But Hicks’ style — more subdued and mirroring Pope Leo — might be what the church and the world needs today.
Consider this: the morning of Hicks’ installation, President Trump was dealing with blowback, even from within his own party, to racist images in a video posted to his social media in the middle of the night; Trump said he did not see the images before they were posted. Later that day, Hicks began his homily in Spanish, praised the multicultural crowd that he said represented the best of New York — and even quoted Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican entertainer whose halftime headlining provoked so much controversy on the political right. (In the end, Bad Bunny used his halftime show to ask for God’s blessing on America and to offer a message of unity: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”)