Live data from Hacker News

First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

cnn.com

691–700 of 1001 posts

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#691
post #605

Many Italian newspapers (example: IlPost) and, I suspect, many non-US media, report this as “the second American Pope, the first from the USA.” Which, I think, is fair, as South and Latin are also America. And so is Canada. And so was Francis. But I usually find it a hard concept to convey to my fellow local USsians.

>to my fellow local USsians. I think you illustrated why the concept exists. USA actually has "America" in its name, unlike others - hence 'Americans' and not 'USsians'.

There are languages in which the equivalent of "US American" isn't uncommon.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#692
post #605

Many Italian newspapers (example: IlPost) and, I suspect, many non-US media, report this as “the second American Pope, the first from the USA.” Which, I think, is fair, as South and Latin are also America. And so is Canada. And so was Francis. But I usually find it a hard concept to convey to my fellow local USsians.

>to my fellow local USsians. I think you illustrated why the concept exists. USA actually has "America" in its name, unlike others - hence 'Americans' and not 'USsians'.

While Americans can mean "from the US", the term "statunitensi" is how people from the US are commonly called in Italy. And in other countries. The two things are not mutually exclusive, and calling Americans for people from the US is just a figure of speech called synecdoche.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#693
post #97

> "Cardinal George of Chicago, of happy memory, was one of my great mentors, and he said: 'Look, until America goes into political decline, there won't be an American pope.' And his point was, if America is kind of running the world politically, culturally, economically, they don't want America running the world religiously. So, I think there's some truth to that, that we're such a superpower and so dominant, they do…

That's an interesting thought but if they're actually that concerned about it then they'd wait longer than four months. It probably has more to do with America's predominant religion being protestantism by a very wife margin for most of the country's existence. We didn't have a Catholic president until Kennedy and even then proving to the common American that Catholics aren't insane Vatican mindslaves was considered…

OTOH, 6 of the 9 supreme court justices are catholic so there might be some influence there although I think the influence is probably more from the somewhat uniquely American brand of conservative Catholicism.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#694
post #645
post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP is right, he is not "completely" American in the sense that he is both American and Peruvian because of his dual citizenship. He also spent most of his life outside of the USA. Which I think is a great thing as the representative of a worldwide religion. Born in the US, an English-speaking country in North America, lived in Peru, a Spanish-speaking country in the South America, then in Italy, an Italian-speaking c…

he is completely US American because he was born and raised there and studied there, maths and philosophy amongst other things. and in addition he is also Peruvian. so he's more than American. hyper American if you will. and now he's the head of state of the Vatican, too. a triple whopper of sorts ;-)

Definitely a "yes, and" thing. I'm working on dual citizenship and I would not consider myself "less American" once I got it.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#695
post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never ceases to amaze me how poorly catechized the majority of cradle Catholics are. I don't intend this to be directed at you, but it's a standing joke among traditionalist Catholics that "I was raised Catholic" is the preamble to a statement of either ignorance or heresy.

Growing up to Scottish and Irish Catholics in England, I remember talking to a bunch of Ulster protestants as a teenager when the topic turned to religion - I said "Well, I was raised Catholic but I'm not really a believer of any kind" and the response was "Ah, so you're one of THOSE Catholics!". Turns out there are a lot of 'those' Catholics.

Don't go to church, but know which church they are not going to.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The prevailing wisdom I'm so sick of prevailing wisdom with people just making shit up just to fill time on 24/7 news coverage and people can have their talking head shows with diverse "views".

This is basically 99% of it, based on two or three datapoints until suddenly it doesn't matter anymore. See: "Can't select an American pope until America is not powerful anymore."

I've seen people state that America isn't powerful anymore and this is proof of that.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#697
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it’s worth, I was just reading that Leo wasn’t seen as “completely” American due to his many years in Peru — he’s even a citizen. Take that as you will.

[flagged]

Not in English. I know in the Spanish speaking world there's a single American continent, but as far as I know across the English speaking world it's taught as two continents, North and South America. We have the term "the Americas" to refer to both.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#699
post #426
post #205

Is Pope Leo eligible to be voted President of the United States?

Is he the first US Citizen to be head of a foreign state or have their been others? Edit: Did some googling and found Toomas Hendrik Ilves was a naturalized US citizen who renounced his citizenship before becoming an Estonian ambassador and later President of Estonia. Not seeing any who actively held US citizenship while being head of state.

Golda Meir was the Prime Minister (head of government) of Israel after having naturalized in the US when she was 19.

Re: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

#700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do Argentinians regularly refer to themselves as Americans? I can't think of the last time I needed to describe myself as being from the continent, but if you really want to call yourselves Americans, I say go for it. People can call themselves whatever they like. Still, I can't help but notice Argentinean newspapers using americano to refer to refer to things from the US.

For the pope, La Nacion and Clarin, the 2 largest newspapers in the country, are referring to him as "Norteamericano"(north american), and "Estadounidense" (USAian?/from the USA). In general, we use north american when referring to the USA. America is used to note the continent, like the south american soccer teams cup, "Copa Libertadores de America" (liberators of America cup).

For the article on the pope, Clarin seems to have used estadounidense, norteamericano and americano to refer to things and people from the US, though americano in reference to "imperialismo americano." Well, I'm assuming that's the US given the mention of the CIA, but perhaps they are referring to some sort of pan-continental imperialism I'm unaware of.

La Nacion uses americano, but has to specify "continente americano" as if simply saying "americano" wouldn't be clear to readers. They otherwise also use estadounidense and norteamericano.

Neither appears to ever use "americano" by itself to refer to people from the continent, but if you're telling me that if you walked up to someone on the street and said you were an American and they would interpret that as you from the continente americano, then I believe you.

I'm still going to use the demonym American for myself (as everyone gets to pick their own demonym in their own language) and use it to refer to people from the US, but if you to call you an American, who am I to say no? You can call yourself an American, I can call myself an American and everyone is happy.

Post reply on HN