My Meeting with the Pope

Stephen C

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I wondered whether I should write this post, but it seems weird to have something this big happen without mentioning it, so I might as well. I had a private audience with the pope for about a half hour to talk about my Traditional Latin Mass research that will be coming out with a book from Oxford University Press this November or so.

While there are a lot of people who would love to present their research to the pope, this article has a decent summary of why this particular topic is germane to decisions that Pope Leo XIV will be making in regards to the TLM. Basically, Catholics who prefer the TLM have been associated with anti-Vatican II schismatic groups like SSPX, and in part because of this different popes have handled TLM Catholics in various ways, but we did the first significant, comprehensive study on what the TLM parishioners in the pews actually think about Vatican II and related issues.

My coauthor and I decided to not give details publicly about the audience and what the Holy Father said, but yes, my religious affiliation and the fact that I was not Catholic came up naturally in the introductions (since when talking about a controversial in-house issue it’s nice to know that the presenter isn’t a partisan), and it was a very enjoyable and lovely discussion.

Comments

11 responses to “My Meeting with the Pope”

  1. Jonathan Green

    Wow, that’s impressive. I hope we’ll get a post or two about your findings. My only regret is that you should have 1) shaved, 2) slid on your old missionary name tag, and 3) gotten the picture of a lifetime.

  2. Stephen C

    Lol, my coauthor joked about that. He does some Latter-day Saint-related research as well and mentioned that if I had snuck a name tag in and given him a Book of Mormon that would have given me the ultimate cred.

  3. Ben Park

    Very cool.

  4. REC911

    Wow that is such a cool experience! How long in advance did this meeting get planned? I was a huge fan of Pope Francis. This new one seems pretty good as well.

  5. John Mansfield

    Second thought, that should have been first: This is really neat and thanks for sharing with the site’s readership.
    Unfortunate first thought: The photos above highlight a hazard of AI-generated images. Stephen C. frequently uses them at this web site, so I assumed the images were more imagining, this time of what it would look and feel like to sit down with Pope Leo, rather than actual photos. It took a bit for the context to correct the default that the images were the usual thing.

  6. Imaginator

    Fantastic that the highest level of leadership in the Catholic Church is willing to engage on doctrinal research topics about their religion with a non-member.

    I wonder if our leadership would ever do the same?

  7. Stephen C

    Rec911: A couple months

    John Mansfield: I actually thought about that. “What if I get these really neat pictures and everybody just assumes they’re AI?” More and more photos themselves aren’t going to cut it, and people are going to need to look at a third party source for confirmation (in this case the Vatican publishes the papal audiences, so anybody trying to bluff that they had an audience when they didn’t could get called out pretty quick, but not everything is like that).

    Imaginator: I mean, it was social science, not theology (the pope has his own theologians). And yes, at the COB they often have academics present to the Q12/FP/Presiding Bishop. Typically BYU profs I imagine, but I’m familiar with some cases where they had non-member social scientists present.

  8. rogerdhansen

    I have great hope for the new Pope. He seems to want to carry on the mission of Pope Francis. To help the poor, widows etc.

    He has spent much of his life in northern Peru. He speaks an indigenous language: Quechua. And has dual citizenship in Peru. He understands the plight of the poor and the needs of Native Americans.

    I glad you got to meet him.

  9. RLD

    That is a great picture–tell your coauthor he’s the one who really looks like a missionary. And you got the perfect missionaries-with-a-convert pose.

    I’m sure Pope Leo appreciates you keeping the discussion private, even though I imagine he was still circumspect just in case. I think it would be fascinating to have an unguarded conversation about law and politics with President Oaks, but I presume that never happens for the same reason.

  10. Stephen C

    There’s definitely a history of people having an audience and then immediately insinuating to the media that the Pope is on their side, wink wink, and I’m sure people abusing audiences like that can get exhausting for the pontiff.

  11. RLD

    Nothing like that would ever happen in our church, of course. :)

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