Björn Wiman: The Pope is everyone's fantasy

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May 9, 2025, 12:46:04 PM5/9/25

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Björn Wiman: The Pope is everyone's fantasy

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The newly elected Pope Leo XIV during a mass with the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel on Friday.

The newly elected Pope Leo XIV during a mass with the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel on Friday. Photo: Simone Risolut/AFP

A beacon in the fight against tyranny? A repressive symbol of one of the world's most conservative institutions? A pope is always a projection screen. That became very clear when Robert Prevost was elected as the new head of the Catholic Church on Thursday, writes Björn Wiman.

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There is a delightful anecdote about John XXIII, pope between 1958 and 1963 and known, among other things, for his leisurely movement on the streets of Rome. On one occasion, he was reportedly approached by a Roman lady of good family who commented on his appearance. The papal response was disarming: “Signora, you forget that the conclave is not a beauty contest.”

So true. On the other hand, the Pope is a projection screen, which became clear when the American Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected as the new head of the Catholic Church on Thursday. Some see the newly elected Pope Leo XIV as a progressive humanist in the spirit of Francis. Others as a disgraceful globalist and representative of the abominable woke movement . Probably the great media interest reflects the highly inflated expectations that many now attach to the new Pope's ability to mend a torn and badly scarred world.

One has to use fiction to remind oneself that God’s messenger on earth is, after all, just an ordinary man. Anthony Burgess’s enormous 1980 novel “Earthly Powers” is a grand journey through the political, religious and moral upheavals of the 20th century, from the First World War to the rise of fascism and the Nazi concentration camps, but it is also one of the best stories in world literature about a pope. In the novel’s fiction, his name is Gregory XVII and he is the brother-in-law of the narrator, the gay best-selling author Kenneth Toomey.

The Pope's sacred role spills over into the secular world as he constantly reminds us that every person has the freedom and responsibility to make their own moral choices.

The Catholic contrarian and troublemaker Burgess made no secret of the fact that Gregory XVII was modelled after the aforementioned John XXIII, whom he detested. Gregory XVII is depicted as ruthless, brilliant, and educated, as well as shapelessly fat, with a penchant for food, alcohol, and gambling . He also has many diabolical traits – Burgess even called his real-life model “the devil’s emissary.” At one point, the future pope witnesses the Nazis torturing a young girl without intervening, while at the same time performing a series of good deeds and never wavering in his belief in the inherent goodness of man.

A complex – and therefore probably true – portrayal of one of the world's most significant (and burdensome) offices. The Pope is always the imagination of all people. A beacon in the fight against tyranny? A repressive symbol of one of the world's most conservative institutions? Or a good shepherd who, in a world of violent extremes, can show that compromise is still one of creation's finest inventions?

Anthony Burgess was right when he wrote that the Pope's sacred role spills over into the secular world because he constantly reminds us that every human being has the freedom and responsibility to make their own moral choices. In the interplay between heavenly and earthly powers, no one has the same authority.

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