May 09, 2025
SIU’s Father Brown: First American pope a leader “this complicated age needs”
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff, will likely carry on the mission of his predecessor and serve as an inspiration to young people to “make a positive difference,” says Father Joseph A. Brown, a professor and coordinator of Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Africana studies program and director of the School of Africana & Multicultural Studies.
Brown was excited by the news that 69-year-old Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, born in 1955 in the south suburban Chicago community of Dolton, was chosen Thursday by the College of Cardinals, the second day of a papal conclave at the Vatican. As the 267th Vicar of Christ, he succeeds Pope Francis, who died April 21 of a stroke at 88 years old.
“I feel quite strongly that his being elected pope will spark increased interest in what Catholicism stands for,” Brown said. “Will he be a ‘second Pope Francis’? Of course not. But he will continue to be a force for protecting the common good of all people everywhere.
“He has had a global ministry for most of his life. That will continue. And I think he will inspire many of our young people to step into the world and make a positive difference, knowing that they are sisters and brothers to everyone.
“I am content in my belief that he will be the leader that this complicated age needs.”
Media availability
Father Joseph A. Brown, a professor and coordinator of SIU Carbondale’s Africana studies program and director of the School of Africana & Multicultural Studies, is available for interviews on Pope Leo XIV. He can be reached at jbrownsj@siu.edu.
Long service in South America
It has been long believed that the Catholic Church, with an estimated 1.4 billion worldwide believers, would not select an American-born cardinal to be pope. But Pope Leo’s global experience and long service in South America as an Augustinian missionary, priest and later bishop of Chiclayo from 2014 to 2023 were likely important factors, Brown said. The new pope holds a dual citizenship in Peru.
Pope Francis called his successor to Rome in 2023 to work closely with him in various capacities, including as head of the church’s Dicastery for Bishops, which oversees selection of new bishops.
Brown said the new pope “strikes me as someone who will continue to call the church and the world to care for the forgotten, abandoned, lost and abused, wherever they are.”
“Some normal controversies will be the focus of much commentary concerning the new pope, most especially what many see as what may be — in contrast to Pope Francis — a less-welcoming perspective to the LGBTQ+ communities,” Brown said.
Being a ‘shepherd among the flock’
Each human performs according to their personality, Brown said. While he doubts Pope Leo will move among crowds in the same manner as Pope Francis, each pontiff “understands his role to be a ‘shepherd among the flock’ and accompany that flock according to what he is most comfortable doing.”
“What interests me the most is the work he did helping Pope Francis populate the Roman Catholic clergy with scores of episcopal leaders,” Brown said. “In his capacity as the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, he did the evaluation of candidates for appointments as bishops across the world.
“That influence will continue to be manifested in how this pope challenges church leadership to be open to all, concerned about social justice issues — in keeping with his predecessor Pope Leo XIII, who wrote about the rights of laborers and the need for social and economic justice in 1891.”
Brown, who was ordained into the priesthood in 1972, has been with SIU Carbondale since 1997, when he began as an associate professor and director of the then-Black American studies program before being promoted to professor in 2000. A native of East St. Louis, Brown earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from St. Louis University and a master’s degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University. He also holds a master’s degree in Afro-American studies and doctorate in American studies from Yale University. In 2023, Brown was one of two inaugural recipients of the SIU System’s Dr. Wesley G. Robinson-McNeese Anti-racism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Lifetime Achievement Award.