(LifeSiteNews) — Professor John Rao, the Chairman of the traditional Catholic Roman Forum and a retired professor of history of St. John’s University in New York City, recently gave LifeSiteNews an interview in Kansas City about the beginning of the new pontificate of Leo XIV and his recent September 30 comments regarding the issue of abortion.
Pope Leo had declined to comment on the fact that Cardinal Blase Cupich had expressed his intention to give an award to pro-abortion Senator Dick Durbin, claiming that he did not know many details of the case and adding that one has to look “at the overall work that a senator has done during … 40 years of service in the United States Senate.”
The Roman Pontiff then stated that “someone who says I’m against abortion but says I’m in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life,” additionally asserting that “someone who says I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
Professor Rao, whose Roman Forum is “dedicated to the broad defense of Catholic doctrine and Catholic culture,” and who has been for decades an outspoken critic of Modernism within the Catholic Church, showed himself “puzzled” and “troubled” by these papal remarks. “Inhuman treatment” of immigrants is not something one would be in favor of; on the contrary, it was “inhuman” to let so many immigrants into the country, especially in light of the fact that so many of the immigrant children get lost and abducted. In Rao’s view, the Pope should be “more nuanced” in his comments. But, as if to further support Cardinal Cupich – who caused so much indignation within Catholic circles with his intention to honor Durbin that the senator had to decline the award – the Pope made him two weeks later, on October 15, a member of the governing council of Vatican City.
Speaking to LifeSiteNews on October 19 in Kansas City, where he had just given a talk at the Angelus Press Conference, Rao said that he was on his way to the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage in Rome. He was “extremely grateful” that Cardinal Raymond Burke was given permission to celebrate a Pontifical High Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. The professor added that his first impression of the new Pope after the conclave in May was “very, very encouraging,” and that he hopes for a “change of direction,” for a “different pontificate than that of Pope Francis.” In his eyes, a “change of direction” is “absolutely necessary.”
A sign of hope for Rao was that Pope Leo XIV seems to have some sympathy for the traditional Latin Mass. “Immediately after his election,” he told LifeSite, “I was contacted by an Augustinian, whom I know very, very well, who told me that he knew definitively that the Pope was not an enemy of the traditional Mass because he, as an Augustinian, had been granted permission to say the Mass by the current pontiff when he was the provincial, and now I have heard from a number of Augustinians a confirmation of the fact that he [the Pope] has occasionally said the traditional Mass. It may well be that on that liturgical plane it’s progress.”
Professor Rao believes that the traditional Mass will continue “its triumphant march forward”; there is a general “collapse” that is taking place in the Catholic Church, the faith 7-12 percent of Catholics still practice within the larger Church. He sees that in those churches that have the traditional Mass, the faith was flourishing.
Coming back to Pope Leo, the historian expressed his concern that the Pope does not seem to stop the Synod on Synodality and also that some of his appointments undercut the Church’s teachings.
But while he himself “cannot do anything about appointments,” he explained, “I can as a teacher discuss these matters seriously,” by “questioning” and hopefully to “enlist” some of the “very fine cardinals” that are still there.
What troubled Professor Rao, however, is the fact that Pope Leo had already given an address in 2023 – before his papal election – that reiterated the same position on abortion issues that have come up in his recent interview. Then-Cardinal Robert Prevost stated at that time:
A Catholic cannot declare himself “in favor of life” just because he has a position against abortion, and affirm at the same time that he is in favor of the death penalty. […] Those who defend the right to life of the most vulnerable must be equally visible in supporting the quality of life of the weakest among us: the elderly, children, the hungry, the homeless, and undocumented migrants.
“I was disturbed by the fact that there was a discourse earlier,” Rao commented on this newly discovered text, which means that what Pope Leo said at the end of September was “not just comments that were thrown out.”
Thus, the historian is not yet sure where this new pontificate will go. “I would be cautiously hopeful,” he expounded, “but very concerned at the same time” and try to “seek clarity.” “If we find out that there are statements that are good being undercut by gestures,” then that would be “something that follows in the path of Pope Francis.”
In conclusion, he said that “my hope is very much troubled.”
