How the faith of Leo and Talarico calls us to greatness

James Talarico was a devout young middle school teacher in Texas when Father Robert Prevost arrived in a remote, storm-ravaged region of Peru in 2016. Few at the time imagined what “Padre Roberto” would become within a decade. Pope Leo XIV or teacher/Presbyterian seminarian Talarico Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas.

The two men share a prophetic legacy that calls believers to God. “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly [their] God.” This Old Testament demand informed Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the Good Samaritan. And this is echoed in the Enlightenment-inspired secular ideals expressed in our nation’s Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution.

Christian teachings and the consequences of America’s failures

Of course, Christians and Americans often fell short of these lofty goals. Consider the schism between Leo and Talarico that led to centuries of hostilities between the respective branches of Christendom, or “men reading the same Bible” fighting each other in our Civil War.

Today’s self-proclaimed Christian nationalists would have us overlook these failures. Some respond to these shortcomings by abandoning religion altogether. But both today’s religious right and secular left have misinterpreted America’s complex, contradictory, and—yes—intertwined religious and political histories. The experiences and messages of the first American pope and the young Texan offer the burden for the confused and exhausted majority to navigate today’s turbulent waters.

Divisions within Western Christianity began with the Renaissance-inspired advent of science. This distinction widened in the 19th century^This The century in which some church leaders embraced approaches to theology compatible with science and understandings of the diversity of faith traditions. Most controversially, these “modernists” challenged the literal accounts of creation in the Bible.

Simultaneously, Leo’s papal namesake and Talarico’s social evangelist ancestors responded similarly to the aftershocks resulting from the twin explosions of industrialization and modernization. Ever-widening income gaps, urban squalor, violent labor unrest, environmental destruction, and the scapegoating of vulnerable Black citizens and immigrants for these misfortunes have violated their religious and political legacies. But their preoccupation with “worldly” concerns widened the differences between “the church” and American society.

Rarely acknowledged developments from far-flung missionary fields further widened this divide. Long before Padre Roberto and the Peruvian natives recognized in each other the image of a loving Creator, Jesuit missionaries in China and India found much to praise in the cultures they came to change. Eventually, other Catholic and some Protestant missionaries questioned their victorious proselytizing efforts.

mid 20s^This In the century, Catholicism’s Vatican II and the leadership of many mainstream denominations (including Talarico’s branch of Presbyterianism) embraced a more inclusive view of diversity. In turn, they participated in civil rights movements and other controversial efforts to counter long-standing diseases.

‘Woke’ ideals led to abandonment of mainstream churches

In turn, more traditional believers have abandoned mainstream churches, as have their more secular and skeptical counterparts — for reasons both understandable and fashionable — doing the same. Paradoxically, this lent credence to accusations that “the church was too conservative” and gave religious fundamentalists an almost exclusive claim to both faith and patriotism.

As a nation in the 21st century^st As the first decades of the century grapple with old unresolved problems and a host of new challenges, selectively nostalgic Christian nationalists deride their enemies as “woke” and “un-American.” Meanwhile, an increasingly secularized, polarized media and academia largely ignore the contributions of a diminishing mainstream and its commitment to more inclusive religious and political legacies.

Pope Leo and James Talarico speak out about injustices

This brings us back to Leo and Talarico. Both retain their inherited beliefs and assert their uniquely American right to criticize the current administration’s responses to immigration, glaring domestic and global inequalities, and intertwined economic, environmental, and public health problems. But the Pope’s calm, respectful public statements and candidate Talarico’s measured eloquence are particularly at odds with the divisive, hateful rhetoric that defines our time.

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The headwinds in America are clearly hindering their efforts. Their commitment to “restorative justice” conflicts with a long-established tradition that equates justice with punishment. Meanwhile, our president is declaring the revival of the concept of “manifest destiny” and calling his critics ““non-christian and not American. At the same time, many on the secular left, unaware of the history described here, also deny the importance of Christianity.

In 2026, the Pope and Talarico offer very different understandings of Christianity and “American greatness” to confused, uninformed, and exhausted Americans. Rather than denying the shortcomings of their faith and our republic, or citing the “hypocrisy” of our ancestors as justification for completely abandoning their own sublime heritage, Pope Leo and his Protestant counterpart call on secular and religious Americans to humbly learn from our flawed past, reconnect with our lofty, always elusive, and intertwined religious and political callings, and rediscover the messy, fragile but essential American heritage of civil, respectful discourse.

Mark Banker is a retired teacher at Webb School in Knoxville. Formally studied history at Warren Wilson College [B.A. 1973]University of Virginia [M.A.T. 1975]and University of New Mexico [PhD 1987]and has been a teacher historian for over 40 years, sharing her insights in five books, numerous articles and presentations, and most importantly, with a diverse group of more than 5,000 students. He can be reached at mtbanker1951@gmail.com.

This article first appeared in the Knoxville News Sentinel: Opinion: Pope Leo, James Talarico and America’s ‘greatness’