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Comment by bbor | Hacker News Reader

For what it’s worth, I was just reading that Leo wasn’t seen as “completely” American due to his many years in Peru — he’s even a citizen. Take that as you will.

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Americans will say they are Italian because their great grandma ate spaghetti once, but God forbid someone is American because he was born there

Well, Trump is trying to prove otherwise. I guess this would be one of the few backfires if such an act did make it through.

When the war comes, dual citizenship might become complicated. Certainly a pope cannot be a citizen, but for others.

GP is right, he is not "completely" American in the sense that he is both American and Peruvian because of his dual citizenship. He also spent most of his life outside of the USA.

Which I think is a great thing as the representative of a worldwide religion. Born in the US, an English-speaking country in North America, lived in Peru, a Spanish-speaking country in the South America, then in Italy, an Italian-speaking country in Europe.

he is completely US American because he was born and raised there and studied there, maths and philosophy amongst other things.

and in addition he is also Peruvian.

so he's more than American. hyper American if you will. and now he's the head of state of the Vatican, too.

a triple whopper of sorts ;-)

Definitely a "yes, and" thing. I'm working on dual citizenship and I would not consider myself "less American" once I got it.

You can't study maths in America. There is only one math in America.

There are many sports though.

loool TIL

my cheap excuse is that Europeans learn en-uk ;-)

> he is not "completely" American

As for being completely American: dual citizen of U.S. and another country here. On each April 15, the U.S. still considers me completely American even though I haven’t earned a cent there in over a decade. So in an official sense, that moniker sticks to you like Super Glue.

Granted, the new pope may have a wider scope of cultural influences than many, if not a majority of Americans, it sounds like his formative years were spent in the U.S. so I’d call him American.

There’s a really interesting question here. Will the USA claim the right to tax the new pontiff? Likely answer is no, but legally the statute suggests yes. But who knows? There’s never before been a US citizen who is also a foreign sovereign.

Éamon de Valera (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89amon_de_Valera), US citizen and President of Ireland.

> There’s never before been a US citizen who is also a foreign sovereign.

Éamon de Valera was born in New York City in 1882, and served as President of Ireland from 1959 to 1973

Bhumibol Adulyadej was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1927, and served as King of Thailand from 1946 until his death in 2016

That’s just two US-born individuals who became head of state of another country, there may be more.

I assume both were US citizens at birth (de Valera was born into poverty, abandoned by his Spanish father, reputedly an artist; Bhumibol‘s father was a student at Harvard)-whether or not they ever formally renounced their US citizenship, I don’t know

> there may be more.

> Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born on 19 June 1964 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City

Not a foreign sovereign - Boris Johnson was never head of state, only head of government - a distinction often forgotten in countries like the US which merge those two offices into one. (Which is not about the UK being a monarchy-parliamentary republics such as Ireland, Malta, Germany, Austria, Israel, keep the two distinct)

I was wondering whether Wikipedia would comment. They don't, but somebody already edited Bhumibol's article to say that "His father was enrolled in the public health program at Harvard University, which is why Bhumibol was the only monarch to be born in the US until the 2025 papal conclave elected Pope Leo XIV."

There are some sources indicating that children of foreign sovereigns would be exempt from automatic citizenship, but Bhumibol's father wasn't the king, just the king's brother.

Éamon de Valera's case is unambiguous.

There are surely other world leaders who spent significant time in the US - Benjamin Netanyahu spent some time in the Philadelphia area as a child, for example. And a little bit of research turns up Naftali Bennett, prime minister of Israel in 2021-22 - he was a US citizen (born in Israel to US citizen parents) until he had to renounce his US citizenship when elected to the Knesset.

Famously Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel (which is a largely ceremonial post), which presumably would have come with Israeli citizenship, but he turned it down.

I believe King Rama IX was not technically a U.S. citizen because his parents were considered foreign diplomats. In any case he never tried to claim citizenship and was only ever considered Thai.

So, a foreign prince (not the King, his brother) enrols as a student at Harvard - would he be considered a “foreign diplomat”? He wasn’t formally acting as a diplomat, and unless he happened to be officially accredited to the State Department as one, I doubt he would have technically counted as one either. Was he present in the US on a diplomatic/consular visa, or a student visa?

Also, in most countries (the US included), one’s status as a citizen/national is legally independent of whether one tries to “claim” it.

Two things:

1. Does the Pope have significant personal income? 2. Does, which what I think you are getting at, the law apply to a head of state?

> Does the Pope have significant personal income?

Monthly income for pope US$32,000 equivalent.

> Does, which what I think you are getting at, the law apply to a head of state?

I don’t know if he will exempt as head of state, but as ordinary US citizen he will be paying taxes to US as his income exceeds FEIE exemption threshold.

I am not sure that is correct. Different sources show very different amounts.

The $32k seems suspiciously close to the monthly €2,500 reported by other sources multiplied by 12.

There also seems to be some confusion between the assets and income of the pope and the papacy.

I mean, this is supposedly the logic of the electing cardinals, not randos. They intentionally were avoiding an American pope until now, and this was (again, supposedly) a mitigating factor!

Personally I don’t believe in nationalism, so he’s just a dude from Chicago if anything.

    1955 born (chicago)
    1977 seminary grad (chicago)
    1982 ordination (->rome)
    1985 canon law doctor (->peru)
    1999 midwest augustinians (->chicago)
    2001 global augustinians (->rome)
    2015 bishop (->peru)
    2021 dicasterate (->rome)

Seems like he's spent 2 years in the US since he was 27.

At 69 that's pretty close to half of his life, and since it's the early half there is more weight to it as it forms the context from which the rest is understood.

Well, I don't know if it would be fair to compare him to your typical midwest American boomer who's been living in the suburbs since they were 27 and shows up in the middle of the day to protest against apartments going up in their neighborhood.

> the context from which the rest is understood.

What? Speaking from experience, the country you go to after 20s is the one you choose, not the one you were forced to live in. This has a huge factor in your thinking more than the number of years on paper.

On the nature/nature aspect people are already predominantly nature. For the nurture component of the residual the early years are very formative. As an expat who has spent much more of my life outside my country of birth than in it, and knows many other expats who have done the same, from my observation our upbringing still dominates our behavior. It is also a selection criteria bias where expats are more likely to identify with other expats even when not from the same country or residing in the same country which is one of the reasons expats tend to form communities with other expats. The problem with self assessing behavior is that the same biases which determine behavior is used for assessing the behavior where much of what is considered merely normal is ignored leading to over-weighting the size of the unusual component.

But the Church hierarchy probably decided the young priest would be stationed in Peru, not the priest himself.

Sure, but the fact that he stayed there for many many years means that it suited him. If you want the change countries the Church has processes for that.

Wait till you see how long Cardinal Pizzaballa who was viewed as the most likely Italian contender for the Papacy, has spent in the Holy Land and not Italy.

> Cardinal Pizzaballa

Not going to lie, I had to check that this was a real name (it is)

His name makes me super hungry

And I had to look it up to make sure you weren’t both leading me on. Now that’s a spicy surname!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierbattista_Pizzaballa

I have a coworker right now whose name is Carmelo Martini. Seriously, I had to ask him: "did your parents name you after their favorite drink?".

If we're doing funny name corner, I still remember Cardinal Sin (of Manila).

I get the joke but it goes the other way around. Martini is a common family name from the north of Italy (Carmelo is common given name in the south). The drink was named after the name of company producing it (actually half of it.) The company was named Martini because that was the family name of the founder.

The drink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martini_(vermouth)

The company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martini_%26_Rossi

Much like how a first name Mercedes or a last name Ford isn't necessarily a person named after a car. The cars are named after people

Is this the guy they where hoping would take the name Papa John?

That would have been amazing. (And not impossible, there have been plenty of Popes named John.)

Yeah, his full name is even better: Pierbattista Pizzaballa

Personal motto: Sufficit tibi gratia mea ('My grace is sufficient for you')

This guy is a baller.

  2005 world series (chicago)

https://x.com/michaelschwab13/status/1920656687045685562

I think it was Aristotle who said "Give me a child until his mid-twenties, and I will give you a complete American."

even as a joke of Aristotle living 2,000 years before the United States existed, I don't get the comedic affect

It's a play on the popular quote "Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man", attributed to Aristotle

Attributed to Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, although this is disputed.

No the quote is "Show me a child in his mid twenties, and I will show you an american"

He is moderate. Even, with his speech and choice of clothing, somewhat confrontational with Francis.

Traditional papal symbols of Benedict XVI return and that whole speech of “Do not be afraid to evangelize with the truth” gave me a sense of confrontation with the modern ideology.

If Peru gets to claim this pope, then the US gets to claim Tesla, Einstein, etc. lol

Nobody claims the pope. This is a weird take. We are not talking about some sport celebrity.

It’s true that the man was born in the USA and was a bishop in Peru. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Peruvian catholics were happy to have a pope who lived their country.

The Peruvians definitely seem to be happy about it:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/08/pope-leo-xiv-p...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewdl4e57v7o

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/for-us-pope-is-peruvi...

and, unsurprisingly, the Peruvian-Americans:

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/paterson-nj-new-pope-le...

> The Peruvians definitely seem to be happy about it

I don’t really see that from the articles you linked.

It’s all quotes about how the Pope is Peruvian (definitely true as he indeed has the Peruvian nationality) and how Peruvian people feel blessed in that.

Even your last article reinforces that he is a dual citizen with knowledge of both culture which obviously makes people joyful.

I have yet to see people argue if he is more American or more Peruvian apart from here.

I suspect that’s going to be a political talking point sooner, not later.

For what it's worth, Peru is in South America. Still American, Technically.

From reading online comments, I'm starting to believe that those who reside outside the US are more strident defenders of the idea that "US citizens only" = "American" than US citizens themselves.

Not in Central America. We call US citizens "Gringos" Unfortunately, this does carry a variable negative weight.

Now, Latin Americans living in the US proudly call themselves "Americans"

Edit: Albeit long, the correct gentilice for the US is "Estadounidenses" as in "Estados Unidos de América"

> the correct gentilice for the US is "Estadounidenses"

Which nobody uses. (It’s also meaningful to note that I would call myself an American in English but not in Spanish.)

"Estadounidense" is also a bit odd, since there are Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos (the formal name for Mexico). I don't think it is likely to confuse very many people, but still odd.

If you say "Mexico" in Mexico, most people will think you're referring to Mexico City.

Mexico City was "Mexico DF", but was changed years ago to CDMX. That stands for "Ciudad de mexico"

I think there are legal implications. Akin to "Washington District of Columbia"

Decades ago, Mexicans refered to the capital as "el DF" But I dont know about more recently.

Really? Do people call the city just "México", by itself, not "Ciudad de México" or similar?

There is a similar situation in Quebec (the province and its capital city are both just called "Québec" in French, whereas in English we use Quebec/Quebec City). However, there is usually no ambiguity because French grammar requires the definite article for (masculine) names of large territories like countries and provinces, but not for cities. E.g. "Je vais au Québec"[1] = I'm going to Quebec (the province) vs. "Je vais à Québec" = I'm going to Quebec City.

I'm not sure if there is any similar grammatical distinction in Spanish.

1: au is a mandatory contraction for à + le

It could just be people in the area I'm usually in (Yucatan/Q Roo) referring to it that way, but I have heard it from several people.

You mean someoen that lives in the E.U.?

Yes, there's true to that, if only because "we" (latin americans) have given up to that discussion and just don't want to be confused with USA citizens.

I think most people worldwide basically know what you mean when you say American, but are actually referring to a person from the US, via context. It is pragmatic label. They aren’t from the US so they don’t have to worry about some identity based thing or feeling like they are stealing the name from two continents, for their one country.

On the other hand, some of more conscientious people in the US are feeling a little awkward about the name these days. So it isn’t surprising that we’d be the ones objecting.

> some of more conscientious people in the US are feeling a little awkward about the name these days. So it isn’t surprising that we’d be the ones objecting

If the folks who got us into this mess with label obsession move on to something less charged like USian, that’s probably for the net good.

if the language police want to tell Americans what they're allowed to call themselves and expect any actual adoption they had better come up with a better word than "USian". How do you even pronounce that? Oosh-an?

But also sure, telling Americans to rename things, that hasn't caused ANY backlash now resulting in the renaming of huge bodies of water to stupid things, keep up the cultural dictates, it's totally working!

The whole enterprise of constantly renaming things is stuoid. But there are groups on the idiot left (LatinX, USian, xey/xem) and right (freedom fries, Gulf of America) who enjoy it. Between gender and race-based language policing and a nationality-based one, I think the latter is a safer place to constrain them.

I think ultimately we won’t be able to refer to anything without offending somebody, given how polarized the US is. Of course my side’s backlash is totally reasonable, actually, it is an inevitable response that was caused by the other side trying to force some top-down change via the language police.

> some of more conscientious people in the US are feeling a little awkward about the name these days

I guarantee less than 1% of Americans feel like this or are even thinking about the issue at all.

Then Pope Francis was American as well.

"American" in English is the demonym for the US. It doesn't have any other meaning except in rare and unusual circumstances. The fact that it means something different in some other languages doesn't change that fact.

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