What it means for a practising Catholic prime minister to attend the Pope’s inaugural mass

Neil MacCarthy, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Toronto, on what to look out for during Pope Leo’s inaugural mass.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s faith as a practicing Catholic “played into his decision” to attend the new Pope’s inaugural mass, but the weekend trip is also a good opportunity to meet with other world leaders present, a senior government source told CTV News.

Carney is now in Rome, and is expected to have an audience with Pope Leo XIV following that mass. The same government source calls that a “privilege” and, speaking in the context of his faith, an “honour.”

Carney was joined on the plane by his wife Diana Fox Carney, daughter Cleo and a 19-member Canadian delegation of MPs, senators and representatives from Indigenous groups and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

A source told CTV News the MPs in attendance are either themselves Catholics, or have large Catholic populations in their ridings.

Carleton University professor Michael Manulak points out that Carney will be able to participate in Sunday’s mass as a full Roman Catholic, meaning he can receive Communion, which he calls an “important part.”

“He’s a person of faith and so this is a priority, and he’s indicating that,” Manulak said.

He describes Carney’s faith as “one aspect that will underline his tenure as Prime Minister,” but believes it will have less to do with domestic social policy, and more about international affairs and “inequality within the Canadian economy.”

Manulak is one of several experts CTV News spoke to who pointed to common ground between the Pope and the Prime Minister as boding well for a strengthened relationship, even beyond Catholicism itself.

“I think it positions Canada to be a leader in the area of trade, migration, the environment … clear issues that resonate with the Pope,” said Chair of Religious Studies at the University of Waterloo, Scott Kline.

Kline believes the new Pope will end up playing a bigger role as a mediator in some of these issues, as well as in pursuing global peace.

He says Carney is well-positioned to work with the Pope “to really set an international agenda … given his previous experience, both in the U.K. and Canada, leading high-level, complex organizations and bringing people together.”

“He’s there both as Mark Carney and as the Prime Minister,” said Vatican expert and author Michael W. Higgins.

Carney will be “at home, spiritually,” he says.

“And as prime minister, he will be interested in finding points of convergence between Vatican foreign policy and Canadian foreign policy, particularly where they align around global economic equity and particularly planetary sustainability at a time of huge climate upheaval,” said Higgins.

“This is an opportunity for Mr. Carney to show what kind of commitments he has to these major geopolitical issues that I think are plaguing the entire globe,” former Liberal foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy told CTV News.

“I don’t downplay the religious component … the question is, how do you translate that faith into some kind of political agenda?”

Higgins notes that Carney is Canada’s eleventh Catholic Prime Minister, joining Pierre Elliott and Justin Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Joe Clark and Paul Martin, among others.

He says that indicates it’s not a problem for Canadian voters, especially compared to the United States, which has seen controversies in the past over its presidents’ faith.

It was once suggested that former U.S. president John F. Kennedy could take orders from Rome, for example.

Higgins says Carney “wouldn’t be an absolute stranger to the way things work in the Vatican,” pointing to his work with the Council for Inclusive Capitalism with the Vatican. In his statement on the last Pope’s death, Carney referenced that work as well as a 2014 Vatican meeting.

But whether Carney’s personal faith could help further Canadian relations with the Vatican is a more complicated question.

“If there is a Catholic leader or a head of state that hold positions that are relatively reasonable within the Vatican’s level of expectation, having a person who is a practicing Catholic would work to advantage, but it could also work the other way, because Catholic heads of state are heads of state first, their responsibility is to the larger citizenry that elects them,” said Higgins.

“They don’t govern with the creed. They’re not there as agents of proselytizing.”

Higgins says discussions around the “common good” are Canadian priorities as well as Vatican priorities.

“That’s where you find the common ground.”

With files from CTV National News producer Noah Wachter