This article is taken from the June 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £25.
There is a new Pope in Rome, and, depending on your denominational identity, he hath, or hath not, jurisdiction in this Realm of England. Either way, it says a lot about the differences between the Church of Rome and the Church of England that the former has seen its leader fall ill, get better, get sick again, die and be replaced, all in the space of time in which Anglicans have been without an Archbishop of Canterbury.
There will be no glossy magazine spreads explaining to readers the baroque processes by which Archbishops are elected, let alone movies starring Ralph Fiennes. But if the clerical leader of the Church of England has faded from public consciousness, its temporal head is infinitely more visible.
It is our kings and queens who remain freighted with all the awesome medieval glamour of old. There are few interregnums in the British constitution, with the Crown passed from monarch to heir in the space of a breath. The King of England is the supreme governor of the Church of England, and he is crowned in a ceremony steeped in Byzantine splendour and anointed in the manner of a bishop, with his reign modelled on the Biblical kingship of Solomon and David.
It is a strange and striking paradox that the temporal arm of the British state, far more than its ostensibly spiritual one, has held on to its potent mystique, whilst the bishops of the Church of England chase relevance and seek to remake themselves as managers. There are many instructive lessons to be drawn from the respective failures and successes enjoyed by the Catholic and Anglican communions.
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Pope Leo XIV leads a Church that is struggling with the question of how to live out its mission in the midst of modernity. This is a road riddled with temptations, with plenty of primrose paths offering apparent shortcuts along the narrow way. Modernisation is one such siren song, an approach especially beloved of liberal secularists who may scarcely have darkened the door of a church. If only the Catholic Church was more accepting of liberal mores, the thinking goes, it could experience the kind of success enjoyed by liberal Protestant denominations such as Methodism.
If going with the flow of the outrushing sea of faith doesn’t appeal, there are of course plenty of calls to sit down by the shore, and in a reverse Canute, command the tides to come back. If only the Catholic Church said all its masses in Latin, covered itself in lace and denounced secular modernity loudly enough, armies of angry young men would rally to the banners of traditionalism.
In a way, these are both comforting fantasies, premised on the idea that an increasingly secular world is just waiting to embrace religious faith. But there is a third, more subtle temptation. If you don’t fancy changing the content of the message, you can focus on style instead. One of the great dangers of offices such as the papacy, unique in its global visibility and power to capture attention, is that it has become addicted to publicity. In an age of mass media, the Pope is a celebrity and world leader all in one, shaking hands with heads of state and filling stadiums with the ease of a pop star. Even non-believers take notice of his words and profess to care about his opinions.
This heady drug has defined the modern papacy. John Paul II led the Catholic Church into the age of mass media, creating famous media “moments” and “making history” as he reached out to those of other faiths or made high-profile visits to foreign countries. Like a US president, modern popes travel in planes packed full of press and staff, in the full glare of global attention.
There is a paradox at work here. The fascination of the modern world, and the halo of celebrity, is generated by the exceptionalism of an ancient priesthood and a Renaissance monarchy. From historical dramas to endless remakes and sequels, we live in a culture that lacks sincerity and faith but is parasitically obsessed with a world which is still capable of both. This leads to a corrosive form of attention. Anyone familiar with the mayfly life of modern social media celebrities can see playing out in fast forward: the peak of obsessive love, followed by escalating demands made upon the celebrity to conform to our desires and expectations. It is an unchangeable rule of such unhealthy loves that they destroy the object of their affections.
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These risks certainly bedevilled the previous papacy. In the context of an egregious and horrific abuse scandal, the public legitimacy of the Catholic Church was in peril. Thus Pope Francis’ “reset” of the Church’s relationship with the world was a necessary step. The strength of having such a visible leader is that he can very quickly turn things around through gestures and symbols that are often far more powerful than policies and promises. As the Church of England waits for a new Archbishop, following its own abuse scandal, there is something to be learned here.
Yet tensions between this pontifical PR and the traditional role of the Pope caused him to fall out badly with traditionalists and led to great internal drift and confusion. With the pressure of public opprobrium somewhat relieved, the effort to reform the Vatican stalled, and terrible scandals were often drowned out by the mood music of the humble Pope Francis.
This danger is now creeping up on the newly-installed Pope Leo XIV. He is already a celebrity and a “maker of history” purely by virtue of the fact he is the first American pope — and that millions saw his election was a tightly-scripted political drama with its own twist, thanks to it coinciding with the hit film Conclave.
An amiable Augustinian who has spent 20 years living and working in Peru, Pope Leo is a likeable and sincere figure. From the moment he stepped onto the balcony of St Peter’s, the world started projecting its hopes and fears onto him.
The attention received by popes may be unhealthy, but it is driven by real hunger
There has been a lively dispute in the US as to whether he counts as black or if he is a neo-colonialist missionary. Traditionalists have celebrated him as a secret supporter of the Tridentine Latin Mass, and leftists have claimed him as a socialist who will take on Trump. Questions that might be resolved simply by waiting a few weeks cannot be left unanswered for even a second by those desperate to hold onto some of the reflected light of papal celebrity.
None of this is healthy, either for the public or the papacy. It is hard to resist the pull of popular acclaim or to refrain from answering it with more gestures, more statements and greater access for the press. This was already apparent in the decision to allow cameras to follow the new Pope as he unsealed the papal apartments. What could have been a reverential and private moment became a media performance.
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The way is hard, the gate is narrow. The attention received by popes may often turn unhealthy, but it is driven by a real spiritual and aesthetic hunger. Pope Francis’ solitary public mass during the pandemic was a “media moment” but it was one resonating with spiritual significance — a genuinely profound and sincere performance.
Those looking for insight into the dilemmas of the modern papacy should ignore the elegant but superficial charms of Conclave and instead look to brilliant and surreal television drama The Young Pope, by Italy’s greatest living director, Paolo Sorrentino. It follows the election of a new pope — a relatively unknown American, elected as a compromise candidate by a divided Conclave.
He takes on a surprisingly conservative papal name (Pius XIII) and starts upending the Vatican. It turns out that this obscure, obedient cardinal secretly harboured a ferociously conservative faith, which he imposes ruthlessly on the hapless and corrupt curia.
The drama is worthwhilst because of its ability to dramatise emerging tendencies in the Catholic church. This brash young American pope, played by Jude Law, is radical not only in his traditionalism but also his extremely modern grasp of media and technology.
He is canny enough to use, rather than be used by, the modern cult of celebrity. He refuses to make public appearances, and, addressing the cardinals, he outlines his philosophy: “Brother cardinals, we need to go back to being prohibited. Inaccessible and mysterious. That’s the only way we can once again become desirable. That is the only way great love stories are born.”
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Amidst loud calls for Christians to submit their religion to a political agenda or conform to the spirit of the age, there is something in this. One reason for the mystique that still surrounds the British monarchy in the age of mass media is that it is still at least partially veiled in mystery. The anointing of the monarch is not permitted to be seen, it is not filmed or witnessed by an audience but occurs behind a screen, as the Archbishop of Canterbury gives the ultimate blessing to the reign of the monarch, a symbol of priestly dignity and authority.
It is easy to lose one’s dignity when standing in front of a crowd, as it screams out its demands and projects its dazzling desires upon you. The common wisdom of our age, that we should all become more open, more “accountable”, more transparent, exerts a continual tug on all would-be reformers and revivers of crumbling institutions.
As an American, Pope Leo XIV has imbibed this philosophy with his mother’s milk. But he might just be familiar enough with this particular devil to make it dance to his tune.
