JOHNSTOWN (PA)
Yahoo! [Sunnyvale CA]
May 9, 2025
By Dave Sutor, The Tribune-Democrat
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – There was some shock – both positive and negative – expressed locally Thursday when the College of Cardinals selected the first U.S.-born pope in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.
Cardinal Robert Prevost, 69, a Chicago native, ascended to the papacy, taking the name Leo XIV, following Pope Francis, from Argentina, who died April 21.
The Rev. Matthew Baum, rector of St. John Gualbert Cathedral in Johnstown, became “very excited to see the white smoke” coming from the Vatican on television, indicating a new pope had been picked.
“I don’t think any of us expected there to be a North American pope,” Baum said. “We certainly had Pope Francis who was the first pope from South America, but no one expected us to have a North American pope. It’s very exciting to think that our new holy father was born in Chicago and went to school in Pennsylvania at Villanova (University).”
Baum is “looking forward to seeing what he’s going to say and getting to know who he is.”
Bishop McCort Catholic Academy Principal Tom Smith said he and students at the school were “shocked when we heard” that the new pope was from the United States.
“Our kids were really excited,” Smith said.
“What a historic moment. In all the years that there’s been a pope in that position, there’s never been an American one. That’s a historic moment for every Catholic across not just America but across the world. Boy, if you’re an American, what a moment, what a special feeling. Our kids in our school were really excited about that whenever they saw that.”
Another viewpoint
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests President Shaun Dougherty, a Westmont resident, was also “shocked,” but in a different way.
Dougherty was at the Vatican and saw the white smoke.
He and other SNAP members immediately returned to their hotel to prepare for an anticipated flood of incoming media requests for comments.
They were there as part of the organization’s Conclave Watch initiative that had the goal of seeing a pope elected who would adopt a zero-tolerance church law regarding child abuse. The group was also in Rome a few weeks earlier when it launched the watch. SNAP profiled Prevost, who headed the Dicastery for Bishops that vets bishop nominations, and other possible candidates for pope.
They filed a complaint against Prevost as part of Francis’ vos estis lux mundi decree, thus calling for an investigation into allegations of covering up child sexual abuse.
“As provincial of the Augustinians, Prevost allowed Father James Ray, a priest then accused of abusing minors whose ministry had been restricted since 1991, to reside at the Augustinians’ St. John Stone Friary in Chicago in 2000, despite its proximity to a Catholic elementary school,” according to conclavewatch.org/cardinals/prevost. “When Prevost was Bishop of Chiclayo (in Peru), three victims reported to civil authorities in 2022 after there was no movement on their canonical case filed through the diocese. Victims have since claimed Prevost failed to open an investigation, sent inadequate information to Rome, and that the diocese allowed the priest to continue saying Mass.”
“He’s a horrible candidate,” Dougherty said.
“He’s known to cover up. And he’s been in charge and overseeing most of the cases because of his last position in the Dicastery. This guy knows all the cases and he hasn’t released any of them. … It’s a horrible choice for survivors. It’s a horrible choice for the church. It’s an incredibly unsafe selection for children of the church because this guy is known, known to cover up abuse.
“It’s just shocking, shocking that they went this route.”
Nationally known attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented numerous victims of childhood sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, issued a written statement: “Hopefully, Pope Leo XIV will actually create effective programs to help clergy sexual abuse victims try to heal, screen and supervise priests and prevent clergy sexual abuse.
“The Catholic Church has to understand that the safety of innocent children cannot be sacrificed for an outdated and inexcusable need to protect the reputation of the Catholic Church.”
Decision came ‘quickly’
Altoona-Johnstown Bishop Mark Bartchak said the decision “seems as though it came about very quickly” after the cardinals only started the conclave Wednesday.
He pointed out that the past two popes had connections to South America, with Leo XIV having done extensive missionary work in Peru.
Bartchak said that continent is an area where the Catholic Church is “thriving.”
“This is something unique since we now have two popes who spent much of their lives administering to the poor in South America,” Bartchak said. “It seems as though the Holy Spirit is directing all of us to turn our attention to places where the average people may be poor, but their most valuable possession is their Catholic faith and the hope that corresponds with that faith.”
He said Francis was known to move quickly from subject to subject and thinks Leo XIV will be “more tempered and direct.”
The diocese has scheduled a Mass for the new pope to take place Wednesday, beginning at noon, inside the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Altoona.