Leo XIV and the coming encyclical

Father Alejandro Moral, superior of the Augustinians, let it be known last week in an interview with Il Messaggero that Leo XIV is working on the structure of his first encyclical. The big question is whether the Pope will follow the inspiration that comes from his name, and therefore dedicate the first encyclical of his pontificate to social issues, or whether he will follow the line of his first words at the beginning of his pontificate, when he forcefully established the need to disappear to make way for Christ.

In short: Will it be a social encyclical, or a spiritual one? The two are not mutually exclusive, and one can be linked to the other. Much will depend, however, on the precise structure Leo will give the document and the way he presents his priorities.

The first two months of Leo XIV’s pontificate have taught us that some of the processes initiated by Pope Francis are irreversible. They can be redesigned, but not reversed. And one of these processes is his focus on environmental issues.

Now, Pope Francis did not invent anything new with his focus on responsible care for creation. The Church has always been concerned with that. Benedict XVI, moreover, was dubbed “the green Pope” by Catholic and secular media because of his attention to ecological issues. The theological legwork was already done when Francis gave a pastoral push to the issue.

Pope Francis, did the Church’s ecological attention to another level. Both the encyclical Laudato Si’ and the exhortation Laudate Deum were based on a series of data, numbers, and figures from United Nations agencies. In practice, Pope Francis had linked ecological concern to political and multilateral issues. Laudato Si’, being an encyclical, included a necessary framework of social doctrine. However, the most cited passages in international forums were precisely those that confirmed mainstream positions, while integral ecology positions were diminished.

For example, few remember that Laudato Si’ includes a defense of life from conception to natural death, that it attacks the throwaway culture also in terms of the discarding of human lives, and that it adopts an integral ecology approach that places the human being at the center. Laudate Deum, as an exhortation, was instead presented as an update of scientific data, which was normal, because the United Nations always updates that same data. But that was precisely the point: could a papal document be linked only to contingent data?

It was not, after all, a document responding to a serious situation with a strong theoretical structure (think of Pius XI’s encyclical against Nazism, Mit Brennender Sorge, or the radio messages of Pius XII during the Second World War). Instead, it was a document that took the point of view of international organizations, which rarely connect the ecological problem to human beings. Indeed, human beings are often considered the problem.

However, twelve years of pontificate have created an ecological movement that sometimes appears to embrace environmentalism without restraints and divorced from the very human core Francis ultimately sought to give it, addressing only the most political and media-driven issues. And among the initiatives connected to this environmentalism is a special Mass for the Protection of Creation.

Leo XIV maintained this process, approved it, and celebrated the first Mass with this special formulation in private at the Borgo Laudato Si in Castel Gandolfo. In his homily, he said that “God gave us creation as a gift to be protected, not as prey to be exploited.” He then asked that God grant the conversion of those who fail to see the ecological problem.

The Pope also recalled Christians’ call to care for creation. “When we look at the beauty of the earth, we understand that God created it not out of necessity, but out of love. Creation is born of his overflowing goodness, and every creature bears within itself a reflection of his glory,” the Pope said.

And he added: “Today, however, this glory is wounded by our irresponsible choices. Creation suffers and groans, as Saint Paul says, and people experiencing poverty suffer with it. We can no longer ignore the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor, because they are a single cry that rises to God.

The Pope’s homily, in short, did not sideline Pope Francis, and there were plenty of references to Laudato Si’ on its tenth anniversary. However, it also placed a particular emphasis on the question of creation, rather than the act of creation itself. Leo XIV has had a cautious approach to these issues: he hasn’t broken with Francis’s pontificate, but he has reconnected with a profound current of Catholic thought. He has broken with the idea that Pope Francis’s pontificate was a rupture.

The question, then, is this: Is Pope Francis’s ecological revolution an irreversible process? Leo XIV does not appear ready to backtrack on the issue, but he has also sought to renew its specifically Catholic and anthropological focus. It should also be noted that the Mass formulary was used in a private celebration, and it is unknown whether this celebration will be repeated in public.

The way Leo XIV articulates his first encyclical will therefore be very telling. After two months, his pontificate is still a balance between elements of continuity and discontinuity. It is not a pontificate of restoration, yet he is restoring many things. It is not a pontificate of rupture with his predecessor, yet he has reconnected with tradition.

Some processes already underway will remain unchanged, but it remains to be seen how they will be redefined, redesigned, and reinterpreted by Leo XIV. His first encyclical will be a clear signal in this regard.