It's yet to be seen what effect Pope Leo XIV will have on the Church in terms of numbers. But in terms of trends, there have been interesting things to note.
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There's been an increase in the Catholic population in Ontario, Canada, but it's been fueled by migration. More immigrants are coming in from Catholic populations.

In the UK the Catholic Gen Z population is on the rise.
"A new study from the United Kingdom has found that among members of Gen Z in the U.K., Catholics now outnumber Anglicans 2 to 1 — part of a pattern observed across all age groups whereby participation in Catholicism has risen in recent years while Anglicanism has declined."

Then France:
Adult baptisms in France are also up.
"France’s Catholic Church will welcome more than 10,384 adult catechumens at Easter this year, marking a 45% increase from 2024 figures, according to data released by the French Bishops’ Conference. The French report reveals the highest numbers ever recorded since the survey began over 20 years ago. Even more striking is the demographic shift — young adults now constitute the largest segment of converts."

As a Christian, it's always nice and encouraging to see people discover the faith in a meaningful way. Although you have to ask if we have lost the plot? Why does it matter that we gain numbers? For one, if you lose numbers, then you become a cultural and political target. But let's say that doesn't matter.    Another piece of the issue is whether declining interest means that God is no longer calling people or tugging at the hearts of people. We're all still human, and the internal desire that pulled people toward the search for God should still structurally be in place? So why aren't more people searching, not just for spirituality, but for Christ?

It does seem, though, that conversions to Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the US are tracking with the rise of conservatism and traditionalism among young men. So the factors inspiring growth aside from immigration, to a large part, are cultural. But beyond cultural factors, where are all the people (of the 9 billion in this world) who are searching for Christ?

There is the so-called Benedict Option, the idea that the ideal may be to let the Church resize itself around a smaller core of pure believers, rather than be behemothy all things to all people. The problem is that this is not possible at all in the Roman Catholic Church. For a Church of 1 billion people, with assets worth billions, and real political and ecclesial power, no one in power wants fewer people. It's very, very difficult to give up power and the adulation of literally millions of people on a regular basis.

The Church will never voluntarily re-size, meaning the Benedict Option is not a remote possibility, which means the Church will remain a massive entity with organic internal growth and factors like immigration and cultural trends to spur it forward in terms of size.

But maybe the question is not if we're growing or how we can grow? But if people aren't flocking to our light, then perhaps that light has dimmed to a flicker, and we no longer reflect the Christ we claim to serve. 

Conventional wisdom used to be that neither the UN leader nor the Pope should come from superpower countries. The idea was to prevent undue influence by or collaboration with a superpower government that would undermine the mission of the UN or the Papacy. The election of Pope Benedict XVI threw out the norm for the Papacy. Germany, maybe not a superpower, is a very powerful and influential country, and electing a Pope from there and with a history as a combatant during the war was norm shattering.

However, the norm of preventing an American pope still lingered. The U.S. is an unusually influential culture. It is empire-like, which means it is irrestitible. Now, one can try to ignore its influence, and ignoring it does not diminish the influence. So the option is to lean into it.

Leaning into American influence has become even more pressing in the age of polarization and in the age of President Trump. First, you need someone who is American and who can be a counterweight to President Trump. Pope Leo XIV, a man from Chicago with some African blood in him :), a polyglot, who lived in South America, is not afraid of President Trump (His X account proves this). And, we'll see, but President Trump will be wary of picking a fight with an American Pope for fear of turning people against him. 

The other thing is that President Trump has shown just how vital America is to a law-based order in the world. It was something that was taken for granted, but now everyone realizes that the U.S. was the cornerstone of the international order--that a massive superpower like the US embraced a law-based system and upheld certain norms in the world was vital. But now that President Trump has shattered that assurance, the world realizes what it's lost. The symbolism and promise of American leadership and ideals were the oxygen that maintained a fragile system. So one would see how important it is to try to retrieve and revive that symbolism by electing an American Pope.

Pope Leo XIV, by all accounts, appears to be an impressive man. Just like Barack Obama fit the bill as the first black US president, this Pope seems like he's the kind of person the world expects from an American leader. His ancestry is varied. He speaks many languages. Appears to be very intelligent. Was a Bishop in Peru(!!!!). Strong administrator. Powerful but not overbearing. We'll see how he leads as Pope, but the symbolism for now is more important and a refreshing reset to restoring the right symbolic balance in the international order.

Yes, why is the Bishop of Rome the leader of Jesus' Church on earth--or Pope? There are two distinct issues here. One is about Petrine leadership, and the second issue is why the Bishop of Rome is Peter's successor.

I have four questions. 

1. Did Jesus make Peter leader of his disciples and Church?
2. Does the Church need this Petrine leadership?
3. Is Petrine leadership transferable?
4. Why is Rome the instantiation of Petrine leadership?

Did Jesus make Peter leader of his disciples and Church?
This is an easy one. Yes!  John 21:15-19 is the clearest expression of this. Peter loved Jesus more than any of the other disciples, and Jesus told him to tend his lambs, feed his sheep, and feed his sheep. This is unambiguous. 

Does the Church need Petrine Leadership?
Yes!
Mt 16:18 tells us that Jesus declared to Cephas, "You are Peter" and "upon this rock I will build my church . . ." This follows Peter confessing that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. And Jesus says that God revealed that to Peter. It was not a deduction, but it was a gift of faith that no one else possessed (except, of course, Mary and maybe his family). The "this" of Mat 16:19 may be Peter or it may be Peter's declaration, but it doesn't matter. Because the Church is built on the testimony of the Apostles and not abstract claims. So, even if one argues that the "this rock" does not refer to Peter, it refers to Peter's confession (not some abstract claim). His confession that Jesus is Messiah and the Son of God was revealed to him, and it is his faith that becomes foundational for what is to follow. The Christian faith is not based on the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Messiah, but that Peter and the other apostles say that Jesus is the Son of God and Messiah. The faith is 100% based on the testimony of the Apostles, especially Peter.


So the question is not whether Peter's leadership is necessary. That's irrelevant. The issue is that Jesus declared it to be so. 

Is Petrine Leadership Transferable?
Now this is where it gets tricky and strange. I don't believe that the faith demands it. However, two things are relevant here. One is that both Matthew and John indicate that Peter's leadership is ongoing. In John, as long as there are lambs and sheep, then Peter's leadership is what Jesus desires. In Matthew, as long as there is a church being built, then the rock is needed. So it would stand to reason that as long as there's a church, Petrine leadership is needed and, unless Peter were to live forever, someone else would need to continue that leadership. The other piece of this discussion, which is underrated, is that the Church has the power to institute the transferability of Petrine leadership. Mt 16:19 says, "I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." The Church has the authority to continue Peter's leadership, whether it is explicitly declared or not. The issue is did the Church do so? The answer has to be yes, since we have had Petrine leadership for centuries now. So my take is that Jesus didn't authorize any transferability of Petrine leadership, but the Church can and did.

Why is the Bishop of Rome the Successor of Peter?
 . . .
The arguments are that Peter was Bishop of Rome (such as it is) and that both Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome, making Rome special. The latter argument is ridiculous. I'll up you one. Jesus died in Jerusalem. Thus, by the logic where deaths have occurred, the Bishop of Jerusalem should then be the successor of Peter and the primary see. 
Can the Bishop of Rome validly claim to be Peter's successor? Yes, and the Roman church did, and it was unchallenged for the most part and accepted. And by Matthew 16:19 logic, the Church bound this in heaven and earth. However, Rome has no necessary claim to Petrine leadership. Just as the Church allowed Rome to claim that mantle, it can remove it. Although, practically, it would take an extreme emergency to agree that the Bishop of Rome no longer has an intrinsic claim to the papacy.

So . . . Petrine leadership is real, is continuous, it's transferable, and its intrinsic link to Rome all check the necessary boxes.

Christianity is splintering along racial and ethnic lines in the U.S. It's fair to say that President Trump and his policies are particularly unique in history, and so it's hard to be neutral or nonchalant about him and his administration. So it is particularly interesting to see Christian positions on Trump because it reveals us--Christians--to ourselves, particularly when we accept or disapprove of the Ethics of the Trump administration.

Ethics reflect values, and values reflect belief systems or religion. When there is a divergence in how we assess ethics among Christian demographics, it means that our values are different, and divergent values imply religious differences. This is another way of saying that though we all may call ourselves Christians, we can't all be Christians and feel so differently about Trump's ethics. Either one side is wrong and the other right, or maybe "Christian" is a meaningless term and Trump has exposed that.

The Pew Research Center has some numbers on Trump's approval among Christians.
Trump's approval among adults: 59% Disapprove and 40 approve
72% of White Evangelicals approve of Pres. Trump compared to 10% of Black Protestants.
51% of White Catholics approve of Pres. Trump compared to 26% of Hispanic Catholics.

Now, approval can very much be about politics, economy, and culture, and so not necessarily an issue in itself. But here's the troubling data.

They asked about the ethical standards of top Trump administration officials. Let's refer to it as "Trump."
34% of White Evangelicals rate "Trump's" ethics as excellent and another 35% rate the ethics as good. That's 69%.
4% of Black Protestants rate "Trump's" ethics as excellent and 5% as good. 63% see it as poor.
For White Catholics, 23% see "Trump's" ethics as excellent and 26% as good. (49%)
For Hispanic Catholics, 10% see "Trump's" ethics as excellent and 15% as good.

There is a clear divergence based on race and ethnicity (these categories work differently in other countries). The assessment of ethics is key. If there is a divergence on how we all view the ethics of the Trump administration, it has to go far beyond simple politics, culture, or economic issues. Differing assessments of Trump's ethics imply different values and religions. There are no longer transcendent values that fundamentally hold the Christian community together. What's disturbing is that because of the influence of the US, these forms of Christianity are being exported around the globe at an alarming rate.

Denominational differences have defined the landscape of Christianity in the past few centuries. But, in the past few decades, there are new differences that have emerged that seem to cut just as deep. All this does raise the question of Christian unity. The issue of Christian unity is a pressing issue for only one reason: Jesus prayed that his disciples be one. But what does that mean? Or maybe the question is who really are his disciples (those who are to be one)? Does discipleship identification rest primarily on self- identification, or is it that those who are true disciples and are the ones who are unified in perhaps some unidentifiable way known only to God? The stats above, coupled with denominational differences, show that Christian unity or the prospect for unity is virtually impossible.

President Trump has driven the kind of wedge in Christianity that may be impossible to overcome. Or maybe he is exposing a wedge that was there all along. Maybe we all just have to admit that our differing ethics reflect differing values, which in turn reveal that we "Christians" aren't all of the same religion. Maybe "Christianity" is simply some sociological umbrella term that masks the canyons between vastly different religious streams that make some claim to the Christ figure. Maybe we who claim to follow Christ should realize that the true disciples who should be those (whoever they are) are bound together in spirit and transcend these differences (but we are not all the true disciples). If so, then all that's left to us is to strive for righteousness and pray that we are among the true disciples.  (P.S. "true disciple" as I speak of it, is not the equivalent of not going to Hell)

Luke 24:15 says that Jesus was "taken up into heaven." Mark 16:19 says the same. Acts 1:9 also says, "he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight." Jesus' bodily ascent into heaven is an essential belief in Christianity. The creed states it as one of its propositions: "He ascended into Heaven." 

For clarity, let's see, Acts 1:11 "They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”" Here it is clear, Just as Jesus is going to one day physically return, so is he ascending into heaven where he will "sit" at the "right hand" of the Father (Rev 3:21; Mt 22:44; Acts 2:33) and the Nicene Creed says, "he is seated at the right hand of the Father."

A lot of things get Christians squeamish about their faith, but one that seems to really get Christians, maybe Catholics in particular, is that Jesus physically ascended into Heaven. Why is this troublesome? Well, for one, the universe is 93 billion light years. That means it would take light that long to travel from one end to the other (or something like that). So did Jesus keep floating up and up and up . . . (if there is an "up" in the universe)? Sure! Or it could have happened in the blink of an eye. The other issue is that this physical bodily ascension seems to imply that Jesus is currently at location (x,y,z), or that Heaven is at that location. Yes. He is at a location, and heaven is at a location. What that means, we can't understand, but he is there, sitting . . . or standing or whatever he is doing.

Some people think that the ascension and the current existence of Jesus is more spiritual than the alternative. But then, what exactly was the point of the resurrection? There is zero point in a resurrection if only two weeks later, he reverts to spiritual form and glides away.

One issue for Catholics is that the current bodily existence of Jesus complicates the Eucharist, the elements of which are the body and blood of Jesus. It is true. Jesus is alive. The Eucharist is not a substitute for his being, person, and presence. All one has to remember is that it was Jesus, who was very much alive, who distributed bread and wine to his disciples and said, "this is my body."

Now, of course, the manner of existence of Jesus, a physical man who is God, is beyond anything we can think or comprehend. So it is not reductive to think of Jesus as a bodily existing man. We only have to give up the parameters of our thinking and rely on faith to make sense of whatever new reality awaits us.

So Jesus is alive. He is resurrected. He is a body and is somewhere. Now . . . so . . . if Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father . . . so . . . is the Father . . .