Supremacy among Americans on Earth is presently held by Trump and Pope Leo, whose leadership extends across distinct functions and spheres.

The respective inaugural public utterances of two freshly installed global figures of American provenance—one, a political potentate, exhorted, "Fight!"; the other, a spiritual prelate, invoked, "Peace."

The chasm separating President Donald Trump and the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV is profoundly apparent across political, personal, and ideological spheres, reflecting their disparate leadership functions and domains.

However, Leo's unprecedented election last week as the first U.S.-born pontiff to shepherd the world's 1.4 billion Catholics precipitates a scenario where the two most consequential figures globally are now Americans, a circumstance that occasions profound inquiry into the reach of American hegemony amidst a period when Trump's protectionist tariffs and veiled menaces have fundamentally dislocated eight decades of established international equilibrium, simultaneously fostering an erosion of confidence amongst traditional allies of the United States.

The apprehension concerning the potential undue influence of American geopolitical clout is broadly acknowledged as a contributing factor explaining the historical absence of an American prelate from the pontificate throughout the United States' nearly quarter-millennium existence, a pattern definitively broken only recently with the elevation of the erstwhile Cardinal Robert F. Prevost of Chicago — Pope Leo XIV — to the 267th papacy.

"The inherent paradox of Leo's electoral triumph lies in the widespread perception, particularly beyond American borders, of his presidency as a beacon of optimism—a figure capable of articulating their aspirations rather than subverting them," posited David Gibson, at the helm of Fordham University's esteemed Center on Religion and Culture.

Pontiff Leo represents a unique facet of the American presence on the global stage.

The astonishment and elation surrounding the relatively obscure cardinal’s elevation to the papacy rapidly transmuted into fervent debate concerning the potential for two Americans to occupy the apex of the global hierarchical structure.

Indicative of his "America First" foreign policy posture, Trump is notoriously disinclined towards the apportionment of eminence or pre-eminence, a trait discernible in the electoral comportment of American Catholics who favored him over his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris.

In what seemingly amounted to a sop to that constituency, Trump disseminated an AI-fabricated likeness of himself assuming pontifical vestments during the period of mourning following the demise of Pope Francis on April 21st, a gesture that elicited disapprobation from certain segments of the Catholic and Italian populace. Trump disavowed personal culpability for the image's dissemination, contending that those who took umbrage lacked a sense of humour and asserting, without qualification, that the Catholic community had found it entirely agreeable.

Nevertheless, Trump extended felicitations to Leo and deemed it an “exquisite privilege” that the nascent pontiff was American.

Concomitantly, Pope Leo may be viewed, in certain respects, as a political figure in his own right, distinguished by his placid demeanour and his pre-conclave strategy of engaging his cardinal peers in intimate, deliberative assemblies, according to sources. Although a native of Chicago, Leo — at the time Prevost — dedicated two decades to missionary work in Peru prior to his elevation by Pope Francis in 2023 to head the influential Vatican dicastery responsible for vetting episcopal candidates globally.

He would not be the progenitor among pontiffs to engage in geopolitical discourse. Pope John Paul II, inter alia, is justifiably lauded for his instrumental role in dismantling communism. However, Leo assumes the papacy having already publicly censured Vice President JD Vance, the pre-eminent Catholic figure in American political circles, via social media platforms. Leo finds himself in diametrical opposition to the administration on salient policy matters such as immigration — a cornerstone of Trump's agenda — and environmental stewardship.

Much like Trump, Leo has pivotally engaged with the media landscape, articulating on Monday in Vatican City a fervent plea for the emancipation of incarcerated journalists and underscoring the imperative mandate incumbent upon “all of us to safeguard the invaluable bequest of unimpeded discourse and journalistic liberty,” an approach starkly juxtaposed against Trump’s habitually confrontational stance towards the press, evinced across the spectrum from presidential pronouncements to litigative entanglements.

Trump and Pope Leo occupy distinct leadership paradigms.

In the nascent stages of February, Leo — at that juncture, still Prevost — disseminated a piece from a Catholic periodical titled, “JD Vance errs: Christ does not enjoin us to hierarchise our affection for humanity.”

This development transpired mere days subsequent to Vance, a proselyte to Catholicism, expounding upon immigration during a Fox News colloquy by alluding to a Christian precept positing a hierarchical affection, commencing with familial love, successively embracing one's neighbours, community, and compatriots, before finally extending consideration, albeit with a lower priority, to the global populace.

Addressing a multitude in St. Peter's Square, Leo expounded in Italian upon a divergent paradigm for the Church and interpersonal relationships: "Our imperative is to constitute a Church that collaborates synergistically to construct conduits of understanding and maintain an ethos of radical openness, akin to the embracing expanse of this very piazza, in its welcoming posture."

Vance posited the papacy's transcendence over the ephemeral domains of politics and social media, remarking upon the inherent difficulty in circumscribing a bimillennial institution within the exigencies of 2025 American political discourse, and advocating for the greater collective good derived from permitting the Church to focus on its salvific mandate.

Simultaneously with Leo's ascent, Trump's rise epitomises the nexus where the sacred intersects with the secular, posited Steven Millies, the director of The Bernardin Center at Chicago's Catholic Theological Union, who further expounded that religion and politics find themselves in discordant juxtaposition owing to their disparate teleological orientations.

“Francis and Cardinal Prevost were engaged in the episcopal vocation — disseminating the Gospel and underscoring its unwavering alignment with the impoverished, the afflicted, and the suffering,” averred Millies via electronic mail. “Such concerns fall outside Trump’s purview, whether in his capacity as president, reality television persona, or entrepreneur.”

To what extent is Pope Leo's Weltanschauung congruent with American paradigms?

Scholars posit that Leo's protracted tenure in Peru, a nation of which he holds dual citizenship, endows him with a panoramic perspective on humanity, power, religion, and politics.

Beyond the discernible disparity in temperament between Leo and Trump, expectations are that Leo's exercise of authority will diverge significantly — prioritizing, for instance, the most marginalized populations, in stark contrast to Trump's policy of curtailing American assistance. Notably absent from Leo's inaugural address were any allusions to his American heritage or indeed, the use of the English language, an omission interpreted by some Vatican observers as emblematic of his internationally-oriented agenda.

According to Raul Zegarra, an assistant professor of Roman Catholic theological studies at Harvard Divinity School, while acknowledging the factual accuracy of Leo's status as the inaugural U.S.-born pontiff, a more compelling perspective situates him as the second pope originating from the Americas, a framing that subverts insular 'America first' paradigms and instead posits a more integrated regional conception, mirroring Pope Francis's precedent in positioning the region's demographic and cultural axis within the global south.

This concatenation of factors underscores a pontiff who apprehends global custodianship through colloquy rather than seclusion; one who perceives authority via ministration, as opposed to subjugation," he averred. "It is arduous to envision a more stark dichotomy with the incumbent administration in the United States."

Certain American cardinals, in their discourse, would posit that Leo's style and worldview are markedly non-American, and that his American provenance had negligible, if any, influence on his elevation to the papacy; nonetheless, Trump's presence cast a palpable shadow over the proceedings.

At a press conference, six American cardinals who had participated in the conclave took the stage as "Born in the USA" and "American Pie" resounded from loudspeakers, whereupon, in turn, they collectively sought to diminish the significance of Leo’s American background, with one citing a circulating aphorism that characterized Leo as “the least American of the American” cardinals, and several expressing their anticipation that Leo would function as a “bridge-builder” with the Trump administration, thereby fulfilling the etymological sense of the Latin term “pontiff.”

Queried as to whether the cardinals had elected Leo as a counterpoise to Trump, a number responded negatively.

"I scarcely apprehend that my fellow cardinals would have considered him as a counterpoise to any single individual," remarked Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York.

Manifestly, the cardinals were acutely cognizant of developments unfolding within the United States, pronouncements issued, and policy decisions enacted," remarked Wilton Gregory, archbishop emeritus of Washington. "Nevertheless," he added, "the conclave's raison d'être lay in selecting 'who among us' possessed the capacity to buttress the faith."

Millies posited: “The global community need not dread a pontiff of American provenance. Contrapositively, being ‘the least American of the Americans,’ he stands unsullied by our contemporary political landscape, thus potentially appearing more palatable even whilst, concurrently, embodying an American intimately acquainted with this nation’s more laudable attributes.”

The substantive content of this report was significantly enriched through the invaluable contributions of Darlene Superville, a distinguished correspondent for the Associated Press stationed in Washington.