Leo XIV: The risk of bureaucratizing the Church

Leo XIV’s plan for the Church was clear from the beginning: to seek to restore harmony within the Church. His episcopal motto, In Illo Uno Unum, says so. His actions, which have so far always sought not to divide, but rather to absorb tensions, also speak volumes.

After 16 months, however, we still await a great many needful things.

We are awaiting Leo XIV’s first consistory. We await a round of appointments that will affect at least five top positions in the Curia. We await Leo’s “corrections” to some of Pope Francis’s reforms.

But Leo XIV doesn’t seem to care about expectations.

We already know that people on every side of the various divides running through the Church will be disappointed.

The traditionalist world expected a sudden and clear reversal of the ostracism experienced during the Francis pontificate, and they have grown impatient (probably for an action that will never come). The progressive world, in what is almost a photo-negative of the traditionalist world, has performed mental gymnastics to interpret everything Leo has done in continuity with his immediate predecessor, and their gymnastics will only be able to stave off disappointment for so long.

Leo XIV’s vision for the Church became even clearer on September 10, when he met with the group of newly appointed bishops, who had arrived for the usual annual ”baby bishops” course held each year in Rome.

The Pope asked them to be paternal, as he had done with the bishops of the Latin Episcopal Conference of the Arab Regions in an audience on September 4. This fatherhood is nourished by discipleship, fully in keeping with the Augustinian charism and his own personal missionary charism. Leo XIV said he desires a Church with a hierarchy, but one that maintains strong communion and great collegiality. Communion entails a “disarmed and disarming peace”—according to the famous phrase the Pope uttered the first time he appeared as Pope—while collegiality means everyone’s participation in governance, or at least in discussions.

For this reason too, Leo XIV did not interrupt the synodal process, but called for progress on the question of synodality. The working groups that emerged after the 2023 Synod continued to meet, release documents, and make proposals. And it is precisely in this process, however, that one of the great risks of the pontificate lies.

The risk in this approach is as follows: That, in the desire not to cancel the processes, the ones already underway become merely bureaucratic. In short, the risk is bureaucratizing the Church. The reports of Groups 6 and 7 of the Synodal journey are an illustrative case-in-point.

Group 6 is studying the relationships between bishops, consecrated life, and ecclesial congregations. Group 7 discusses the nature and conduct of the visits. ad limina Apostolorum, that is, the periodic visits that the bishops of each country must carry out in Rome.

The reports are proposals submitted to the Holy Father, who can freely dispose of them. In short, they are not decisions, and even if the Pope were to decide, they would have to be translated into operational guidelines involving the relevant departments.

Why do they risk being bureaucratic?

Because the two documents address, in different ways, the Church’s possible forms of authority, but they do so by offering procedural solutions, and procedures always make everything more complicated.

Not to mention the language.

Regarding the relationship between dioceses and religious institutions, the report discusses a “relational conversion,” calling for overcoming “merely hierarchical” relationships. Furthermore, the report calls for greater clarity on the theological and legal criteria for recognizing new religious institutes and new forms of consecrated life.

It even proposes mandatory agreements or contracts of understanding between dioceses and religious institutions, which clearly define the commitments undertaken, the financial aspects, the management of the works, and mutual responsibilities.

These proposals arise from concrete problems: excessive authoritarianism or centralization, and a lack of understanding of how dioceses and religious institutions manage their relationships. But the problem isn’t the pattern itself. Rather, it lies with the people, in how they exercise authority.

Leo XIV knows this, and that’s probably why he insists on the issue of paternity. But at the same time, he let the synodal debate, its slow and cumbersome modus procedendi—in a word, its bureaucracy—grind on, and on, without even clarifying the practical issues, namely, that the Synod cannot be a deliberative body, and that the Synod is not a small parliament.

There are virtuous examples.

In Norway, Bishop Fredrik Hansen of Oslo convened the first diocesan synod in history, openly declaring that it was not a synod aimed at changing Church doctrine because it was not a parliament. He even cited the Synods of St. Charles Borromeo, the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan during the Counter-Reformation, as an example.

In the Netherlands, Auxiliary Bishop Rob Mutsaerts strongly criticized the Synod and called for pastoral experiences to be evaluated on concrete indicators, such as vocations, Mass attendance, and the spread of the practice of confession.

But Leo XIV’s decision to let the debate go without a clear word on the situation risks not only creating confusion but also creating the conditions for further bureaucratization of the Curia.

It seems like a vague topic, but it isn’t.

Pope Francis ushered in the era of commissions—for communications reform, for economic reform, for Curia reform—and this created, it’s true, a push for efficiency, but also a bureaucracy that was anything but efficient. A concrete example is the reform of the Vatican economy, in which the powers of the Administration of the Apostolic See were stripped and reinstated within a few months. The reform of the Vatican City State is another case in point, with three drafts of the Vatican Fundamental Law in just a few months.

What does Leo XIV intend to do?

On the one hand, the Holy See needs better organization. On the other hand, the Holy See needs good people with common sense who care about it and can manage a complex structure professionally and logically.

Then, there’s the need for managers.

For now, Leo XIV has chosen a manager, Montse Alvarado, to lead the Dicastery for Communication and to sit on the board of the Brother Sun Foundation. But he hasn’t yet chosen his generals, bishops, and cardinals who will assist him in governance. He has thus far relied on a structure with which he has had no conflict, but which, under Francis, in fact produced numerous declarations of intent and an image of the Church that reflects a democratic, parliamentary-like structure of participation rather than a community of the faithful.

While Leo proceeds at his slow pace toward choosing his own team, judgment on his pontificate remains suspended due to a lack of evidence. At some point, however, non-decisions become decisions. The bureaucratization initiated by Pope Francis will grind on, and will grind any momentum a change in papal leadership afforded.

Perhaps paradoxically, Pope Francis used bureaucratization to ensure he would be the sole decision-maker, while giving the impression of listening to everyone.

Leo XIV has an opportunity here, but the window is closing.