As first U.S.-born pontiff, Pope Leo may be ‘more attuned’ to polarization issue, analysts say

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Pope Leo XIV, as the first U.S.-born pope, may bring unique insight to the problem of polarization in the U.S. and in the U.S. church, analysts told OSV News.

“From what I’ve heard, Rome always has an eye on the U.S. church, but that doesn’t mean that what is going on in the United States is going to shape the ways Pope Leo leads the global church. However, he is going to be more intimately aware of what is happening in the United States and more attuned to the cultural subtleties than previous popes have been,” Maureen Day, a research affiliate at the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture and that university’s Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies, told OSV News.

Multiple recent academic studies show evidence of growing parti