As an African American pastor in the Black Church tradition, there was no way I was going to miss a chance to meet the first American pope. I volunteered to serve as a member of the Chicago mayor’s delegation to meet with Pope Leo in Rome. Thirty-six hours later, I found myself standing face to face with the pontiff in a regal room in the Vatican.
A few minutes earlier he spoke to our group and shared that his mother’s family had migrated north from New Orleans. In our brief one-on-one exchange, I shared that my family had migrated north to Chicago from Mississippi. It was my way of telling him that I understood our unique mutual connection in the American story.
I thanked him for the clarity of his global moral witness. I was convinced that the timing of this pilgrimage to Rome was divine. It was just days after the Pope had issued an apology for the church’s role in the human catastrophe of the transatlantic enslavement of African people that began in the 17th century, the effects of which continue to this day. It was also the week of the reveal of his first encyclical, extolling the doctrine that humanity trumps technology as the most magnificent, sacred creation. The Pontiff’s God-ordained message to the world, “Magnifica Humanitas,” unequivocally declares that technology must serve the needs and interests of the whole of humanity and not the other way around.
There stood the American Pope and the African American pastor, with intense focus, eye to eye, each with unique Southern roots. We each brought to the encounter pride and heaviness, having processed the weight of our histories and the burdens of the present.
It was not lost on me that we were just days from our nation’s Juneteenth 2026 holiday. Our nation’s newest holiday commemorates the June 19, 1865 Galveston, Texas announcement of the abolition of race-based slavery and emancipation from servitude in the United States. It occurs just weeks before the traditional national July 4th Independence Day. This year would commemorate the 250th anniversary of the nation’s birth in 1776.
But July 4th never really represented freedom for all Americans. Native Americans were victims of ongoing campaigns of terror, stolen land, and genocide. Africans were still enslaved. Immigrants from Europe and Asia were still second-class citizens. Women were still disenfranchised and could not vote. It was not until the Civil War ended and the Constitution was amended that all Americans could envision an inclusive, new birth of freedom. It would not be Thomas Jefferson or George Washington, but abolitionist Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass who would become the mothers and fathers of the vision of America as a beacon of liberty and freedom for peoples all over the world.
In a real sense, it is Juneteenth, not the Fourth of July, that reflects the real promise of America.
In this season where the very idea and ideal of America is under attack from enemies of democracy within and without, I would propose that Juneteenth is the pre-eminent American holiday. Our current crisis in identity gives us the opportunity to correct the record. The African American spirit of Juneteenth can help all of us recapture an American dream of freedom and justice for all.
The current president would probably never conceive that the present assault on constitutional government presents a unique opportunity to be truthful about our stories of national origin and the ways the Juneteenth commemoration can present new opportunities to reimagine and reclaim the American dream.
The first American pontiff with his New Orleans roots has the capacity to see our nation and the world through the eyes of faith. The truth of America through the narrative of Juneteenth is much more dynamic than fanciful mythologies of July 4th. It is the difference between hanging onto the fallacies of making America “great again” versus energizing engagement in the ongoing enterprise of perfecting the union and inspiring peoples all over the world. The greatest outcome of America’s slave legacy is repairing our faults and embracing the national purpose as global champion of universal human rights.
Pope Leo, the first American and Chicago pontiff, clearly gets the point. For America to be truly America, we must promote the values of “magnificent humanity” as our national mantra and national purpose. None of us were meant to be masters or slaves of other people. Each of us have been called to live freely to serve the common good. Service to humanity is the highest purpose of humanity.
We stood in the same gracious space, the pope and the pastor, testifying that all religion at its best calls each of us to acknowledge the intrinsic worth of every human being. Indeed, the true kingdom of God always prioritizes the least among us, proclaiming justice by centering the marginalized. That is the profound 21st-century message and meaning of both Juneteenth and Pope Leo’s “Magnifica Humanitas.”
Juneteenth and the pontiff’s newest encyclical are good news for the whole world. We must fight for the world we want to inhabit. The capacities to be transformed and to shape our world and our history is what makes humanity truly magnificent — the spirit of the ancestors who endured bondage and never gave up the good fight of faith.
Rev. Dr. Marshall E. Hatch is the senior pastor of New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church and co-chair of The Leaders Network, a coalition of ministers on the West Side of Chicago. He is the author of two books, “Project America” (2012) and “Cornerstones” (2025).