One year after Pope Leo XIV was elected as the 267th pope of the Catholic Church, Il Mulino Identify the distinguishing characteristics of Leo’s new leadership and the conditions under which he must act.
The Church of Leo XIV needs to be understood not simply as the beginning of a new papacy, but as a historically decisive turning point, write editors Paolo Pombeni and Francesco Clementi, “an interplay of institutions and charisms, memory and innovation, continuity and discontinuity.”
communicator
“Peace be with you all!” With these opening words, Leo XIV did more than just greet the faithful. For Dario Eduardo Viganò, Leo’s choice to deliver a theologically structured speech suggested a distinctive style of papal speech, both pastoral and papal.
“In a symbolic system, form is itself content,” Viganò writes, arguing that everything from the pope’s speeches and vestments to his views on movies, sports, and AI form a coherent symbolic language.
This communication style, Viganò argues, reflects Leo’s personal and ecclesiastical formation. His American upbringing gave him a “familiarity with public culture,” while his missionary experience in Peru fostered a commitment to pluralism. This dual inheritance, Chicago and Chiclayo, center and periphery, allows implicit conflicts to be resolved. The center is challenged by the periphery, while also being given an institutional voice.
Robert Prevost thus clearly represents an Augustinian politics of communication, in which the possibility of being ‘together’ is articulated through a language that is at once ‘unarmed and disarmed’.
unexpected pope
Leo XIV is an “unexpected pope”, writes Massimo Fagioli. Not only because he is America’s first pope, but also because his theological and political views defy easy categorization.
The Augustinian papal election comes at a time when Augustine is once again at the center of debates over religion and politics. Fagioli contrasts Leo XIV’s “pan-American Augustinianism” with both the postliberal vision of Radical Orthodoxy and the nationalist neo-integrationism that gained momentum in some American Catholic circles.
Rather than calling for a return to Christendom or embracing secular liberalism, Leo proposes a clear alternative rooted in religious freedom, pluralism, and the church’s engagement with the modern world. Achieving this is no mean feat, Fagioli said. Leo XIV’s vision “will have to find its place along the narrow path between an expanding Trumpian America on the one hand and a woke culture across the Atlantic on the other.”
women’s equality
Adriana Valerio turns the discussion to women’s voices, or rather their notable absence, within the Catholic Church. Time and time again, women have fought for greater equality, but their demands have been ignored in favor of “more pressing issues,” leading to “inevitable and painful breakdowns.” Some redoubled their efforts, while others abandoned religious practice altogether.
However, women’s equality has not always been ignored. In the speech that paved the way for Pope Paul VI’s decision to invite women auditors to the Second Vatican Council, Archbishop Leo Joseph Suenens said with characteristic irony: “It seems to me that women make up almost 50 percent of humanity.” But Paul VI’s efforts, like those of Benedict XVI, were “inadequate and contradictory” and “hidden a real prohibition of change behind superficial praise of women.”
Valerio argues that real progress only came under Francis’ regime. Francis’ denominationalization plan and “synodical approach” sought to expand women’s participation in the “listening Church.” In contrast, Leos seem more cautious. Pope Leo XIV supports a broader role for women, but for fear of deepening internal divisions and straining ecumenical relations, “Pope Leo XIV does not appear to be willing to go further, such as allowing women to join the ordained ministry.”
intellectual catholicism
Renato Moro traces the evolution of Catholic intellectual life through Don Giuseppe de Luca’s distinction between the two. Cattolico Intellectuale (“Intellectual Catholic”) and Intituale Cattolico (“Catholic Intellectuals”). The former were independent thinkers shaped by their personal beliefs, the 20 argued.th-Century priest, essayist and publisher. The latter understands intellectual activity as part of Catholic collective mission.
From Erasmus and Bellarmine to Agostino Gemelli and Jacques Maritaine, Moro shows how these rival models developed over the centuries, either defending a restored “Christian civilization” or seeking a dialogue with modernity in the construction of a “new Christendom.”
Moro argues that this long tradition is almost over. Since 1989, Catholic intellectual culture has declined as polarization increases and practical action takes precedence over broader cultural projects. He suggests that Francis encouraged this shift in emphasis by encouraging intellectuals to address social issues directly.
According to Moro, neoconservatism, which combined free-market politics with traditional Christian values, was a symptom of this broader process of disintegration, and its worldview was “no longer just Catholic, or even just Christian.” This in turn paved the way for “Christian atheism.” Although the “intellectual Catholic” is largely silent, “secular intellectuals have taken over the positions, roles, and examples once occupied by Catholic intellectuals.”
Source: Eurozine – www.eurozine.com
