catholic Church, and the first in Church history to assume the Chair of Peter from America. One priest I called on that day described him as “a clone of Francis.” I gasped at the thought, but it is too much of a knee-jerk reaction. Since then, several voices from the left have spread the notion that he is our latest “woke pope.” That is nonsense, little more than propaganda, and there is lots of information to discredit it.

That was an otherwise interesting day for me. The Conclave began on Wednesday, May 7, 2025. I wrote about our expectations here in “Conclave: Amid the Wind and the Waves, a Successor of Peter.”

You could probably tell by that post that I expected a slightly more prolonged conclave, predicting that it might end with white smoke no sooner than Friday, May 9. I followed it intensely from the first procession into the Sistine Chapel. It was just a coincidence that my work was cancelled on Thursday afternoon. So at 1 PM, I was in my cell staring at the Sistine Chapel stove pipe while busy writing some notes. I looked away for just a minute and when I looked back and there were puffs of white smoke billowing out of the pipe. The silence was deafening, but the bells left no doubt.

I was off by a full day. I had ascertained that the 1978 election of John Paul II took eight votes. The 2005 election of Benedict XVI took three, and the 2013 election of Francis took five. So in my mind I calculated the average of all three votes to take 5.33 voting sessions. I therefore predicted that the conclave would end in the afternoon of Friday. The longest conclave in Church history lasted 1,006 days many centuries ago. None of us has the nerve to survive such a thing. But now, a day early there it was, white smoke at 1 PM (EST). Before the new pope was even introduced to the world, I quickly telephoned our editor, Dilia, in New York. Most of us about to witness monumental events wish not to witness them alone. So while Dilia was tuned in to EWTN, I watched Fox News and we compared notes. We were both stunned to meet Cardinal Robert Prevost, a native of Chicago, who was presented to the world as Pope Leo XIV. I imagine that every reporter on earth scrambled to discover what they could about the relative unknown.

Pundits immediately compared him to the late Pope Francis, claiming that they shared the same worldview and progressive mindset. There might even be some truth to that. We will all find out going forward. But what my eyes saw there on that balcony told a very different story. There, standing before the world, was an obviously humble man overwhelmed by the roaring crowds of Saint Peter’s Square. The roaring crowd was evidence of something in its own right. There were thousands of young men and women shouting in triumph in support not only of this man, but of this moment. When did we become, seemingly overnight, a Church filled with young and vibrant true believers?

I was struck by the presentation of Pope Leo XIV. Unlike his predecessor he chose to be bedecked in all the traditional garb of the Roman Pontiff. That is a sign, read with a bullhorn of what we may expect from this pope. These signs and wonders were all of his personal choice. So was the papal name he chose. It was that alone which filled me with hope.

We have a lot yet to learn about Pope Leo XIV. His chosen namesake, Pope Leo XIII who reigned from 1878 to 1903, can tell us volumes about the nature and person of the man who now occupies the Chair of Peter. The pontificate of Pope Leo XIII began the modern age of Roman Catholicism. He was known as “a social justice warrior,” a title that may bring shivers to some. But theologically, and in affairs of the Church and our life of faith, that Leo was certainly no liberal. His letters echoed the emphases of Pius IX Syllabus of Errors, and he endorsed the stance about concience, worship, and separation of Church and State by Pope Gregory XVI. Pope Leo XIII wrote the encyclical letters, Aeterni Patris (Eternal Father) which urged a revival of the work of Saint Thomas Aquinas as the basis of political and social renewal. Pope Leo was also the author of the encyclical, Rerum Novarum, which advocated for just wages earning him the title of “The Worker’s Pope.”

It seems that Leo XIV sees the Church and the world, at least in part, through the eyes of Leo XIII. And they were eyes never deluded about the true nature of this world and the Church which works for salvation within it.

I was thrilled by this knowledge. Pope Leo XIII and I shared a common vision about this world and the dangers it poses for the Church. After a night of terror, Pope Leo XIII wrote the following prayer, which I can only hope will also be prayed by his successor and namesake. We must also pray that prayer for him:

Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel by Pope Leo XIII

O Glorious Prince of the heavenly host, St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the battle and in the terrible warfare that we are waging against the principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the evil spirits. Come to the aid of man, whom Almighty God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of Satan.

Fight this day the battle of the Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in Heaven.  That cruel, ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold, this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay and cast into eternal perdition souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  This wicked dragon pours out, as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.

These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on her most sacred possessions.  In the Holy Place itself, where the See of Holy Peter and the Chair of Truth has been set up as the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered.

Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious power of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly find mercy in the sight of the Lord; and vanquishing the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV has an immense task before him. Let us pave that way with the support of our prayers and good intentions.

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading this post. You can help stem the tide of misinformation by sharing it. We can no longer share to Facebook, but you can do so in our stead. You may also follow Beyond These Stone Walls on X and at gloria.tv.

You may also like these related posts:

Saint Michael the Archangel Contends with Satan Still

Conclave: Amid the Wind and the Waves, a Successor of Peter

Cardinal George Pell’s Last Gift to the Church

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

How Our Lady of Fatima Saved a World in Crisis

The 100th Anniversary of the apparitions at Fatima can be seen through a lens of history. Journalist Craig Turner presents a fascinating view of the Fatima Century.

Note to readers from Father Gordon MacRae: In “Mary and the Fatima Century,” a recent post at Beyond These Stone Walls, I wrote of the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima that began on May 13, 1917. They continued on the 13th of each of several months to follow.

Before posting it, I received a message from journalist and historian Craig Turner writing from Virginia. He sent along the outline of a CD he produced for Lighthouse Catholic Media entitled “The Rise and Fall of Communism: How Our Lady of Fatima Saved a world in Crisis.” He described his historical analysis as “How Mary intervened during a time of great crisis in the Church and the world, to save us from a great evil.”

As I read through the outline, I discovered that Mr. Turner’s description was the understatement of the year. His historical summation of world events parallel to the apparitions at Fatima is fascinating: So I invited him to submit his outline as a guest post. It is a privilege to present this riveting overview of the Fatima Century by Craig Turner.

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Tours, France

In 1847 a young Carmelite nun made the astonishing claim that Jesus had begun appearing to her. Upon telling her superior, the claim was met with skepticism. In 1846, Jesus warned her of an approaching storm: “the malice of revolutionary men.” The following year, on March 14, he appeared again to her, stating that a society known as the “Communists” was working to spread…

On March 30, 1848, Jesus appeared to her for the last time telling her that she had completed her earthly mission and would soon die. Though she was in good health, she accepted this revelation with peace. She suddenly developed pulmonary tuberculosis and died on July 8, 1848, at the young age of 33.

Brussels, Belgium

At the same time Jesus appeared to the nun in Tours, France in 1847, an unknown political theorist living in exile in Brussels wrote his social contract called The Communist Manifesto. His name was Karl Marx. His financier and fellow author was Frederick Engels. Shortly after the work was published, a wave of unexplainable revolutions broke out in Europe.

The Manifesto  presented what it claimed to be an answer to class struggle, and was quickly published in other languages. In France, socialists set up a government after the fall of Napoleon, but their government was overthrown and many of its members executed.

In Germany, the German Socialist-democratic party was created in 1875 but it was deemed a threat to the country and outlawed by the German government led by Otto von Bismarck. In 1890 it was once again legalized and fully adopted Marxist principles. In 1893, Karl Marx died in poverty, but The Communist Manifesto  continued to attract adherents. Standing over his grave, Engels declared him to be the greatest thinker of their age.

Vatican City

On October 13, 1884, Pope Leo XIII had an extraordinary vision: He had just finished offering Mass at the Vatican when he was knocked to the floor of his chapel by a supernatural force and heard the voices of Jesus and the devil in conversation.

The devil declared in a raspy and guttural voice that he can conquer the world and boasts he will have ultimate victory, but needs time and power “to those who have given themselves over to my service.” [It was at this time that Pope Leo XIII composed the well-known Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel.]

Russia

By 1905, three competing parties evolved in Russia. The Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labor Party advocated for a complete revolution. Social upheaval erupted in Russia and Europe. Though Karl Marx stated that Russia was an unlikely candidate for communism, it proceeded slowly along this path.

Western Europe

Other parts of Europe experienced socialist leanings and anti-religious fervor. The conflicts centered around two factions: those wanting to retain their personal liberties vs. the new forms of socialist governments and a conflict between the Catholic Church and atheist communism. [How history repeats!]

At this time, religious persecution broke out in Portugal. Between 1911 and 1916, 1,700 priests and religious were murdered. Religious property was confiscated and a law passed forbidding public religious ceremonies. Alfonso Costa, the head of state, publicly declared that “Thanks to this law, Portugal within two generations will have succeeded in completely eliminating Catholicism.”

On May 12, 1914, two weeks before the outbreak of World War I, 22 people mowing fields in Hrushiv, Ukraine saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary who told them, “There will be a war; Russia will become a Godless country, and their country will suffer terribly for 80 years, and will have to live through the world wars [spoken in the plural] but afterward will be free.”

Two weeks later, World War I broke out across Europe. Coupled with a global epidemic of tuberculosis, the war claimed tens of millions of lives. By 1917, more than 1.3 million Russian men had been killed in battle, 4.2 million were wounded, and another 2.4 million were captured. In the midst of this desperate struggle, Pope Benedict XV issued a public letter with an urgent plea to Mary to help bring peace to the world.

Fatima, Portugal

On May 13, 1917, eight days after the Pope made his plea, three shepherd children in a remote region of Portugal experienced the vision of a magnificently beautiful woman who descended from the sky surrounded by a supernatural light. She stood suspended at the top of a large tree. They asked where she was from, and she said, “I am from Heaven.” She asked that the children return on the 13th of each month for five more months. During the following months, great crowds began to assemble.

On the third visit, July 13, 1917, the “Beautiful Lady,” as the three children called her, declared that war is going to end, but that if the people do not cease offending God, a worse war will break out “When you see a night illuminated by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign” of the impending future war, she said, as well as persecutions of the Church.

She promised to return to ask for the consecration of Russia to her, a form of entrustment or dedication. She did this in a future visit to one of the visionaries in 1929. Russia, she continued at Fatima, will soon become Communist.

On October 13,1917, the final apparition, more than 70,000 people witnessed the Miracle of the Sun. For 12 minutes, they saw the sun spin and “dance” in the sky but their eyes were not harmed. It was exactly 33 years to the day since Pope Leo XIII had seen his vision in the Vatican chapel.

Moscow, Russia

In the same hour in which the Miracle of the Sun took place at Fatima, Vladimir Lenin entered Russia with a plan to establish a Communist state. At that same time, Bolsheviks in Moscow seized control of the great cathedral of the city, built by the Czars, and destroyed it. The miraculous and prized icon of Kazan housed in the cathedral was swiftly taken to safety outside Russia. Less than one month later, all of Russia fell to communism.

Lenin, the leader of Communist Russia, declared that religion is the “opiate of the masses,” and worked to stamp out religious belief. In 1918 he dissolved democracy and began remodeling the country upon Marxist principles by nationalizing industries and confiscating land. In 1922, he formally founded the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Lenin was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, who would ultimately be responsible for 20 million deaths. He believed that religion must be removed in order for the ideal Communist society to be constructed. As a result, the government promoted atheism as the state belief system and carried out a campaign of terror against religious adherents.

In the 1930s, it became dangerous to be openly religious in Russia as churches were destroyed or confiscated and religion was violently persecuted. In 1917, there were 54,000 Russian Orthodox parishes in Russia. By 1939, they numbered only in the hundreds, and tens of thousands of priests, monks, and nuns had been persecuted or killed. Approximately 100,000 people were shot during the religious purge of 1937-1938.

In Spain, Catholics fared no better than the Orthodox in Russia. During the Spanish Civil War, 11,000 priests and nuns were killed by communist loyalists, and more than 20,000 churches, convents, and Catholic schools were desecrated or destroyed.

Berlin, Germany

On the evening of January 25, 1938, an enormous light appeared in the sky across the globe, attributed later to be the greatest aurora borealis since 1709. The New York Times headline the following day was “Aurora Borealis Startles Europe.” Though usually seen in northern climates, the lights were seen as far south as southern Australia and knocked out radio transmissions.

Ten days later, Adolf Hitler took command of the armed forces of Germany. The following month he began his plan of world conquest by marching troops into Austria. The war that followed was devastating and catastrophic as disparate countries were pulled into the conflict. Several nations were ravaged by war, fulfilling the prophecy of the “Beautiful Lady” at Fatima.

By 1945 the tide had turned and World War II in Europe was nearly over, but with a staggering cost: 50 million dead. The most viciously persecuted were the Jews. Catholics fared only a little better. Of the 20,000 Catholic priests in Germany when Hitler came to power, 14,364 were killed, imprisoned, or exiled.

Seeing that his failure was imminent, Hitler dictated his will, blaming the Jews for World War II, and justifying their extermination. The following day he swallowed a cyanide capsule and died.

Japan was also at war with the United States and her allies in the Pacific. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It leveled every building within one mile of the center of the blast with the exception of one structure: a parish house, eight blocks from the epicenter where eight Jesuits were living and had prayed the rosary daily.

Included in their prayers each day was a plea given at Fatima, “save us from the fires of hell.” They were the only people within a four-mile radius to have survived.

Eastern Europe

In an ironic twist of fate, Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor on the eve of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the patroness of the United States. On the day of the feast itself, the United States declared war on Japan. Japan was forced to surrender and accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary (also the name of the church in Hiroshima where the eight Jesuits survived).

On May 13, 1955, the 38th anniversary of the first apparition at Fatima, the Soviets began to withdraw their troops from Austria after a massive prayer campaign. In 1950, 66 years after Pope Leo XIII had his vision, Pope Pius XII defined as dogma the Assumption of Mary.

Meanwhile, communism had spread from the countries of Eastern Europe to China. In 1949, Mao Zedong established The People’s Republic of China as a communist nation. That same year, Western nations for NATO — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — aligned as a defense against the spread of communism. In 1955 the Warsaw Pact formed among the communist nations. In 1961, construction of the Berlin Wall began, a symbol of the Cold War.

Pope John Paul II after being shot multiple times at point-blank range in Saint Peter’s Square.

Vatican City

In 1978, a little-known cardinal from Communist Poland was elected pope. He subsequently condemned both communism and “unbridled capitalism.” The following year, a trade union at the Gdansk, Poland shipyard went on strike demanding freedom and democracy. The new pope managed to keep communist Polish authorities from succeeding in suppressing the strikers.

On May 13, 1981, the 64th anniversary of the first appearance of Mary at Fatima, Pope John Paul II was shot and nearly killed in Saint Peter’s Square by a man with ties to Bulgarian Communism. The following year, Pope John Paul visited Fatima and stated that Mary “guided the bullet” saving his life.

The surgeon who removed the bullet affirmed that its trajectory should have passed directly through the main arteries of his heart, but somehow moved around the organ sparing the Pope’s life.

Seeing the connection between these events, Pope John Paul II asked for the documents pertaining to Fatima in the Vatican Archives. He read them, concluding that the consecration of Russia to Mary, in union with the bishops of the world, would fulfill Mary’s request and end Russian Communism.

One hundred years after Pope Leo XIII had his vision of satanic influence, Pope John Paul II consecrated Russia to Mary in a ceremony in Saint Peter’s Square. The following year, an obscure communist, Mikhail Gorbachev, became leader of the USSR. Pope John Paul, in a letter to the last surviving Fatima visionary, asked if the consecration was done correctly. She responded, “Our Lady will keep her promises.”

On April 27, 1987, there were reports of the Virgin Mary appearing again in Hrushiv, Ukraine to a 12-year-old above a small church. Other reports followed in the ensuing months. Suddenly, and almost without warning, the Berlin Wall fell in November of 1989 and citizens passed freely between the East and the West. That same year, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania became independent states followed by the Ukraine in 1991.

Later in 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev appeared for a news conference on Russian television and announced that he is dissolving the Soviet Union and ending Russian Communism. The date was December 25, 1991, Christmas Day.

Craig Turner is a columnist and business owner in Washington, DC. He began his career in journalism in the 1980s covering Capitol Hill for Government Information Services. He has worked in both communications and public relations. His articles have been published in both print and online media including MSNBC, Business Week, and Reuters.