Pope Leo Votes by Post in Chicago, a First for a Reigning Pontiff

Pope Leo has voted in the United States midterm elections, the first time a sitting pontiff is known to have cast a ballot in any political election in history, the Guardian reported. According to CBS News, the Vatican said Leo exercised his right as a US citizen by submitting a mail-in ballot in his native Chicago ahead of next week's vote.

The Guardian's account describes the vote as submitted by post and notes that Leo has clashed with Donald Trump over several issues. The emphasis in both reports is on the ballot as an act of citizenship rather than as an intervention in the campaign.

That framing matters because of what the Holy See is. Vatican City is a state inside Rome, and the pope is bishop of Rome as well as sovereign of the smallest state in Europe; his public role is diplomatic as much as pastoral, and the papacy has kept its distance from party politics for a century and a half.