Today, the College of Cardinals—an elite group of churchmen tasked with selecting the next pope—will enter the Sistine Chapel to begin the election process. Along with discussing the internal needs of the Catholic Church, many are asking what kind of leader they want to navigate a global realignment precipitated by U.S. President Donald Trump.

There have now been three non-Italian pontiffs in a row: a Pole, a German, and an Argentine. The conventional wisdom has been that tapping someone from the world’s largest superpower to head the world’s smallest state has long been seen as a bridge too far, but these are unorthodox times.

Today, the College of Cardinals—an elite group of churchmen tasked with selecting the next pope—will enter the Sistine Chapel to begin the election process. Along with discussing the internal needs of the Catholic Church, many are asking what kind of leader they want to navigate a global realignment precipitated by U.S. President Donald Trump.

There have now been three non-Italian pontiffs in a row: a Pole, a German, and an Argentine. The conventional wisdom has been that tapping someone from the world’s largest superpower to head the world’s smallest state has long been seen as a bridge too far, but these are unorthodox times.

As this college heads into the conclave, it is representative of more countries and cultures than ever before. And with the United States now a diminished superpower, an American who understands and appreciates that diversity could prove to Trump that the papacy is no laughing matter.

For two centuries, the United States  and the Vatican have operated in what Italian journalist Massimo Franco once  termed “parallel empires,” with their own separate spheres of influence.

When John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, anti-Catholic bigotry forced him to assure voters that he wouldn’t be taking advice from the pope if elected as the nation’s first Catholic president. Those fears led him to keep the Vatican at an arm’s length for his first two years in office, but he would later welcome Pope John XXIII’s soft power efforts to stave off nuclear war. President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II offered a united front in their opposition to Soviet-led communism, paving the way for the United States and the Holy See to formally reestablish diplomatic relations in 1984.

Those relations were strained when the Vatican and President George W. Bush’s White House clashed over the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, as the president rebuffed the Polish pope’s plea not to wage war. While Pope Francis largely condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Vatican was uncomfortable with U.S. efforts to escalate the war, and the U.S. support of........

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