Leo XIV: The legacy of Pope Francis

The first anniversary of Pope Francis’s death will pass with his successor, Pope Leo XIV, in Africa.

Leo has been in Africa since April 13, on a journey taking him to Algeria, Cameroon, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea. On the eve of his departure, however, a letter Leo XIV sent to the cardinals in preparation for the upcoming consistory of June 26-27 was released.

The letter is important because it explains how Leo XIV intends to address and carry forward Pope Francis’s legacy, a significant topic of discussion in the broader discourse of the Church and a subject that has garnered the interest and attention of Vatican watchers both professional and amateur.

Francis was a forceful pope, breaking with much of the previous tradition, introducing his own style, and imposing a new form of governance.

From the moment he presented himself to the faithful as Pope, however, Leo XIV has demonstrated a balanced approach to his predecessor’s complex figure. Leo has revived the symbols of the pontifical office, starting with the red mozzetta, which Pope Francis never wore. Loe also almost also immediately referred to synodality – a buzzword of his predecessor’s pontificate – as a method of governance.

Synodality-as-governance, however, does not appear to necessitate or even recommend itself to the celebration of large synodal assemblies in which cardinals, bishops, priests, and even laypeople sit together without hierarchy or decision-making power. Nor does it apply, as it did with Pope Francis, to the appointment of various commissions and sub-commissions, starting with the famous Council of Cardinals, a group of 9, 8, or 6 cardinals that was essentially the G7 of the Church—and was in fact called the C9.

The Council of Cardinals, at last, represented a sort of elite: the Pope’s privileged advisors, who effectively sidelined the “college” of cardinals.

Leo XIV’s synodality, on the other hand, applies to the convocation of extraordinary consistories, now held every six months, where cardinals from around the world come to Rome for discussions.

The first of these consistories took place in January, and the model was Pope Francis’s “synodal” one. It was, in effect, a consistory divided into working groups, where only the relevant representatives were able to speak, and where certain topics were necessarily left aside.

It is not known why the consistory was organized in this way, but it is possible that Leo XIV gradually abandoned this model, seeking instead to involve the cardinals in more general matters.

The April 12 letter is an example of how Leo XIV intends to manage Francis’s legacy. Leo takes only one element of the latest discussions, namely what has matured regarding Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis’s exhortation, which represented the program of his pontificate.

“Your contributions make it clear that this Exhortation continues to be a significant point of
Reference. In addition to introducing new content,” Leo wrote, “[Evangelii Gaudium] refocuses everything on the kerygma as the heart of our Christian and ecclesial identity.”

“It was recognized as a ‘breath of fresh air’,” Leo went on to write, “capable of initiating processes of pastoral and missionary conversion — rather than producing immediate structural reforms — and thus profoundly guiding the Church’s journey“.

Leo XIV notes that this dimension “calls every baptized person to renew their encounter with Christ, moving from a faith merely received to a faith truly lived and experienced. This journey affects the very quality of spiritual life, expressed in the primacy of prayer, in the witness that precedes words, and in the coherence between faith and life.”

Instead, at the community level, Evangelii Gaudium “calls for a shift from a pastoral approach of maintenance to one of mission. This requires communities to be living agents of the proclamation — welcoming communities that use accessible language, attentive to the quality of relationships, and capable of offering places for listening, accompaniment and healing. At the diocesan level, the responsibility of Pastors to resolutely support missionary boldness emerges clearly, ensuring that such boldness is not weighed down or stifled by organizational excesses, but is guided by a discernment that helps us to recognize what is essential.”.

What is striking in this description is that Leo XIV asks pastors to have Christ as their primary point of reference, to place evangelization at the center of their work, and to act with personal responsibility—that is, to act courageously. Indeed, the Pope later speaks of an “integral mission,” and emphasizes: “Even when the Church finds herself in a minority, she is called to live with confident courage, as a small flock bringing hope to all, mindful that the aim of mission is not its own survival, but the communication of the love with which God loves the world.”

Evangelii Gaudium, therefore, represents an important point of reference for several reasons. It is Pope Francis’s first exhortation, and therefore was not influenced by the problems of governance and the responses Francis was making to these problems; it is an exhortation that focuses on evangelization, and therefore focuses on a widely shared theme; it is an exhortation that recounts the good intentions of a pontificate, and not the governance problems that this pontificate subsequently encountered.

In his first year as pontiff, Leo XIV has frequently cited Francis, always seeking to draw on the best of the previous pontificate. Likewise, he did not fail to mark a discontinuity in certain decisions, from financial matters (the IOR is no longer central to investments, for example) to some operational decisions (the restoration of the Central sector in the diocese of Rome), to a less rigid application of Traditionis Custodes, seeking to heal the rift with the traditionalist world.

Over time, Leo XIV further defined his intellectual profile, increasingly infusing his own touch into his speeches, and firmly maintaining the belief that the Church must be able to speak truthfully, above all else. He said it in his first address to the Diplomatic Corps, he said it at the prayer vigil for Peace on April 11, when he emphasized that the Church knows it can be despised, and he even emphasized it in his response to questions about US President Donald Trump’s attacks on him, explaining that the Church will never be afraid to speak out for peace.

Leo XIV is moving toward the idea of an integral mission, which also involves communications—at least, the profile of the new members of the Dicastery for Communication announced last week suggests precisely this—but which above all concerns his being Pope. And the integral mission was, ideally, that of Pope Francis, who never failed to speak of an outgoing Church.

All this to show how Leo XIV’s relationship with Francis’s legacy is one of equilibrium and absorption, rather than opposition or replacement.

In short, Leo’s approach is balanced.

Much will be seen when the presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences meet for the tenth anniversary of Amoris Laetitia next September. The impression is that, even then, Leo XIV wants to focus on the good missionary aspects of the discussions and leave the rest to casuistry. Thus, every contradiction will be absorbed, and every good thing will be exalted.