By Peter Wolfgang, Catholic Culture - The College of Cardinals shocked the world by elevating to the papacy an American. Cardinal Robert Prevost is now Pope Leo XIV. Here are my initial thoughts, slightly more than a week out... First, searching for clues about his future by scouring his past, in old comments or Twitter history, strikes me as a worthless endeavor. It proved largely misleading in the case of Pope Francis in 2013. Better just to focus on what he says and does as Pope, of which there is already much... Second, we often hear about “alienated” Catholics and how we must reach out to them.