Leo XIV: Awaiting government decisions

If there’s one thing we know about Leo XIV, it’s that we still don’t know much about him. When you search for a line of thought, you inevitably come across an exception. When you think you’ve found a fundamental idea, the Pope turns into what appears to be the opposite direction.

The truth is that nothing in this new pontificate has yet been institutionalized.

Government decisions have continued in line with those made by Pope Francis, primarily concerning the choice of bishops, and primarily because the decisions being announced are still those largely taken before Leo’s election. Nor has the policy on Chinese appointments changed, so much so that last week Leo XIV suppressed two historic Chinese dioceses, establishing a new one according to the Chinese government’s criteria, and retiring the bishop of one of the suppressed dioceses because he was 75 years old and because his experience as an underground bishop could have created problems.

Nothing new under the sun, in short, although the rather fragmentary news from the Sino-Vatican talks in June spoke of an interlocutory meeting, and of a Holy See that, under the impetus of Leo XIV, was less inclined to accept indirect pressure from Beijing.

The impression is that it will take time to see real governance decisions.

Even the rumor that he would have flatmates living with him in the Apostolic Palace – a small community of Augustinian friars, to be precice –was debunked by Father Alejandro Moral, his successor as head of the OSAs since 2013—although, indeed, one never goes to live in the Apostolic Palace alone.

There needs to be someone to govern and assist in the “ordinary” running of the house. Moral himself, in another interview, had announced that the Pope was working on his first encyclical. Now, the encyclical is said to be more of an exhortation—at least according to reports released by Reuters—and this exhortation is said to be dedicated to the poor, with an evocative title: Dilexit te—almost a paraphrase of Pope Francis’s latest encyclical, Dilexit nos, as if to mark a continuity and a discontinuity simultaneously.

Meanwhile, the Jubilee pilgrimage of LGBTQ Christians passed through the Holy Door, creating media buzz, but without any papal endorsement or meeting with the Holy Father, a marked difference from official Jubilee gatherings. The impact of that pilgrimage, initially included in the official Jubilee calendar, was thus dampened. At the same time, Leo XIV met with Father James Martin SJ, who had promoted the pilgrimage, but Martin himself stated that the Pope would likely not speak openly about LGBTQ people, despite his deep concern for them.

For the Pope’s 70th birthday, an interview with Leo XIV was published, the first of his pontificate, in which many of these topics were addressed. The Pope, we thought, would not give structured interviews, limiting himself to brief conversations with journalists on a few occasions. The interview, which is for a soon-to-be-released book, Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the 21st Century, doesn’t fit that picture very well, nor does it fit the picture of a Leo XIV who favors official and institutional channels for his communications.

But then, who really is Leo XIV and what will he really do as leader of the Church?

Perhaps, to truly understand Leo XIV’s agenda, one must go back to 2012, when Father Robert Prevost, prior of the Augustinians, participated in the Synod on the Word of God and was interviewed by CNS as a U.S. member of the Synod. There, then-Father Prevost explained his idea of creating “critical thinkers” capable of challenging the media on their own ground and of managing to remain within the Church and to talk about the Church and the faith without necessarily being seen as obscurantists.

Then, in 2023, CNS itself asked Prevost, who had since become a cardinal, for an update on that interview, which also discussed how the mainstream had taken over the entire narrative, including on the LGBTQ front. Specifically, the question was asked whether, following Pope Francis’s openness, Prevost had changed his mind. Prevost essentially responded that “doctrine doesn’t change,” but that the Pope had wanted to emphasize the idea of not excluding anyone and of being more welcoming.

One could thus say that welcoming was the added value to the Church’s doctrine during Pope Francis’s pontificate. Yet this would be wrong, even if only because it’s just not true that the Church had never been welcoming before Francis. The narrative, however, gave that impression, and Prevost had spoken clearly of the need to change the narrative.

And to change the narrative, according to Prevost, one had to return to the Church Fathers. His references were primarily to St. Augustine of Hippo – no surprise there – but in general, Prevost wasn’t so much touting or flogging the Church Fathers as tapping into an interest in patristics that had begun to make itself felt already during the reign of Benedict XVI. This was also because the Church Fathers found themselves operating in a hostile cultural climate, and they had to respond with example; they had to make their experience of God’s love concrete.

In Leo XIV’s pontificate, therefore, two tensions are evident: that of returning to the Church Fathers, starting with St. Augustine; and that of not discarding anything good that exists in today’s times. There is a need to be present in the media, and a need, at the same time, to advance major issues.

All this is easily perceived as contradictory.

We may be simply seeking a synthesis. In the face of an audience with Martin, there’s also a pilgrimage of the Populus Summorum Pontificum movement in St. Peter’s with Mass celebrated by Cardinal Burke and Vespers presided over by Cardinal Zuppi, who also did not fail to show very clearly in the media his nostalgia for Pope Francis.

Zuppi was among the most open with the traditionalist world, believe it or not, while maintaining his own distinct profile and an insider position within Francis’s near orbit. Today as well, Zuppi can openly demonstrate a quest for a synthesis between old and new.

It will be challenging to explain this pontificate, in sum, because Leo XIV is still searching for a way forward. He is, after all, still learning how to be Pope. As he jokingly said to the young bishops on September 11th: “I thought I’d still be attending dressed in black.”
The first government decisions, or the first documents, will not be enough. Leo XIV will find his place as Pope when the first significant difficulties arise. For now, everyone has tried to bend the pontificate to their narrative. The facts will reveal who this Pope really is.