This week’s midterm elections were historic not only because of what The New York Times’ front-page headline called voters’ “forceful rebuke” of President Trump but also because they were the first U.S. elections in which a pope voted. In fact, they may be the first democratic elections in which any sitting pope has voted: Vaticanist Iacopo Scaramuzzi of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica told Italian-language publication La Voce di New York that he did not believe any of the Italian popes up to 1978 voted in Italian elections, “not even Montini, Pope Paul VI, who was a close friend of [Italian prime minister] Aldo Moro.” There is also no evidence that Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI or Francis ever voted in their home countries’ elections after becoming pope.

After some praiseworthy reporting by Chicago Sun-Times journalist Tina Sfondeles revealed that one Robert Prevost had requested a mail-in ballot from Will County, Ill., the Vatican issued a statement saying Pope Leo had “exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen, whenever he was eligible to do so. The Holy See Press Office confirms that in keeping with this long-standing practice of civic participation, he has submitted his mail-in ballot in Chicago.”

They added that “during his years of residence in Peru he exercised his right to vote whenever he was eligible to do so,” drawing the distinction between his years living in Peru versus Italy because, while he remained eligible to vote in this year’s Peruvian elections, he would have had to travel to Peru to vote there as he had not yet updated the address on his Peruvian ID card.

The Vatican’s statement framed the pope’s voting as an expression of “his belief in the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes.” The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops quickly backed the pope’s decision, saying, “In voting, our Holy Father sets the example that encourages each citizen to exercise their civic responsibility.” However, commentaries that have emerged this week suggest that Leo exercising his civic duty may conflict with a more important commitment: a pope’s duty not to take sides in partisan national politics.

Robert Prevost, it should be said, has voted in both Republican and Democratic primaries and in general elections in 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2024, the Sun-Times reported. Other sources have reported that Prevost voted in Peruvian elections while serving as bishop there, a position that required him to become a Peruvian citizen.

But with his decision to vote after becoming pope, church historian Massimo Faggioli wrote in Commonweal, “a threshold has been crossed.”

“The pope ought to be—and must appear, beyond any shadow of a doubt—super partes, standing above all political parties, which by definition is incompatible with voting,” he wrote. Other commentaries echoed this concern, including Chris Altieri’s in Crux.

Other commentators treated the issue from a legal angle, saying that while the pope was certainly allowed to vote, the ability of a foreign leader to vote in a U.S. election could represent an important loophole to be closed: In FOX opinion, Jonathan Turley examined the relevant guidance for U.S. citizens and dual citizens residing abroad and working for foreign governments, pointing out that while individuals in that situation can vote, none of the guidance anticipated that a U.S. citizen might serve as a foreign head of state. An op-ed in the Washington Examiner takes a similar tack, saying that the problem is with the U.S.’s framework for citizenship, not with the pope’s individual decision to vote.

In addressing the pope’s personal decision, though, many commentators—secular and otherwise—have invoked Pope Leo’s at least twice-repeated joke separating Prevost from Leo. Asked his opinion on Spanish soccer teams en route to Spain this summer, Leo joked, “The pope is for all teams, but Prevost is Real Madrid.” Ahead of this week’s Notre Dame-Villanova game played in Rome, the pope again joked about his allegiances to an audience from both schools, saying, “The pope doesn’t take sides. Prevost has another opinion.”

It seems a bit presumptuous to assume that Leo’s logic on sports—separating Leo from Prevost—carries over to his approach to his responsibilities as a head of state and citizen of multiple democratic countries. Still, on a simple, literal level, it is true: The ballot was addressed to Robert Francis Prevost, not Pope Leo XIV.

On America’s “Jesuitical” podcast this week, former Vatican correspondent Christopher White argues that there is recent precedent for a pope treating his current and former identities as co-existing: Pope Benedict XVI famously published his “Jesus” trilogy under the name Josef Ratzinger, a decision that garnered criticism at the time, but one that illustrated an important distinction. Benedict, in treating the papacy as an office he held rather than as a new identity, created the rational framework that would then allow him to resign, becoming the first pope in 600 years to do so.

What exactly is Leo’s opinion on the position of the pope and whether it completely subsumes his identity? It is possible he will comment further on the separation or integration on his flight to Latin America this Friday—he will certainly be asked about the U.S. midterms. But the more interesting question to me is how far the distinction between Leo and Prevost goes in Leo’s psyche.

For lack of better comparisons (we’ve already talked about past popes, after all), I’ve been thinking a lot this week about famous dual-identity figures, all of whom are fictional. Growing up as a millennial American, my first thought was about Hannah Montana, the regular girl by day, pop star by night portrayed by Miley Cyrus on the Disney Channel from 2006 to 2011. Struggling constantly to keep her superstar life separate from her private life, she ultimately retires Hannah Montana, hanging up her blonde wig to attend college at Stanford. (You didn’t see this column becoming a place to argue that Hannah Montana took the “Pope Benedict Option,” did you?)

That kind of clean break, though, is less common for the angsty superheroes of American cartoons. Spider-Man and Superman both meet various endings depending on which comic strip or show you choose to accept as canon: In several versions of Superman, Clark Kent reveals his secret identity to the world, permanently fusing his two identities; in another comic, he exposes himself to kryptonite, completely stripping his powers and taking on a new human identity; in another, noncanonical ending (All-Star Superman), Superman absorbs too much solar radiation and leaves Earth—and his human identity—to live inside the sun, keeping it burning forever.

While Leo/Prevost is obviously a different dynamic than the secret identities of popular culture, our constant cultural exploration of how to integrate a dual identity does seem to evince an inherent untenability. How Leo will choose to balance or synthesize these identities is something he may still be working out himself.

Colleen Dulle is the Vatican Correspondent at America and co-hosts the "Inside the Vatican" podcast. She is the author of Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter (Image, 2025).