VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Cardinal Michael Czerny said he “rejoiced” when Cardinal Robert F. Prevost was elected pope and chose the name Leo XIV, honoring Pope Leo XIII and signaling renewed emphasis on the Church’s social teaching in the face of modern challenges.
“I rejoiced, I really rejoiced,” Cardinal Czerny told Catholic News Service on May 13. “The issue of work is of vital importance to the vast majority of people on the planet,” he said, and Pope Leo XIV has made it clear that labor and dignity are central to his papacy.
Pope Leo XIV chose his name in homage to Pope Leo XIII, who is widely recognized as the father of Catholic social teaching through his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. The new pontiff, Cardinal Czerny said, seeks to renew that tradition for the 21st century, particularly as the world faces a new industrial revolution fueled by artificial intelligence.
“Society doesn’t seem even remotely ready to face this problem—just keep discarding the workers and applauding AI for its innovations,” Czerny said. “But AI is just one example.”
He also pointed to climate change, human rights violations, war, and environmental degradation as forces that are destroying jobs and undermining human dignity globally.
“It’s a huge and threatening problem,” Czerny said. “And I’m very glad Pope Leo has signaled how much the Church cares about this… not only the quality of life, but the very possibility of living a dignified human life.”
Czerny, who leads the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, emphasized the tight link between employment and migration. A lack of stable, meaningful work forces many to migrate, only to discover that “now they are in the same boat with everyone else,” competing for insecure and low-paying jobs.
“Initially, migrants take the jobs no one else wants because they are badly paid, unstable, and unfulfilling,” he noted.
But he warned against nationalist policies aimed at closing borders, calling them misguided and fear-based.
“Closing borders won’t bring back decent jobs, because fewer and fewer of those jobs exist,” he said. “It’s not a position based on reason, but rather on fear and insecurity.”
Reflecting on the U.S. context, Cardinal Czerny offered a sobering assessment.
“What jobs meant in the context of the American Dream was: ‘My kids are going to work and do even better than I am,’” he said. “But that’s over. That is over.”
He criticized the rise of “demagoguery, propaganda, and fake news” that falsely promise prosperity through anti-immigrant rhetoric.
“People are led to believe that throwing out foreigners will restore American prosperity,” he said. “It’s just not true.”
Czerny also reflected on Pope Leo’s decades of ministry in Peru, noting that missionary work is now vital in all parts of the world—not just in so-called “mission territories.”
“Every bishop has poor, marginalized, and exploited people in their diocese,” Czerny said. “It is not easier to be a missionary in Chicago than in Chiclayo.”
When asked how the College of Cardinals elected a new pope so quickly after the death of Pope Francis, Czerny credited the Church’s tradition.
“If we had no procedure, it would have taken months,” he said. “But we were carried by tradition… freed to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit.”
Though Pope Leo XIV made a few stylistic choices—such as wearing the traditional red mozzetta and giving his first blessing in Latin—Czerny urged patience before drawing conclusions about the new pope’s direction.
“These early days are not choreographed,” he said. “He is not using his words to send messages. He is beginning as best he can. If you want to read significance into choices, you’ll need to wait three months, six months, a year.”
