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One year ago, I never imagined I’d be covering a papacy — let alone that of the first American pope — from the front row.
Earlier in my career, I ran Catholic outreach for President Obama and later led a Catholic progressive advocacy group.
For the past decade, however, I’ve worked squarely in the secular (and often brutally partisan) world of American politics.
So when Newsweek and TIME invited me to report on Pope Francis’s funeral and the conclave to elect his successor, it felt like a surprise detour back into the world of faith and church.
Still, something in my heart told me this was important — too important to miss.
I thought back to the day Pope Francis was elected in 2013. I was a broke 23-year-old staffer in Washington, D.C., watching that announcement on TV with tears of joy. In that instant, I felt a spark of hope and told myself: Someday, I’ll be at his funeral.
The very next day, I opened a “trip savings” account and, little by little, began setting aside whatever I could — no matter how small the contribution—toward a future pilgrimage to Rome.
And indeed, in April 2025, when the sad news came of Francis’s passing, I emptied that humble savings account and booked a flight to Italy.
At first, my plan was only to attend the funeral as a pilgrim paying respects and head back home.
But as I stood in those prayerful crowds morning after morning, my gut kept nagging: Don’t leave yet. Stay for the conclave. I listened to that intuition.
Thanks to the media credentials arranged by my editors, I found myself still in Rome when the cardinals cast their final ballots — and I’ll never forget the moment I realized I was actually standing on the papal balcony as white smoke rose.
In a blur of ancient ritual and very modern emotions, Pope Leo XIV stepped forward into the global spotlight.
That night on the balcony, as chants of “Viva il Papa!” echoed through the square, I remember feeling an unexpected déjà vu.
It brought to mind October 1978, when the cardinals shocked the world by choosing a Polish pope from behind the Iron Curtain — a man who would go on to help topple one of the most oppressive regimes in history.
Watching Pope Leo XIV emerge, I had the strong sense that history was rhyming. Here was another outsider from an unexpected place (in Leo’s case, Chicago) who might just be called to confront a different kind of tyranny in our time.
I didn’t know exactly how at the time, but I felt deep in my bones that God had given us this American pope for such a time as this.
One year later, Pope Leo’s pontificate has more than validated that feeling—often in ways that have surprised even seasoned Vatican observers. Frankly, it has surprised me.
I never imagined that in Leo’s first year as pope, we would see an ongoing moral showdown between the Vatican and an authoritarian movement in my own country.
Yet here we are: again and again, Pope Leo XIV has shown he’s unafraid to go head-to-head with the forces of division and untruth, including the orbit of President Donald Trump.
Today, on the anniversary of his election, Leo traveled to the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii. There, he prayed for an end to “fratricidal hatred” and called the world’s leaders to a peace that is “political and economic, as well as spiritual and religious.”
In so many ways, our new pope has shown a boldness that few anticipated. Make no mistake: Pope Leo is mounting a moral confrontation with the empire of lies in our world — the rampant disinformation, scapegoating, and relativism that threaten both the global Church and Western democracy.
And like a wise builder, he seems to be playing the long game.
At just 70, Leo is the youngest pope in 35 years; he may well lead the Church for decades.
He’s using this time to lay a foundation for what could be a long struggle to reclaim truth and defend human dignity against authoritarian falsehoods.
Watching him this past year, I am more convinced than ever that he intends to win this fight not with worldly weapons, but with the persistent force of truth spoken in love.
Through it all, Pope Leo has anchored his activism in a deeply Christian vision of hope. His very first words after his election were humble — introducing himself simply as a fellow Christian — and his homily at his inauguration set the tone with a powerful declaration: “This is an hour for love.”
One year on, Leo’s deeds have given real substance to those words.
If it is truly an hour for love, then our answer to hatred and fear must be to love more fiercely and more concretely.
That’s the example Leo is setting: he confronts injustice not to score political points, but because of love—love for the poor, the migrant, the vulnerable, the truth.
Lord knows I’m far from a perfect Catholic; I’m just a skeptical sinner continually in need of God’s mercy.
Yet in that mercy, I dare to believe that Pope Leo has been given to us for precisely this moment in history. His courage is calling out something better in all of us.
He’s challenging the Church to actually live out what it professes — that every person is sacred — and he’s challenging Americans (religious or not) to remember our nation’s highest ideals.
Whether you’re Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, of another faith, or of no formal faith at all, Leo’s mission matters because it speaks to universal human values.
The forces he’s pushing back against — authoritarianism, cruelty, the notion that truth and moral law don’t matter — threaten not only the soul of the Church, but the soul of our democracy and our culture.
Conversely, the virtues he lifts up — compassion, justice, humble service of truth — are the antidote our world so desperately needs right now.
If there’s one thing our turbulent times demand, it’s hope.
Not shallow optimism or “happy talk,” but true hope: the kind that perseveres through dark hours. In fact, hope usually arises through suffering. It often blooms brightest in deprivation and darkness, because it offers a vision beyond what is immediately at hand.
Hope is alive in anyone who has suffered intense loss and kept going; who has stepped forward to love another with no promise of return; who has doubted the existence of God yet prayed anyway; who has endured pain or sacrifice for the sake of someone else and, in doing so, found a strength they didn’t know they had.
That gritty, resilient hope is what Pope Leo is calling us to rediscover. It’s the same hope I sensed on that balcony one year ago — a hope that refuses to yield to cynicism or fear.
As Leo reminds us, this is indeed “an hour for love.” And love, if it’s real, gives birth to hope.
I write Letters from Leo not just to chronicle the pope’s actions, but to rally all of us to recognize what’s happening and to take part in it.
In my own small way, I want to walk with Pope Leo on this journey — to help redeem the highest values of our Church and our nation, to help transform our politics with the light of faith and conscience.
This newsletter is part of what I think of as my “secular priesthood” — my calling to carry the light of Christ’s love into the public square, even in imperfect ways. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the greatest messenger.
I feel uneasy at times writing about matters of faith in the brutal arena of public life. But here I am, doing it anyway, because I believe what Pope Leo is doing has the potential to change our world for the better.
Like Pope John Paul I once said, “I offer you the little that I have and am.”
I offer my back, my mind, my heart, and my love for this Church and this country — both of them blessed, both of them broken.
Thank you, sincerely, for reading and for journeying with me these past year.
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One year is just the beginning. There is a long road ahead, and none of us can walk it alone.
Let us rise, then, fellow travelers, and be on our way.
Thank you for reading. I’ll see you on the road.
