Vatican Dispatch | What’s Ahead for the Pontificate of Pope Leo XIV?

Although its origins are likely more Western and recent, “May you live in interesting times!” is often quoted as an ancient Chinese saying. It can function either as a blessing or a curse. Regardless of the saying’s origins, Pope Leo XIV has indeed ascended to the papacy at a most interesting time, one with challenges and opportunities. 

I’ll begin by naming some challenges within the Catholic church, then move toward more universal ones.

Solidifying Synodality

Going into the conclave, one of the big questions was whether the cardinal electors would choose a pope who would continue Pope Francis’ commitment to “synodality.”

This term describes an understanding of the church as a community in which all its members are “walking together on the path.” On this path, members are committed to listening to the voices and experiences of all members of the church, and not just Catholics. Synodality also includes a less hierarchical inclusion of non-ordained persons in leadership positions, even as heads of departments within the Vatican’s structure.

The selection of their fellow cardinal Robert Prevost removed any doubts about where the cardinals stood on Francis’ synodal vision for the church. Prevost’s stated commitment to synodality in the pre-conclave daily congregations of the cardinals reportedly played a key role in his emergence as the cardinals’ preference. He also invoked the term in his address when presented to the public as the new pope, and has continued to do so.

But the work of the Synod on Synodality is not yet finished. In March, while he was in the hospital before his death, Francis approved its continuation through an additional three-year process of implementing the Synod’s conclusions and proposals. This will all culminate in an October 2028 Ecclesial Assembly.

Whatever the outcome of this next phase of the process, it will fall to Pope Leo to advocate for its reception at all levels of the church. If the ongoing reception of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council is any indication, the reception of this work on synodality will not happen immediately and will encounter resistance. Six decades after Vatican II, some Catholics, including many young U.S. priesthood candidates, still romanticize pre-Vatican II Catholicism.

Intra-Catholic Division

Pope Leo XIV will begin his papacy amid pushback by some Catholics against Pope Francis’ papacy, whose legacy the new pope has pledged to carry forward. Leo XIV understands the dynamics and threat of what has been called the Alt-Catholic movement, particularly in the United States.

Soon after the election of Cardinal Robert Prevost as pope, a Catholic friend called my attention to the fact that, as head of the Vatican’s Dicastery of Bishops, then-Cardinal Prevost was directly involved in dealing with the 2023 case of former Tyler, Texas, Bishop Joseph Strickland. Strickland’s frequent outspoken criticism of Pope Francis approached the level of dissident status. Under Prevost’s leadership, the Dicastery for Bishops investigated and concluded that his continued service in the office of bishop was not feasible, recommending his resignation.

Two days after Strickland refused to resign, Pope Francis removed him as bishop. Much of the opposition to Pope Francis’ papacy was based in the United States, so it may prove significant that a pope from the United States who isn’t associated with this opposition has succeeded Francis.

Pope Leo will also lead a Catholic Church that, like many other churches, is not all of one mind about LGBTQ+ issues. Shortly before I departed from Rome on Wednesday, one of my former divinity students messaged me about the direction the new pope will take.

I replied, “My sense is that there won’t be much difference in overall stance on LGBTQ+ issues between Francis and Leo. Francis still maintained official church teaching on same-sex relationships and expressed some suspicion about ‘gender ideology’ beyond the traditional binary, yet in tone and practice was much more open and inclusive, while not making any changes to official church teaching. I think it’s probable that Leo XIV will perhaps be more careful/precise in his expressions in this area than Francis, but I don’t expect the overall stance of welcome to all to change.”

It will be interesting to see how Pope Leo’s background as an expert in Catholic canon law may shape his approach to this and other contested matters.

On America magazine’s Inside the Vatican podcast, veteran Vatican journalist Gerard O’Connell observed that Francis’ more open approach was consistent with his tradition as a member of the Jesuit religious order. Jesuits tend to be theologically comfortable with raising questions and proposing possible answers. They are patient with ongoing dialogue between the questions and the biblical and traditional sources of the faith.

One of my lunch companions on Monday was a professor of canon law at one of the pontifical university faculties in Rome. The new pope earned a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome (also known as the Angelicum). He was a professor of canon law at a seminary in Peru before becoming bishop there.

I asked my new friend how that background might influence Leo’s pontificate. He replied that he thought it would make him perhaps more “careful” than Francis in his manner of expression when responding to questions about controversial matters. I will watch closely to see how this might play out.

Clergy Sexual Abuse

No pope can ignore the scandal of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. No Christian tradition is untouched by the damage of clergy sexual abuse. My own Baptist tradition is having its own ongoing reckoning with it.

But public worldwide attention has been focused on the Catholic Church’s response to revelations of sexual abuse. That church’s sheer size and global presence amplify the scale of public awareness.

On the one hand, Pope Leo’s relationship with American Catholicism makes him extremely aware of the coverage of the scandal by North American media. He also knows the concrete steps taken to implement safeguards against abuse in Catholic parishes in the United States.

On the other hand, there have been reports of dissatisfaction with the handling of allegations of abuse in the diocese where then-Bishop Prevost served in Peru. With Leo’s emphasis on the power of communication both to harm and to heal, I cannot imagine that he will refrain from addressing this issue publicly. In light of his previous responsibilities for the discipline of bishops throughout the Catholic Church, his attention to this issue will likely be concerned with what the Catholic Church says about clergy sexual abuse, but also about what the Church does about it.

Ecumenical Relationships

As the center of unity for Catholics, the pope also has responsibility as a focal point of ecumenical relationships between the Catholic Church and other Christian churches. Pope John Paul II recognized and addressed this in his 1995 encyclical “On Commitment to Ecumenism” (Ut Unum Sint).

Pope Leo XIV will dive straight into this ecumenical responsibility in his first scheduled international trip. Pope Francis and Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew had planned an ecumenical celebration of the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea on May 26 in Turkey. Francis had planned to attend. (The Council of Nicaea opened in May 325 and concluded in August of that year.)

It has been confirmed that this will be Pope Leo’s first international trip. While there, he will meet with the Ecumenical Patriarch.

This has immediate implications for the continuation of the progress made since the Second Vatican Council on working through the issues that have divided the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches since their schism in 1054. Since the decisions of the Council of Nicaea regarding Trinitarian theology and Christology are the doctrinal heritage of all Christians, Pope Leo’s participation in this celebration has implications for ecumenical relationships beyond those with the Eastern Orthodox churches.

I have not yet been able to fully investigate Leo’s record of ecumenical relationships while serving as a bishop in Peru. However, during a conversation I had in Rome with a Colombian official in the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, I asked him what he knew about this.

He said that in Peru, the ecumenical divisions are principally between Catholics and evangelicals. A friend in Peru with close knowledge of these dynamics told him that then-Bishop Prevost had a positive record of warmly relating to evangelical leaders there. An Argentinian Baptist friend told me the same thing in 2013 about Pope Francis’ record of ecumenical relationships with evangelicals when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

There is something explicitly ecumenical embedded in the papal motto Pope Leo XIV has drawn from Augustine: In Illo uno unum, “In the One, we are one.” This is from Augustine’s Exposition on Psalm 127: “although we Christians are many, in the one Christ we are one.”

As an ecumenical theologian interested especially in Baptist-Catholic dialogue, I will closely watch the ecumenical dimensions of this papacy.

Geopolitics

In the first few days of his papacy, Pope Leo XIV mentioned peace as God’s desire for humanity. He also referenced specific conflicts that violate God’s peace multiple times in virtually every public address.

His first words to the world on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica last Thursday were “Peace be with you all!” He repeated this in his first post from the papal social media accounts on Tuesday. He has mentioned in particular the Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Palestine and India-Pakistan conflicts.

On Wednesday morning, he met with representatives of the 23 Eastern rite churches that are in full communion with Rome. He noted that many of them had come from places in the Middle East and Eastern Europe where violent conflicts are raging.

He said, “Rising up from this horror, from the slaughter of so many young people, which ought to provoke outrage because lives are being sacrificed in the name of military conquest, there resounds an appeal” for the end of war.

Leo added that he is voicing this as an appeal “not so much of the Pope, but of Christ Himself, who repeats, ‘Peace be with you!’ Let us pray for this peace, which is reconciliation, forgiveness, and the courage to turn the page and start anew.” He then pledged that the Holy See would help bring enemies together to talk and to restore “the dignity of peace.”

In light of the current geopolitical challenges, some observers speculated before the conclave that the cardinals might elect a pope with diplomatic experience and skills. While that has not been part of Leo’s previous portfolio, he seems committed to playing a role in facilitating peace among nations.

In addition to various wars and what Pope Leo has characterized as an emerging “piecemeal third world war,” the geopolitical context of the beginning of his papacy includes a growing attraction in many countries to populist authoritarian movements and figures that threaten democracy. Leo has been acquainted with such movements firsthand, both as a bishop in Peru, where people have periodically experienced authoritarian regimes, and as a citizen of the United States, where on Monday of this week the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged in a speech to graduating law school students at Georgetown University that the rule of law here is currently “endangered.” It may be that Pope Leo XIV is uniquely situated to address this particular geopolitical threat.

America

Speaking of political developments in the United States, it is significant that at this particular moment the new pope has an insider’s experience of the American political system and its current travails. 

He has participated in the American political system as a voter. However, this doesn’t necessarily place him on any particular point on our political spectrum. Several reports have documented that Robert Prevost has voted in elections with a registered address in Illinois, an open primary state.

Prevost’s voting history includes both Republican and Democratic primaries. We do not know how he voted in general elections; we know that he voted in the November 2024 presidential election by absentee ballot from Rome.

The new pope can identify with the common American experience of negotiating life in a politically divided family. One of his brothers has indicated having more liberal political leanings, while another has expressed much more conservative political views. It even appears that Leo may even have had the experience of contending about politics with family members over social media.

From a personal Facebook account that has since been taken offline, a Robert Prevost commented on a post by his sister-in-law—the wife of the more conservative Prevost brother. The post, shared weeks before the 2024 presidential election, repeated a false allegation about Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. In response, Prevost fact-checked the claim in the comments and included a link to a Snopes article debunking it.

I speculate that before his election, the new pope had already closely advised Francis on responding to some of these American political challenges.

The last theologically significant document Francis issued before his death was his February 10 “Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the Bishops of the United States of America.” In the letter, Francis denounced the Trump administration’s efforts at mass deportation.

He also implicitly but directly rejected Catholic Vice President JD Vance’s appeal to the Augustinian concept of an ordo amoris, a “hierarchy” or “ordering” of loves. Vance had evoked this idea as a religious justification for prioritizing our nation’s needs over those of migrants and refugees from other countries.

Francis wrote, “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’…that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”

Francis brought Prevost to Rome in 2023 to serve as head of the Dicastery for Bishops. I imagine Francis would have leaned upon this trusted cardinal from the United States for advice about responding to Trump’s executive orders and Vance’s appeal to Augustine in defence of them.

Furthermore, Prevost did not merely belong to the Augustinian religious order. As Pope Leo XIV, he selected a quotation from Augustine as his papal motto. His public addresses since becoming pope have included multiple quotations from Augustine.

I suspect he helped Pope Francis craft this response to Trump. It may foreshadow a papacy with unique opportunities for constructive engagement of a disarrayed American political order.

We should not underestimate the impact having a pope whose first language is not only English, but American English, will have on the reception of papal communications in the United States. Modern popes have had varying degrees of facility with English as one of many secondary languages in which they have tried to communicate. However, their more limited capacity for doing so made the papacy seem more remote to English speakers.

That is no longer the case. It will be interesting to watch how this influences how American Catholics and the American public at large respond to Leo XIV’s papacy.

Climate

Pope Leo XIV succeeds a pope who will long be remembered as ecologically aware because of his direct theological engagement with the climate crisis. Francis’ first solo-authored encyclical, “On Care for Our Common Home” (Laudato Si’), has been credited with influencing the outcome of the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement.

Leo begins his papacy at a time when many nations, his native United States in particular, have been backpedaling from and in some cases formally disengaging from the Paris Agreement.

Pope Leo has signaled a clear commitment to Francis’ ecological perspectives on climate change and the urgency of reducing carbon emissions. In June 2017, when President Trump was considering withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, Robert Prevost’s Twitter account retweeted a post from the Laudato Si’ Movement urging Trump to read Francis’s Laudato Si’ encyclical.

Technology

Pope Leo XIV has directly linked his choice of a papal name to how his predecessor, Leo XIII, had responded to the late 19th-century industrial revolution and its adverse impact on humanity. In this connection, he has identified the emergence of new technologies, in particular artificial intelligence, as potential threats to human dignity and the dignity of work.

It is clear he has long been thinking about AI theologically. I would not be surprised if his first encyclical directly addresses it. As a theology and Christian ethics professor, I eagerly await the release of that initial encyclical.

Looking Ahead

This Sunday, May 18, Pope Leo XIV will be formally inaugurated as pope in a mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. Baptist World Alliance General Secretary Elijah Brown will represent the Baptist World Alliance among ecumenical guests invited to participate in the inaugural mass.

On Monday, I’ll report on Baptist responses to the election of the new pope and offer my own perspectives about how Baptists might think about their relationship to the office of the papacy.