In his first major interview since being chosen to lead the Catholics, Leo XIV confessed: “I’m learning a lot and I feel challenged, but not bored. In that aspect, I had to jump into the deep end of the pool very quickly.” “I still have a huge learning curve ahead of me. There is a big part where I feel like I managed to progress without too many difficulties, which is the pastoral part. The response still surprises me [das pessoas] (…). The completely new aspect of this work is that it has been promoted to the level of world leader. It’s something very public, people know about it from telephone conversations or meetings I had with heads of state from various governments and countries around the world, at a time when the voice of the Church has an important role to play. I am learning a lot about how the Holy See has played a role in the diplomatic world for many years. (…) All of this is new to me in practical terms”, he confessed in the same interview, made public less than two months ago.
This Saturday, November 8th, the day on which the first six months of his pontificate are completed, Leo XIV seems to be beginning to appear more comfortable in his new role, as he confessed during King Charles III’s recent visit to the Vatican. “One gets used to it”, he replied, when the British monarch asked him about the many cameras and television cameras that were recording every moment of this historic meeting.
And it is beginning to be noticed which areas he intends to follow the legacy of Francisco, his predecessor, and which areas he will follow his own path.
The first sign that Robert Prevost would be, in some aspects, more conservative than Francisco came immediately in the way he dressed, having opted for the traditional red muslin cape and the embroidered stole on almost all occasions, except the most banal, unlike the simplicity and greater informality of his predecessor’s white attire.
Another sign of the new mark of Leo
Two weeks earlier, in what was his first executive decree, Leo This was, so far, the clearest sign that the North American wants to change the centers of power in the Vatican, after Francis showed dependence on the IOR councils.
October was the setting for yet another demonstration of following a different path to its predecessor, when received at the Vatican with Ending Clergy Abuse, an organization of survivors and advocates for abuse victims, who later explained that the Supreme Pontiff has agreed to maintain an ongoing dialogue as they try to achieve a zero-tolerance policy for abuse in the Catholic Church. Francis and Benedict XVI also met with victims, but stayed away from activist groups.
On the other hand, the North American appears to be aligned with his predecessor on issues of social justice. Last month, for example, when he published his first important doctrinal document, he highlighted the Church’s non-negotiable “preferential option for the poor”. A document that had begun to be written by Francis and that Leo XIV finished, criticizing the way in which the rich live in a “bubble of comfort and luxury”, while the poor suffer on the margins of society.
The way immigrants are treated, particularly by the Trump Administration, has been the subject of several interventions over these six months, the harshest of which was made this week, and in English, to reach the North American public more directly. On Wednesday, Leo In a recent meeting with North American bishops, the pope also sent the message that they must rise up against these policies and defend the most vulnerable.
On the environmental front, Leão is also following in his predecessor’s footsteps, having approved Francis’ plan to transform a Vatican property north of Rome into a huge solar farm, which could make the Vatican the first carbon-neutral state in the world.
The Supreme Pontiff has also been vocal about conflicts in the world, having already received the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as the leader of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, at the Vatican, the latter on Thursday, November 6. “I ask you to include in your intentions the supplication for the gift of peace – an unarmed and disarming peace – for the entire world, especially for Ukraine and the Middle East”, said Leo XIV in his General Audience on August 22, one of the many times he addressed these two wars.
An attractive introvert
Christopher White, author of the book Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacyhe recalls in a text published this week in Catholic Heraldthat “Pope Francis brought Prevost to Rome in 2023 to head the powerful Vatican office that helps select potential bishops, and he quickly became one of the Pope’s most trusted advisors. The two men had different personalities: Francisco was extroverted, Prevost was introverted. But they shared similar pastoral instincts and a deep commitment to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.”
A shyness that did not stop him thanks to his talents as a linguist, as White wrote, who was able to “converse at ease with almost all the cardinals gathered in Rome to elect the next pope. His reserved style kept him out of the spotlight, but for many cardinals, this only made him more attractive.”
“When Prevost appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica for his first public speech, he said that he dreamed of a Church with a missionary nature, capable of dialoguing with the world around it as a builder of bridges. In what some expected to be a divisive conclave, the cardinals came to see him as someone who embodied that identity – and so they entrusted him with the great responsibility of serving as that builder of bridges for the entire world”, concluded the also senior researcher at the Initiative for Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University.