Even veteran politicians with practiced media savvy, honed under the most ruthlessly challenging conditions, and and who have forged strong relationships with the scribblers in the press corps who follow them, occasionally get caught flat-footed and tongue-tied.

That’s not exactly what happened to Pope Leo XIV earlier this week, when he decided to take a question in English from EWTN’s Valentina Di Donato, after answering queries from other reporters in an informal and spur-of-the-moment gathering – we call it a “gaggle” in the trade – outside the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.

Leo XIV had already fielded questions on several major issues.

He addressed the 20-point Trump-Netanyahu peace proposal for Gaza unveiled this week, to name one, calling it “realistic” and saying, “We hope Hamas accepts within the established timeframe.”

The headline, in other words, could have been: Pope backs Trump Peace Plan for Gaza. In fact, that was the gist of the headline on the official Vatican News website, but not in the English-speaking Catholic world, where it was some variation on Pope Weighs in on Durbin Controversy (hours before senator declines award).

In case you missed it, the Archdiocese of Chicago in the second half of September announced plans to present Sen. Dick Durbin (D – IL) with a “Lifetime Achievement Award” at a November 3 benefit gala for the archdiocesan immigration charity, Keep Hope Alive. The announcement sparked a major backlash, owing to Durbin’s prominence as a nationally known Catholic politician with a record of staunch support for legal abortion.

Several bishops – close to a dozen, led by Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, IL, which happens to be a suffragan diocese of Chicago – issued statements and granted interviews decrying the decision to honor the 81-year-old Durbin with a lifetime achievement award, even one unrelated to his abortion record but motivated by his leadership on immigration and the rights and dignity of immigrants.

In his own statement in the early days of the controversy, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago defended the choice of Durbin as an exercise in “dialogue,” saying the award would recognize “all the critically important contributions Senator Durbin has taken to advance Catholic social teaching in the areas of immigration, the care of the poor, Laudato Si’, and world peace.”

The story had been playing in the US Catholic press for well over a week when the pope took the question from Di Donato – who, for abundance of clarity on the point, was just doing her job – so, it wasn’t a “gotcha” moment or a “doorstep” occasion (when a journalist catches a subject unawares, in a situation in which one would perhaps expect not to be accosted).

“I just wanted to ask one thing that has become a bit of a divisive subject in the U.S. right now,” Di Donato began. “With Cardinal Cupich giving an award to Senator Durbin, some people of faith are having a hard time with understanding this because he is pro-, or rather, he’s for legalized abortion,” she continued.

“How would you help people of faith right now decipher that, feel about that,” she asked, “ and how do you feel about that?”

In answer, Leo XIV said he was “not terribly familiar with the particular case,” and could have left it at that, after noting that “it’s very important to look at the overall work that a senator has done during, if I’m not mistaken, 40 years of service in the US Senate,” and saying he understands “the difficulty and the tensions,” but thinks it “important to look at many issues that are related to what is the teaching of the Church.”

Then, Leo offered, “Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion,’ but says, ‘I’m in favor of the death penalty,’ is not really pro-life.” After that, he offered, “Someone who says that I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants here in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”

“They’re very complex issues,” Leo said, adding, “I don’t know if anyone has all the truth on them.”

“I would ask, first and foremost,” Leo said, “that there be greater respect for one another and that we search together, both as human beings, in that case as American citizens or citizens of the state of Illinois, as well as Catholics, to say we need to really look closely at all of these ethical issues and to find the way forward as Church.”

“Church teaching on each one of those issues is very clear,” Leo said.

Without entering at all into the merits, Leo – it is fair to say – did not so much dip his toe into a specific controversy, as he did grab the third rail of US politics and Catholic discourse with both hands.

In what was perhaps an ironic twist, news that Durbin would be declining the award appeared mere hours after Leo XIV’s remarks began making the rounds, giving the chattering classes several days’ worth of grist for their mill.

Leo XIV has been very generous with reporters waiting for him outside the Villa Barberini in Castel Gandolfo, but the scribblers have a job to do, and the pope’s words – even and perhaps especially when they are off-the-cuff filler meant as temporizing lines – are fair game, and sometimes they become the story.

By the way, Leo’s answers to the other questions were careful and calibrated. They were amply newsworthy, and they offered what could fairly be called a master class in press relations.

About the aid flotilla currently trying to reach Gaza, Leo noted the “desire to respond to a real humanitarian emergency” and hoped there would be “no violence and that people are respected.”

Leo XIV also answered a question about this week’s highly unusual gathering of senior US military leaders at the behest of US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, at which both Hegseth and US President Donald Trump waxed bellicose – with discussion of nuclear weapons and the deployment of US forces in US cities – before stone-faced officers and their aides. who offered no applause (a rule of etiquette and protocol stemming from the military’s commitment to civilian control and unwillingness to engage in politics).

“This way of speaking is worrying,” Leo said. “We hope it is just rhetoric,” he added, noting how it suggests a mode of governance “that uses force to exert pressure.”

Leo also addressed perhaps the biggest governance issue facing his still very new pontificate: Justice and the rule of law in the Vatican.

Asked about the ongoing trial in the Vatican City criminal court over the management of funds held by the Secretariat of State of the Holy See, which saw the conviction of Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu and has now entered the appellate phase, Leo said he “does not intend to interfere,” and that the trial “must proceed” with the lawyers and judges doing their work as best they can.

Come to think of it, any of those could have been the story lead – and perhaps they would have received more attention in the worldwide media if Leo had addressed them in English – but sometimes, that’s just not how it shakes out.

As the Romans say, Hai voluto la bici? Mo’, pedala! which literally says, “You wanted the bike? Well, now pedal!” and means, “You asked for it, you get it.”

This hack, veteran of the beat though he is, would not dream of giving Leo advice on how to handle such situations, let alone how to govern the Church.

He is old enough to remember when Benedict XVI made French President Nicolas Sarkozy – who supported the liberal French status quo regarding legal abortion during his political life – an honorary canon of the Lateran basilica.

That is something Catholics in the US – on both sides of the recent kerfuffle – would perhaps do well to consider.

Follow Chris Altieri on X: @craltieri