For Richard Rodriguez there is nothing abstract about faith. It is grounded in the concreteness of his lived experience, in the priests who nurtured his intellectual growth or offered mass to his aging mother, in the Latin phrases that sounded “sort of Spanish” to his childhood ears in Sacramento, where he grew up, and in the kneeling African parishioner who attends morning mass and, for Rodriguez, embodies the future of his faith. As the Cardinals gather in Rome to select Pope Francis’ successor, Rodriguez reflects on the emergence of a “Church Universal” and what it means for an America enthralled to Trump. (This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. It has been updated with additional remarks on the selection on Thursday, May 8 of Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, the first American to be elected pope.)
Your faith has always been an enigma to me? I’ve never understood it.
Your puzzlement about Catholicism has always been an enigma to me.
Well, I can tell you. Sitting in church as a kid, listening to the priests, their words fell flat. I didn’t know who they were speaking to, or what they were speaking about. It felt irrelevant.
The fact is Christianity is in decline in the US. I go to church every Sunday at 7 o’clock in the morning. And the majority of the people in the church are at least middle aged. And it’s not very friendly. Cardinal Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV’s own parish in Chicago closed because they couldn’t fill the pews.
I was an altar boy in Sacramento, and very, very attentive to the ritual. I loved the ritual. It still comes to me, the first lines that I would speak (in Latin): “I will go to the altar of God, the God who gives joy to my youth.” That was the response I would give at the beginning of mass. I didn’t have anything in Sacramento. I had a paper route. And suddenly I was in the middle of this centuries-old ritual, speaking a language that was sort of Spanish, but was much more intricate, because it was religious language. How do I replace that institution? There is nothing like that right now.
You’ve written that education was your way out of Sacramento. It sounds like religion was also a way out of sorts.
Yes, and then it failed me. I loved Latin. I loved learning Latin, I loved speaking it, praying in it. And then it was gone. The Church, for good reason, realized it was becoming something much more than a European Church, more than a medieval Church. And it needed the vernacular. But the Church that I loved was gone.
What does the Church need now?
Pope Francis was the first step in a movement away from Rome. John Paul was Polish. And he had already broken that cycle of the Italian Pope. Little by little, step by step, the Church saw itself as more than a Roman Church. It saw itself as a Latin American Church, an African Church. Choosing Francis was a first step in recognizing itself as something more than a European Church. Now it’s true Francis came from an Italian immigrant family in Buenos Aires. But nonetheless he was a Latin American Pope. Francis gave the Church that idea of itself. Because of his time as a missionary in Peru, along with his formative youth in the south side of Chicago, Pope Leo is our first Pope of the Americas.
You predicted the next pope may come from Africa or Asia. Instead the cardinals chose an American. Are you surprised?
I was, like many other Catholics, wrong. I had been hoping that Francis’s successor might come from a non-European country or culture. I was rooting for an Asian, perhaps Korean or Vietnamese. And better, I hoped for the Cardinal of Jerusalem (also Gaza and Jordan). But I am more than pleased that Cardinal Prevost spent most of his life in foreign lands. It was thrilling to hear a son of Chicago speak elegant Spanish. He is a protege of Pope Francis and a defender of migrants. The village where he lived in Peru was a poor village. So he understands the yearning of the young to seek the future in a foreign land. Clearly the ethos of the Catholic Church is transnational. The ancient church was Roman because Rome was the center of the world. The new Catholic Church of Francis and Leo sees itself as globalized out from Rome and of many tongues.
And yet you lament the loss of Latin. Do you lament the loss of Rome?
To some degree, I do. There is a man that comes into the 7AM mass. He’s a young man, African. He goes down on his knees and prays to all four corners of the church. Everyone knows him. I guess he’s in his early 30s. When the host is raised, it’s almost like an Evangelical Church. His hands held high. I wouldn’t mind that Church. Right now, the growth of the Church is in Africa. There’s nothing like it in the US or in Europe, where it is dying. I like that notion of the Church Universal very much.
Francis’ legacy on women in the Church is mixed. What role do women have in this Church Universal?
I was giving a talk in Alaska a few years ago… and the anger of the women toward religion generally, and toward Catholicism specifically was really fierce. I realize there are two religions now, the male religion and the female religion. And the women feel excluded… angered the Church will not let them be priests. I do think there is some profound disunity now between men and women. I looked out at the crowds at the piazza in Rome (following Francis’ death). The number of nuns out there, very impressive. But they take no role in the public disposition of the Pope’s body. It’s all done by men. But these are stories in progress. We’re in the middle of a novel. We’re not at the end of the novel. I think women are going to revolutionize the world of your son.
Francis came closer than any previous pope in word and gesture to the LGBTQ community. Pope Leo has signaled a less open attitude. Does that worry you?
I am always aware that the Church could turn itself against me. I see my relationship to the Church as one of conversion. I am converting the Church. I gave a speech in Chicago some years ago that caused some scandal and raised eyebrows about homosexuality in the Church and how the Church doesn’t want to recognize it. We pay off these enormous legal settlements, but no one ever says, who were these men? And what should we learn from this? Are they merely sinners, or do they suggest the Church is so corrupted by its silence and its lack of sophistication about homosexuality… we would rather pay the lawyers then have to ask questions. That worries me. The Church was always very good about facing how sinful we are. But it will not talk about its own sin. And it will not take any lessons from it.
Some might say the same of this country. Does America need the Church?
We have Donald Trump, and we have Marjorie Taylor Greene. When she heard Pope Francis had died, she posted that evil had finally been erased from the Earth. She was raised Catholic and hated the Church, said it was run by Satan. And then there was an outcry, so she took the post down. She is as negative about the Church as it is possible to be. Evil is everywhere in the Church for her. That interests me. She interests me.
Her response doesn’t repulse you?
Oh yes, it does. But it interests me that she soldiers on. I am not a sectarian. I am not only interested in Catholics. But I am a Catholic. And I recognize Francis. My parents would recognize Francis. His amiability. We’ve seen him before. When my mom was older, Father Al Huerta would come over. There were several Pacific Islander women caring for my mom at the time. They were all Mormon. Al would set up communion on the card table. He would do mass. And he would insist they take communion. That’s what I miss, that generosity of spirit.
Do you think Pope Leo might help revive that same generosity of spirit in this country?
This country is a mess. The moral laziness in America right now… that interests me. Pope Leo is understandably impatient with MAGA nationalism. He was horrified by the Catholicism of Vice President Vance. That there could be people who admire Donald Trump so much, who regard him as a spiritual teacher. Who regard him as a holy man, even Christlike. I don’t understand that. I don’t recognize this country. And I think, maybe I never understood it all along. And for me, that is a serious admission. Because it was my job to understand it. And now I don’t.
Author and essayist Richard Rodriguez has written extensively on issues of language, learning and identity. His most recent book, “Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography,” explores the intersections between religion, place and sexuality in the wake of 9/11. He lives in San Francisco with his partner of more than 50 years.
