The leader of the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) has reacted to the election of the new pope.

Pope Leo XIV was elected by his fellow cardinals in the Conclave on Thursday evening, Rome time.

Leo, 69, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, is originally from Chicago, and has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru.

He became a cardinal only in 2023 and has become the first-ever US pope.

PCC general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan said he was not a Vatican insider, but there had been talk of cardinals feeling that the new pope should be a “middle-of-the-road person”.

Reverend Bhagwan said there had been prayers for God’s wisdom to guide the decisions made at the Conclave.

“I think if we look at where the decisions perhaps were made or based on, there had been a lot of talk that the cardinals going into Conclave had felt that a new pope would need to be someone who could take forward the legacy of Pope Francis, reaching out to those in the margins, but also be a sort of a middle-of-the-road person,” he said.

Hopes for climate response
Reverend Bhagwan said the Pacific hoped that Pope Leo carried on the late Pope Francis’s connection to the climate change response.

He said Pope Francis released his “laudate deum” exhortation on the climate shortly before the United Nations climate summit in Dubai last year.

“The focus on care for creation, the focus for ending fossil fuels and climate justice, the focus on people from the margins — I think that’s important for the Pacific people at this time.

“I know that the Catholic Church in the Pacific has been focused on on its synodal process, and so he spoke about synodality as well.

“I know that there were hopes for an Oceania synod, just as Pope Francis held a synod of the Amazon. And I think that is still something that’s in the hearts of many of our Catholic leaders and Catholic members.

“We hope that this will be an opportunity to still bring that focus to the Pacific.”

Picking up issues
New Zealand’s Cardinal John Dew, who was in the Conclave, said the new pope would not hesitate to speak out about issues around the world.

He said they were confident Pope Leo would pick up many of the issues Francis was well known for, like speaking up for climate change, human trafficking and the plight of refugees; and within the church, a different way of meeting and talking with one another — known as synodality — which is an ongoing process.

“I think any pope needs to be able to challenge things that are happening around the world, especially if it is affecting the lives of people, where the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.”

Pope Leo appeared to be a very calm person, he added.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Pope Francis has died after using his Easter Sunday address to call for peace in Gaza. I don’t know who the cardinals will pick to replace him, but I do know with absolute certainty that there are transnational intelligence operations in the works to make sure they select a more reliable supporter of Israel.

They’ve probably been working on it since his health started failing.

Anyone who’s been reading me for a while knows my attitude toward Roman Catholicism can be described as openly hostile because of my family history with the Church’s sexual abuses under Cardinal Pell, but as far as popes go this one was decent.

Francis had been an influential critic of Israel’s mass atrocities in Gaza, calling for investigation of genocide allegations and denouncing the bombing of hospitals and the murder of humanitarian workers and civilians. He’d been personally calling the only Catholic parish in Gaza by phone every night during the Israeli onslaught, even as his health deteriorated.

In other words, he was a PR problem for Israel.

I hope another compassionate human being is announced as the next leader of the Church, but there are definitely forces pushing for a different outcome right now. There is no shortage of terrible men who could be chosen for the position.

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The most wholesome thing on the internet right now is Yemeni forces keeping a running tally of the US MQ-9 Reaper drones they’ve been destroying. These things are 30 million dollars apiece. pic.twitter.com/hJNHtkVgm1

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) April 19, 2025

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Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Omer Dostri told Israel’s Channel 12 News on Saturday that a deal with Hamas to release all hostages was a non-starter for the Israeli government, because it would require a commitment to lasting peace.

“At the moment, there can’t be one deal since Hamas isn’t saying: ‘Come get your hostages and that’s that,’ it’s demanding an end to the war,” Dostri said in the interview.

This comes as Hamas offers to return all hostages, stop digging tunnels, and put away its weapons in exchange for a permanent ceasefire. This is what Israel is dismissing as unacceptable.

The Pope has died           Video/audio: Caitlin Johnstone

The Gaza holocaust was never about freeing the hostages. This has been clear ever since Israel began aggressively bombing the place where the hostages are living, and it’s gotten clearer and clearer ever since. Last month Netanyahu made it clear that Israel intends to carry out Trump’s ethnic cleansing plans for the enclave even if Hamas fully surrenders.

When Washington’s podium people say the “war” in Gaza can end if Hamas releases the hostages and lays down their arms, they are lying. They are lying to ensure that the genocide continues.

When Israel apologists say “Release the hostages!” in response to criticisms of Israeli atrocities, they are lying. They know this has never had anything to do with hostages. They are lying to help Israel commit more atrocities.

It was never about the hostages. It was never about Hamas. What it’s really about was obvious from day one: purging Palestinians from Palestinian land. That’s all this has ever been.

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After executing 15 medical workers in Gaza and getting caught lying about it, the IDF has investigated itself and attributed the massacre to “professional failures” and “operational misunderstandings”, finding no evidence of any violation of its code of ethics.

It’s crazy to think about how much investigative journalism went into exposing this atrocity only to have Israel go “Yeah turns out we did an oopsie, no further action required, thank you to our allies for the latest shipment of bombs.”

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The death toll from Trump’s terrorist attack on a Yemen fuel port is now up to 80, with 150 wounded. Again, the US has not even tried to claim this was a military target. They said they targeted this critical civilian infrastructure to hurt the economic interests of the Houthis.

Those who are truly anti-war don’t support Trump. Those who support Trump aren’t truly anti-war.

I still get people telling me I need to be nicer to Trump supporters because they’re potential allies in resisting war, which to me is just so silly. What are they even talking about? Trump supporters, per definition, currently support the one person who is most singularly responsible for the horrific acts of war we are seeing in the middle east right now. Telling me they’re my allies is exactly as absurd as telling me Biden supporters were my allies last year would have been, except nobody was ever dumb enough to try to make that argument.

If you still support Trump in April 2025 after seeing all his monstrous behavior in Gaza and Yemen, then we are on completely opposite sides. You might think you’re on the same side as me because you oppose war in theory, but when the rubber meets the road it turns out you’ll go along with any acts of mass military slaughter no matter how evil so long as they are done by a Republican. We are not allies, we are enemies. You side with the most egregious warmonger in the world right now, and I want your side to fail.

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People say “It’s the Muslims!” or “It’s the Jews!”

No, it’s the Americans. The US-centralised empire is responsible for most of our world’s problems.

It says so much about the strength of the imperial propaganda machine that this isn’t more obvious to more people.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.