Pope Leo XIV has become the first pope known to vote in a U.S. general election. The Vatican confirmed that the Chicago-born pontiff submitted a mail-in ballot for the midterm elections in Illinois, invoking the right and duty of citizens to participate in democracy. There is no apparent legal violation, and no reason to question his motives. He is an American citizen, and he voted as one.
The interesting question is not why Leo voted. It is what his vote reveals about a citizenship system that accommodates Americans exercising governmental authority for other sovereign states, sometimes in offices whose duties may conflict with their obligations under U.S. law.
Recommended Stories
Leo is an unusually visible example. As pope, he leads the Catholic Church and is also the sovereign of Vatican City. The state’s governing structure places ultimate legislative, executive, and judicial authority in his office. He is thus both an American voter and the head of a foreign state.
But why stop with the head of state? What about an American serving as another country’s defense minister, senior military commander, ambassador, intelligence officer, or cabinet member? These positions differ profoundly, but all can involve formal obligations to another government. An intelligence officer owes duties of secrecy. A military officer owes duties of command and service. A cabinet minister helps formulate policies that may affect the United States. The potential tension exists even between friendly countries.
American law does not ignore such service. Under federal statute, service in a foreign military as a commissioned or noncommissioned officer, or in forces engaged in hostilities against the U.S., is a potentially expatriating act. Certain foreign-government positions also qualify when the American possesses that country’s nationality or takes a required oath of allegiance. Crucially, however, loss of citizenship still requires a voluntary act accompanied by an intention to relinquish American nationality.
That approach owes much to Afroyim v. Rusk (1967), which rejected involuntary loss of citizenship for voting in an Israeli election, and Vance v. Terrazas (1980), which insisted on proof of intent to relinquish citizenship. Both decisions protect an indispensable constitutional principle: The government cannot decide who remains American by declaring certain foreign associations disloyal.
Yet they leave a different question unresolved. A person may sincerely intend to remain American while assuming enforceable duties to a foreign state. The intent to retain citizenship says little about how overlapping obligations are managed. Protecting citizenship is one question — addressing conflicts arising from foreign office is another.
The State Department presumes that Americans taking non-policy-level jobs with foreign governments intend to retain their citizenship. Policy-level appointments may prompt inquiry. Its guidance generally reserves active review for foreign heads of state, heads of government, and foreign ministers, citing questions that include immunity from U.S. jurisdiction. That nationality review serves a different purpose from assessing the competing duties an American might assume as another country’s defense minister or intelligence officer.
This is not an allegation that Americans in foreign service are spies, or that dual citizens are unreliable. A person can serve another country honorably and remain deeply attached to the U.S. Nor does every foreign public position warrant equal scrutiny. Teachers in public schools and national security officials do not occupy equivalent roles merely because both receive a paycheck from a foreign government.
Those distinctions should guide a congressional review of Americans holding foreign defense, intelligence, and senior policy positions. The review should identify the legal duties those roles impose, where they conflict with obligations under U.S. law, and how existing protections address those conflicts.
The question also runs in the opposite direction. What standards should apply when dual citizens serve in Congress or occupy senior American defense and intelligence positions? These responsibilities raise their own questions about competing obligations and whether existing safeguards are sufficient.
JAMES TALARICO SAID HE ‘HATES CHRISTIANITY.’ HERE’S WHY
The answer should not be automatic denationalization or a political loyalty test. Existing criminal law, security rules, and conflict-of-interest provisions already address some concrete misconduct and risks. Any additional disclosure requirements or other safeguards should address specific gaps identified in the review, without treating ordinary dual citizenship as suspect.
Leo’s ballot is symbolically striking, but it is only one vote. The larger issue reaches beneath the papacy into the everyday machinery of foreign states. The U.S. has decided that citizenship is too important to be taken away on suspicion. It still needs to explain what allegiance requires when its citizens hold official obligations to other governments.
Sebastian Saviano is the author of The Allegiance Paradox (Statera Press, 2025), which examines the legal, ethical, and institutional challenges surrounding American citizenship and national allegiance.