Q Toon: Prevost, Previously

People are, for the most part, applauding the election of Fr. Robert F. Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States (or the second one from South America, as he also shares Peruvian citizenship), and the first one from an Augustinian order.

These days, just about everyone leaves their digital footprints all over the place, and that includes the new head honcho at the Vatican. Father Bob/Pope Leo has voiced his opinions on Twitter/X, so we know, for example, that he disagrees with Vice President Shady Vance's views on how to ration out Christian caritas. 

He strongly criticized Trump and El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for doing nothing to free illegitimately deported and imprisoned Kilmar Abrego Garcia ("Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?"); he also condemned U.S. policy of family separations during Trump's first term.

He has echoed calls for stronger gun control legislation, and opposed abortion.

It should have nothing to do with his Twitter account, but we even know that he voted in Democratic primary races in 2008 and 2010, and Republican presidential primaries in 2012 and 2016.

Drawing cartoons for LGBTQ+ press as I do, I was obliged to find the queer angle to the election of Pope Leo XIV, and this cartoon is it.

When then-priest Robert Prevost criticized western media for fostering pro-LGBTQ sympathies, unsympathetic Benedict XVI was the Pope. Most (but not all) Catholic priests tend to echo the attitudes emanating from the Vatican or they hold their tongues. If Father Bob had opinions about “the homosexual agenda” or same-sex parenting during the papacy of “Who Am I to Judge” Francis, the western media have yet to discover them.

Perhaps someone will find Facebook Messenger chats between him and his older brother, Louis.

Transgender Catholics may have cause to be wary of the new pontiff, who shared on Twitter a December, 2016 article by a Peruvian archbishop in La República attacking "gender ideology" ("an inaccurate term deployed by opponents to undermine and dehumanize transgender and nonbinary people," according to GLAAD). Benedict XVI was three years into his retirement at that point; Francis has been credited with a more accepting embrace of transgender persons.

Leo XIV's opening remarks as Pope offer some hope to LGBTQ+ Catholics, reiterating his immediate predecessor's goal of recreating the Roman Catholic church as a "missionary" institution, "always open to receiving with open arms for everyone, like this square, open to all, to all who need our charity, our presence, dialogue, love."

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Just as I finished inking this cartoon, I noticed a huge, glaring mistake.

I had drawn the cardinal on Leo XIV's right in the first panel and on his left in the second.

During the pencil sketch phase of the drawing, I had been conscious of where Pope Leo and Cardinal Whatsisname had to be in relation to each other when drawn from behind. But somewhere along the line, I got too distracted, trying to figure out what their robes should look like from the rear. And deciding how to draw the hallway that they are walking down.

I've been to the Vatican twice. The first time, our tour group entered by way of a long, slightly sloped hallway with an arched ceiling and decorated with wall tapestries depicting Bible scenes and objets d'art depicting... well, this sort of thing:

The second time, our tour group came up a winding ramp that came to an open arch with a lovely view of Rome. It would have been a much nicer setting for my cartoon.

But I digress.

I stared at my work for a while, trying to decide which panel to redraw. But it was already after midnight, and, after first looking at the cartoon in a mirror, I ultimately to handle the problem in PhotoShop.

This was a mistake I had made once before, in a cartoon depicting a couple watching television on their couch. One panel showed them from behind so the reader could see the TV, and the other showed them from the front  so readers could see their faces. That time, I drew their heads on a separate sheet as they should have been drawn in the second panel, and copied and pasted those heads onto the cartoon in PhotoShop, also redrawing the tail of the dialogue balloon digitally.

For today's cartoon, I decided to flip the first panel, which entailed unflipping the dialogue. Happily, I didn't also have to contend with fixing the part in Pope Leo's hair.