First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

Will he be taxed on his foreign Papal salary? Or will he forego the salary , like Francis did?

If he is taxed, he should renounce US citizenship as he's very unlike to move back to the US.

Very unlikely is an understatement. Francis never even visited his home country of Argentina after being elected as Pope.

Francis was seen as being too close to the Kirchnerists in ideology and too conflicted with the Kirchnerists in actions when he was Archbishop. Visiting Argentina would have forced him to take a side and trigger a political crisis he probably wanted to avoid.

As far as I know there's no similar conflict with the new Pope, and he wasn't even in America for the most important part of his church career.

Notably, in that case he might end up no longer being able to enter the US at all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Amendment_(immigration)

Really? I always heard that Francis was the first enemy of Kirtcherners

Whether they let the pope enter the US will be entirely based on whether the administration wants the pope to visit the US, not on some obscure immigration law that, according to the article you yourself linked, is almost never enforced even on normal people.

Apparently heads of foreign states are exempt.

He's a sitting head of state now. Even if he violated US law, he's diplomatically immune. One case of it being brought up in the past: https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/87327.pdf

Even if the reed amendment were suddenly enforced for some reason, diplomatic visits by heads of state like the Pope operate under a completely different set of rules than normal tourists. Modi has famously been banned from personal visits to the US for decades, but he has visited the US on diplomatic business as recently as Feb.

Francis was the most important supporter of liberation theology in Argentina, which was very ideologically aligned with the Kirchners. He was also strongly opposed to almost every politician who opposed the government.

Bergoglio had several conflicts with the Kirchner government when he was an Archbishop. Cristina didn't tell the position the government would take when he got elected Pope, but the government-aligned (but not government-controlled) mass media associations preemptively filled Buenos Aires with anti-Bergoglio propaganda.

A week later Cristina met the Pope and announced that they were politically aligned, and the same mass media associations filled Buenos Aires with pro-Bergoglio propaganda.

What's your source on that, at least in the case when the head of the foreign state also remains a US citizen?

There's also the interesting question of whether he will remain a US citizen after all, or whether taking the office of pope will count as him relinquishing US citizenship under INA §349(a)(4): https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/L... In the latter case, the tax question would not arise.

Existing US Department of State policy applies an administrative presumption to most cases of accepting foreign government employment that the person does not intend to relinquish US citizenship unless they affirmatively state otherwise, but they don't apply any such presumption to becoming a foreign head of state or a foreign head of government. They actively analyze such cases individually with no default presumption.

Pope Leo XIV will lose his US citizenship due to his acceptance of the papacy if and only if he intended to relinquish US citizenship by that act, based on the standard of proof of the preponderance of the evidence (the same as in civil lawsuits). He has the right to dispute the question in court if he and the US Department of State disagree on the answer, but I imagine this would in practice be handled more quietly for such a high-profile case.

That would only apply if he were to renounce for the purpose of avoiding taxation, as opposed to for the purpose of having his sole allegiance be that of the city-state and the church over which he rules, or for the purpose of having diplomatic immunity during visits to the US.

It's not clear that he is diplomatically immune from US law if he retains his US citizenship. The source you linked was not a case of a US citizen pope.

If the pope renounces his US citizenship for the purpose of having diplomatic immunity or treats his acceptance of the papacy as an expatriating act with intent to relinquish citizenship within the meaning of INA §349(a)(4), he would not be inadmissible under the Reed Amendment: that amendment only applies when the reason for renouncing is to avoid taxation, and might not apply to relinquishment under §349(a)(4) regardless of reason since it uses the verb renounce rather than relinquish.

Why might the verb matter? The only parts of INA §349 that use the verb renounce are the ones about explicitly swearing or affirming an oath or affirmation of renunciation, not the other potentially expatriating acts. Relinquishment is the broader term in the statute which encompasses all such acts.

And I say "might" only because this amendment has been so rarely enforced that the courts haven't had occasion to rule on it. Only two people have ever been denied admission to the US under the Reed Amendment. It was a very badly drafted legal provision.

I put no such assumptions on this. If Trump gets angry with His Holiness, Trump will probably have Little Marco revoke the Pope’s citizenship.

Apparently Popes don't receive a salary, all expenses are covered by the church. Neither is there a retirement package since it's a job for life.

I couldn't imagine a Pope applying for a pay raise. Or rather, to whom would the Pope got to get a pay raise ... hm ;)

At least according to customary international law, a head of state has full sovereign immunity regardless of any nationalities that they might hold. By the way, the immunity covers not only the head of state, but also the head of government and the Secretary of State.

If the Pope were a mere diplomat, his immunities would be restricted to the acts directly related to his job in any country of which he’s a national or permanent resident. That’s because, unlike sovereign immunity, diplomatic immunity is based on a Vienna Convention full of restrictions like that.

There is no way in hell they'd revoke his American citizenship. American Catholics would be up in arms.

He's a religious priest which means he cannot own anything other than personal accoutrements. Even if he were to take paid employment before becoming pope, he would have to give it away.

That law states

> A person who is a national of the United States whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by voluntarily performing any of the following acts with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality—

It would seem there would need to be an intention to relinquish; which I don't necessarily think is tacit in accepting the office of Pope.

Yes, there does need to be an intention to relinquish US nationality in order for US nationality to be lost. It doesn't have to be explicitly stated, but it does have to be there. If it ever needs to be disputed in court, whoever is arguing loss of citizenship (either the government or the would-be former citizen) has to prove that intent by the same standard of proof that's generally required to win a civil lawsuit, preponderance of the evidence aka more likely than not.

I agree it's not clear that accepting the papacy involves intent to relinquish, but it's not clear either way. The Department of State (at first instance) or any court who considers the matter (if a dispute arises) would normally consider the individual situation in order to conclude what they think is the intent.

In practice, if Trump and Rubio don't want an international incident, they will probably just ask the Vatican what the Pope intended and go along with that.

Depends on what the Pope himself wants, I imagine. Not every head of state or head of government wants to hold foreign citizenship.

Two examples from Canada: former Governor General Michaëlle Jean, who represented the Canadian monarch in Canada for day-to-day head of state duties, renounced her French citizenship when before becoming Governor General; and current Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney renounced his British and Irish citizenships before becoming Prime Minister. Neither renunciation was required according to law or constitutional convention, but they both wanted to remove any question as to their allegiance.

If the Pope and the Department of State disagree on this, whichever party wants to prove the loss of citizenship will have to prove it in court. Rubio and his department don't get the final say, though they do get to make the initial administrative decision.

That vow of poverty goes away once a religious priest is consecrated a bishop.

https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/docume....

He might want to himself for tax purposes alone. I don't know how much the standard salary for a pope is, but I'm pretty sure it's above the threshold for the US "give us your foreign earned money" tax law.

> Francis was the most important supporter of liberation theology in Argentina

Really? I am Italian, so I known Bergoglio only by name before he became Pope, but I always heard that he was not really a supporter of liberation theology. Anyway, during his papacy he showed that he was influenced in many aspectes by liberation theology and peronism approach.

there is no papal salary. As someone who's taken religious vows he's not supposed to be earning any income or holding on to it.

Honestly, the salary is almost certainly tiny, if it's anything like ecclesiastical salaries (popes, bishops etc).

Salary, sure. But such fringe benefits!

> if he were to renounce for the purpose of avoiding taxation

That was indeed the premise of the comment I was responding to.