Leo XIV: Moving the pieces

The week Leo XIV left for his first international trip was also when the Pope made several decisions and really began to give his pontificate some direction.

The decisions he made revealed something of Leo XIV’s characteristics: he is capable of overturning Pope Francis’s decisions, especially in administrative matters; in doctrinal matters, he will absorb issues rather than fuel debate; he is undoubtedly not a Pope who implements a ferocious spoils system, and therefore, no significant exemplary departures can be expected.

But before analyzing these characteristics, it’s worth examining the facts.

This week, the new General Regulations of the Roman Curia were promulgated; the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith published its note on monogamy; the Holy See’s budget was published; Bishop Marco Mellino was appointed adjunct secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts; and Leo XIV reestablished the central sector for the diocese of Rome.

Each of these five events has its own specific weight.

The publication of the new general regulation of the Roman Curia concludes the work begun by Pope Francis with the reform of the Curia. The new regulation appears, first and foremost, as an adaptation to the structures outlined in the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium. For example, the Secretariat for the Economy is responsible for drafting contracts and verifying their adequacy. The Secretariat of State no longer proposes the appointment of the heads of dicasteries’ offices, who become pontifical appointees. The responsibilities of the dicasteries have changed.

It was emphasized that the new regulations clearly state that each Dicastery must register the requests it receives and provide adequate – and adequately reasoned – reasoned responses. This bureaucratization serves to prevent abuse, but it is also true that all requests received by the dicasteries are, as a matter of course, registered, if only for archival reasons. It was also emphasized that Latin remains the official language of the Church, but, objectively, it could not be otherwise. This remained the case even under Pope Francis, who wrote his texts in Spanish or accepted an Italian editio typica.

What is striking, however, is that the Secretariat of State retains its role of coordinating all the dicasteries, a significant fact considering that Pope Francis had dismantled the Secretariat of State’s prerogatives piece by piece, even stripping it of its financial autonomy. But Francis’s reform, it turns out, is not untouchable. Leo XIV demonstrated this by reestablishing each Dicastery’s ability to invest and raise funds outside the Institute for the Works of Religion, the so-called “Vatican bank.” Pope Francis, however, had forced everyone to invest only through the IOR. The shift in perspective is evident.

Then, there is Leo XIV’s reversal of Pope Francis’s decision to abolish the central sector of the Diocese of Rome, historically divided into five geographical pastoral-administrative sectors: North, South, East, West, and Historic Center. The central sector or district always had a dedicated auxiliary and a particular profile, owing to its rich historical and cultural patrimony and peculiar pastoral profile, involving a flock of pilgrims, tourists and transients.

Pope Francis abolished the central sector, believing there should be no “privileged” areas and desiring to place the suburbs at the center of the village. Leo XIV reinstated the sector with a motu proprio that neither denies the reasons for Francis’s decision nor asserts an administrative necessity.

Leo XIV thus moved in a way that did not make his discontinuity with Pope Francis explicit, but took very much the opposite direction, nonetheless. There is an important, twofold takeaway: we know that Leo will not treat Francis’s reform as a great unfinished business; we also know that he will not be afraid to change direction.

Another sign of Leo’s attitude is evident in the way the Holy See’s budget was presented.

The various outfits of the Holy See posted a modest budget surplus of €1.6 million, while the structural operating deficit of the Holy See considered as a whole was halved in 2024, down to €44.4 million from €83.5 million in 2023. The 2024 results, however, were significantly affected by the management of hospitals, which have been included in the Vatican’s debit and credit accounts since 2022. What has changed is the narrative.

In recent years, there has been talk of a deficit. For the first time in a good while, it appears plausible to speak of a virtuous path to be consolidated. Make no mistake: the Holy See is not out of the woods, not by a long shot. The financial system has undergone significant upheavals in recent years, and is still in urgent and dire need of consolidation. Under Leo XIV, who is a very institutional Pope, the institution will be preserved.

The appointment of Bishop Marco Mellino as adjunct secretary of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts is another sign.

Mellino was secretary of the Council of Cardinals and is now secretary of the Committee for the Revision of the General Regulations of the Curia. Still, he now takes on a Vatican role as “second number 2″ in a dicastery currently without a prefect—Leo XIV promoted Iannone to the post of prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. Mellino was not appointed as prefect but as an adjunct secretary, and his appointment is a sign not only that the Council of Cardinals has fulfilled its functions but also that the revision of the Curia’s regulations will no longer be entrusted to Mellino. Mellino, however, is not promoted. Instead, he is stationed as an adjunct in a dicastery.

Mellino did not leave Rome, in other words, but took another post in the Vatican.

Also the long-serving secretary of the Dicastery for Bishops, Ilson de Jesus Montanari, was extraordinarily powerful and well-connected in his role during the Francis pontificate. Observers expected him to move on, if and when he did not get the top job in the dicastery (which was formerly headed by the man we now call Leo XIV). Instead, Montanari has remained in place.

The only one dismissed was an official of the Dicastery for the Clergy, Andrés Gabriel Ferrada Moreira, sent to San Bartolomé de Chillán, Chile, to serve as bishop of the diocese. Leo XIV neither punished nor exiled, in other words, nor did he create ad hoc positions or leave those he felt were out of line without assignments, as Pope Francis did.

With these decisions, some of the experiences of Pope Francis’s pontificate seem to come to an end, starting with the Council of Cardinals, a sort of ”kitchen cabinet” that was a peculiarity of the Francis era. Leo XIV prefers to convene consistories for discussion—the one on January 7-8 will be the first, but not likely the last—and to focus on inter-departmental meetings, rather than multiplying the number of institutions. Leo, therefore, will not undertake further reforms. He will make adjustments and absorb what he deems superfluous.

One could almost say Leo’s will be reform-by-absorption.

The documents Pope Francis had left unfinished are also being absorbed. Last week saw the publication of a document on monogamy: 40 pages of quotations, with an invitation at the beginning of the text to skip straight to the conclusion if one didn’t want to dwell on everything. It’s not a heterodox or controversial document, despite the efforts of a few commentators to discover a creeping openness to non-procreative sex in marriage, but fundamentally, it’s not there. It is, in fact, a document that fits into a solid theological tradition, even if it does not deal with the specific problem of African polygyny that ostensibly gave rise to it.

Still, it is a document inherited from the previous pontificate. There are two more in the process of being published, and then the mandate entrusted by Pope Francis to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith will have expired. The fact that Leo XIV has decided to continue shows respect for his predecessor and a desire to demonstrate continuity.

Leo XIV is not a revolutionary Pope.

Leo XIV doesn’t want to break with Francis’s pontificate abruptly. He continued on the path laid out by his predecessor, with few interventions. Yet, there is a new direction, a new way of life, which has almost led to the oblivion of Francis.

Almost.

A clear-eyed view of the situation must see that many around Leo want to keep putting Pope Francis’s decisions at the center. What’s under construction will likely be completed.

The Leonine approach, however, will be different.