Pope Leo XIV Casts Mail-In Ballot in Illinois Election
The Facts
- The Vatican said Friday that Pope Leo XIV submitted a mail-in ballot in Chicago ahead of the Nov. 3 U.S. midterm elections, making the first American-born pontiff the first pope to vote in a U.S. general election. The Vatican did not say how he voted.
- Leo, born Robert Francis Prevost, requested the mail ballot Oct. 3, days before undergoing lung cancer surgery, the Will County clerk's office confirmed. He was released from the hospital Oct. 17 and has been resuming his activities at the Vatican.
- The pope is registered to vote at a New Lenox address in suburban Chicago. Records show he requested Republican primary ballots in 2012, 2014 and 2016 and Democratic ones in 2008 and 2010. Illinois voters do not register by party.
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The Spin
Narrative A
Casting a ballot honors the church's own teaching that citizens carry a moral duty to take part in democracy. An American citizen keeping faith with the ballot box sets a powerful example for anyone who shrugs off elections as somebody else's job. If leading the world's largest religious institution still leaves time to vote, few people have much of an excuse.
Narrative B
The Chair of Saint Peter belongs to the whole world, and mailing a ballot to one country drags the office into a single nation's partisan brawl. Neutrality is the Holy See's great diplomatic asset and hostile regimes will gladly brand Catholics as agents of a foreign power. A head of a sovereign state meddling in another nation's elections is an anomaly no tradition supports.
