Throwing things at the Pope

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jun 27, 2025

Who could have predicted that when the first American Pope was elected, he would have been a prelate called to the Vatican from a diocese in Peru?

For years it was commonly asserted in Rome that an American cardinal could not be elected as Roman Pontiff, as long as the US remained the world’s leading superpower. Yet the election of Pope Leo XIV was uncontroversial—in part, no doubt, because as a missionary and now a leading Vatican official, he was seen as very much a citizen of the world. And so he is. Still, to the practiced eye, there is no mistaking the fact that Pope Leo is an American.

The first controversy of the new pontificate arose in response to inaccurate reports that the new Pope was a fan of the Chicago Cubs. Not so, his brothers assured us. Citing chapter and verse—and showing no tolerance for dissent on this important matter—they provided ample evidence of his loyalty to the White Sox. Let the record show that the White Sox soon recognized and rewarded that loyalty, hosting a ceremony to honor the new Pontiff.

St. Peter’s successor is a baseball fan: now there is an observation I never expected to make. During one of his visits to the US, Pope John Paul II took a turn inside a batting cage and—not surprisingly, since he was an excellent athlete—acquitted himself creditably. But this is something quite different: a Pontiff who obviously played the game all through his boyhood, and catches a thrown ball reflexively.

Anyone who saw the video of the new Pope in action, casually snagging a plush toy that was tossed toward the popemobile by a tourist in St. Peter’s Square, should have recognized the unmistakable evidence of an American background. Pope Leo did not see the thrown object and measure the distance and brace himself. He simply plucked the thing out of the air with one hand, not otherwise changing his posture at all, because that’s how American boys do it, after countless hours of playing catch with their brothers in their back yards.

I know that I was not alone in making this observation, because soon other objects were being thrown toward the Pope at public audiences, and he was fielding them with the same careless aplomb—until eventually he was caught off guard, apparently distracted by a surging crowd that threatened to topple a security barrier, and a stuffed animal hit him on the head.

Suddenly this was not so much fun anymore. Tossing things from a crowd toward the Sovereign Pontiff is at best undignified, at worst dangerous. Vatican security officials are no doubt already planning a response to discourage this new fad, as well they should. But in a few short weeks we were given several demonstrations of the sort of skill that an American might bring to the papacy.

Of course, catching thrown objects—even doing it with panache—is not a particularly important aspect of papal ministry. There are far more important tests to come. How will Pope Leo, schooled in no-nonsense American business dealings, respond to the lackadaisical accounting practices of the Roman Curia? Will he move to settle the wrongful-termination lawsuit brought by Libero Milone, the onetime auditor general of the Vatican? Anyone whose sense of justice was formed by the standards of the Anglo-American legal tradition should sympathize with an auditor who was fired for the “offense” of auditing.

The results of this year’s Peter’s Pence collection are being made public this week, bringing new scrutiny to the way those funds are used. Next week a Vatican tribunal takes up Milone’s appeal of a previous decision dismissing his lawsuit. We may soon have fresh indications of the difference that an American background brings to Vatican leadership.