The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Habemus Papam: Pope Leo XIV

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

Habemus Papam! Jeff celebrates the historic announcement of Pope Leo XIV, the first Pope from the United States. Jeff shares his initial reaction, the significance of this appointment, and the powerful connection to Pope Leo XIII. Join us in celebrating and praying for our new Holy Father! Snippet from the Show  Lord Jesus, we thank you so much for the new Pope. We thank you that you have given us a father. You have given us a leader. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 249, Habemus Papam, Leo the 14th. Well, it happened. It happened. We have a pope from America. you believe it. It was amazing. Just sitting there yesterday on Thursday when this was announced I was watching and when they announced the name of the new pope, I think I was with everybody

else with a look of, excuse me, what? What did you say? And then we all realized we have an American for a pope, something that everybody said would never happen. And it happened right in front of us. And it just goes to show you that anytime there's the announcement of a new pope, you can always be surprised in some way. And certainly we were yesterday. So we rejoice on this show, the Jeff Kaven show, take just a few minutes today to rejoice in this new pope. I've got a few thoughts I want to share with you here.

And it's just very, very exciting. Pope Leo the 14th. I never thought I would say that in my lifetime. Of course, I'm a big fan of Pope Leo the 13th, which we'll talk about here in just a moment. But praise God, praise God. Let's just thank God right now, shall we together? Lord Jesus, we thank you so much for the new Pope.

We thank you that you have given us a father. You have given us a leader. And, Lord, you will never abandon your church. You will always be with us. You'll never leave us nor forsake us. And so we thank you, Jesus. We're continuing on number 267. And we just give you glory.

May you grow, Lord, may your body grow, may your kingdom grow as a result of this choice. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, he's from Chicago. I still remain a Minnesota Twins fan, I might add, but he's from Chicago, and I can only imagine what's happening in Chicago right now and all the coverage going on there. So let's look at this just for a moment. Not a long time, but I just wanted to share with you a little bit and be with you during this exciting time where we receive a a new holy father. Now, 69 years old, origin Chicago's missionary work spent a significant portion of his career as missionary in Peru and the bishop there. And I think that one of the

really insightful things about his leadership is that Pope Francis appointed him to lead the Vatican's congregation of bishops. It's a very, very pivotal office and it's responsible for overseeing the bishop appointments worldwide. Now, why is that important? Well, I think it's important. It's important. because he knows the bishops. He has known the bishops over the last couple of years and he's got a good hand on that. And right when I heard that about his appointment and then becoming Pope, the first thing that I thought of was Proverbs 2723. And Proverbs 2723 says, know well the conditions of your flocks. And I can only imagine that this Holy Father knows the condition of the flocks, probably better than almost anybody, because of the appointment of the

bishops worldwide. That is a big check in that column, isn't it? Don't you think? I think so. And so he immediately has a rapport with bishops around the world. He has communications. He knows about the problems in their diocese or archdiocese, and he knows the makeup of the various bishops who have been appointed. And so, wow, what a pick. I can see the Holy Spirit in this so big, you know, that is really, really powerful. Know well the conditions of your flocks. I also noticed in his speech afterwards, he said that evil will not prevail. And a lot of people will hear that and say, yay, that's good. And it is. But why? Well, I think it's connected to Matthew 16 and the seat of Peter. When Jesus said, who do men say that I am? And they gave a bunch of

answers. This is our guess. That's our guess. Vegas is saying this and that. It's all wrong. And Peter said, you are the Christ's son of the living God. And Jesus said, blessed are you, Simon Barjona for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. But my father, who is in heaven and upon this rock, I'll build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail. And so this church built on Peter oversees this almost mythological shaft down where the temple was originally built, you know, down to Hades at that point. the presence of God stops the work of the enemy. Well, it isn't a Hades like that anymore.

There's hell. But the work of hell prevails in the world today, and the church can deal with this. And so that issue of evil not prevailing is very much attached to the papacy. It really is. Now, here's another thing that I think is very exciting about the Holy Father. And I wanted to share this with you. You know, when you look at a pope, people ask me all the time, well, what do you think about this pope? choice that the College of Cardinals made and you can never really look at it in silos you know you have

to look at it as a long narrative that god may be putting together in the church and when he took the name leo the 14th 267th pope immediately i thought of leo the 13th and no doubt he did too he didn't just choose the name because it sounded good or he had a dog called leo growing up or something like that he picked Pope Leo the 13th to succeed that name. Why? Well, Pope Leo the 13th was really a pope of social doctrines and one who had a voice as far as the church in the world. Okay. And he wrote a very, very significant document called Providentissimo Deus, the most provident God. And in that document, he focuses on sacred scripture. And it's one of the main scriptures. And it's one of the main scriptures in the last 125 years in the church providentismus deus and divino afflante spiritu and

and pope benedict came out with a significant one and in vatican two we also have a significant documents that guide us in the direction of bible study and that's why i was particularly excited about this because what pope leo the 13th was doing was that he was back then focusing on sacred scripture and the interpretation of scripture in light of the modern setting. And that leads me then to John the 23rd, who saw that the world was changing, and he called Vatican 2. He died, and Pope Paul the 6th took over. When he died, Pope John Paul the first, then Pope John Paul the second, who was part of writing a document in Vatican 2 called Gaudiomitspez, the church in the modern world. And it was John the 23rd who called Vatican 2 because the world

was changing so much. And we needed to figure out how do we have a voice in this changing world? So in some ways I see Pope Leo the 14th as following up and I guess you would say doing that again, figuring out how does this church remain relevant in this changing world. That doesn't mean that we change because you can't change the teachings of Jesus. But how do we adapt and how is this message get out? How do we become missionaries? How do we bring hope to the world? So I see this as being incredible, a really, really interesting twist to be sure. And if you are like me and thousands of people in St. Peter's Square, I was silent for almost two minutes. I mean, what did I hear? Did what? And then we realized what we got and everything starts to sink in. Let's pray now for Pope Leo the 14th and that

he knows well the condition of the flocks and he will, I believe, be a tremendous blessing to our church. That's all I wanted to share with you today. I'm going to get back to some of the coverage, and next week I hope to have more for you. But I wanted to share this moment with you. I love you. And I do pray that this new pontificate will really be a blessing in your life, and your family's life. That is wonderful, isn't it? I love those words, Habemos, Popham. We have a father. Oh, I wanted to say one other thing. You see the looks in the people's faces standing around St. Peter's Square? That's not the look of politics, by the way. That's the look of children.

That's a look of people who need a father. That's the look of people who want to be loved and know what life is all about. That's what the papacy is, not politics. It's familial. It is a family. God bless you, my friend. I love you. Really looking forward to talking to you next week.