Leo XIV: Putting the pieces in place

Pope Leo XIV has initiated a major generational change in the Church’s central governing apparatus, the Roman Curia.

This change began in the Secretariat of State this past week, with the appointments of Anthony Onyemucho Ekpo as assessor and Mihăiţă Blaj as undersecretary for Foreign Affairs of the Secretariat of State, the key and central body of the Roman Curia. It will extend to various Vatican dicasteries until we have a new slate of churchmen – Leo’s men – in key positions throughout the governing apparatus. The process could take a while, and perhaps run even through most of 2026.

The appointment of the two new “vice ministers” of the Secretariat of State was made public after both positions had been vacant for over a month. Earlier in the week, the Jubilee of Diplomatic Staff was celebrated, and the group photo from the meeting with the Pope reflected a time when the Secretariat of State was missing both its assessor and its undersecretary for Relations with States.

This was unusual, as these two positions cannot remain vacant for long. The Undersecretary for Relations with States, a sort of “Deputy Foreign Minister,” is responsible for key dossiers, starting with the one on China. The Sino-Vatican agreement for the appointment of bishops has always been signed, until now, at the level of the “Deputy Foreign Ministers,” and the Vatican delegations that have periodically met with Chinese delegations to discuss the agreement’s progress have also always been led by the Undersecretary for Relations with States.

In short, there was a risk of arriving at the next update meeting with China in December without a natural delegation leader to manage the dossier. The choice fell on Monsignor Blaj, a young man with experience in various nunciatures, who recently served as personal secretary to Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican Minister for Relations with States.

The role of the assessor is even more crucial.

Indeed, there are two undersecretaries for Relations with States, and there is also an undersecretary for multilateral affairs—Monsignor Daniel Pacho—who can step in in the absence of the other “Deputy Foreign Minister,” even though his responsibilities do not concern relations between states. There is, however, no second assessor in the Holy See’s organizational chart. The assessor, the deputy of the Substitute of the Secretariat of State, is responsible for ensuring the Secretariat of State’s functioning. He has various duties, is also a member of the Financial Security Committee, and is responsible for overseeing its overall functioning.

For the position, Monsignor Ekpo was chosen, the first assessor not to come from the ranks of the Secretariat of State, where he nevertheless served before being appointed undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. Ekpo has also written a book in English on the Roman Curia, one of the few studies on the origins, history, and functioning of the Vatican machine, highly regarded in English-speaking countries.

What can we deduce from these two appointments?

The first is that Leo XIV has begun to reorganize the Curia, and the appointment of Monsignor Ekpo, an expert in the field, is a very clear signal. Not only that, Ekpo is an “outsider” in the Vatican Secretariat of State, but he is also known as a faithful man. His name does not appear to have been put forward by the current replacement, Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, and this is interpreted by some observers as a sign of Pena Parra’s imminent departure from his position.

But Ekpo’s choice also suggests profound changes at the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. Ekpo was undersecretary, and the current prefect, Cardinal Michael Czerny, will soon turn 80. Czerny was one of the symbols of Pope Francis’s “revolution,” and a guardian of the revolution himself. And it was Czerny who carried on Francis’s legacy by organizing Leo XIV’s meeting with popular movements, and also by directing Leo XIV’s address on the issue, which was deeply imbued with Bergoglian spirituality.

Starting with the undersecretary, however, the dicastery could undergo a major transformation, pending a new president, who could also provide a new direction. Until now, the dicastery has focused on the old Migrants and Refugees section, losing many of the old characteristics it had when it was the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Another sign of a possible facelift at the Dicastery was the recent reform of the pastoral care of the sea, which the Pope structured into the so-called “Stella Maris.” But this reform, too, must stand the test of time. On the one hand, it needs to address an oversight in Praedicate Evangelium, the Francis-era apostolic constitution that reformed the Curia on paper (and barely mentioned the pastoral care of seafarers). On the other hand, the new structure seems to mirror somewhat that of Caritas Internationalis, which Pope Francis had reformed with a more managerial focus, surpassing the reform of Benedict XVI, who had instead sought to characterize Caritas’s work within a solid theological, rather than managerial, framework.

We will see if Ekpo, as an assessor and expert on the Roman Curia, will also have the task of restoring order to a curial machine whose work has become more complicated after Pope Francis’s reforms.

Blaj’s appointment, however, appears to be a prelude to another promotion: that of his immediate superior, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher. The Vatican’s “foreign minister” could be destined for a curial post, perhaps with a cardinal’s hat, and the clue lies precisely in the promotion granted by the Pope to his personal secretary, a move that typically heralds a transfer.

If Pena Parra and Gallagher were to leave, the Secretariat of State would undergo profound changes. But it would not be the only body. Leo XIV has already appointed a vice-regent of the Papal Household, the Augustinian Father Dalong, in whom he has great confidence, and everything suggests that the appointment will pave the way for the replacement of the current regent, Monsignor Leonardo Sapienza.

Archbishop Diego Ravelli, the current Master of Papal Ceremonies, also seems ready for a transfer to a diocese, because the Pope would like to choose someone closer to his sensibilities and does not appreciate the idea of an archbishop as an “altar boy.”

All these changes are expected to take place after the consistory of January 7-8, the subject of which Leo XIV has not yet announced. But it would pave the way for an intense period of generational change, culminating in a consistory to create new cardinals at the end of 2026. Currently, there are 126 cardinal electors, but by the end of the coming year, the number will drop below 120.

The new cardinals, too, will eventually have a greater say about what Church Leo XIV wants to have.