There’s a joke (or perhaps a coping mechanism) among more traditional Catholic circles that embracing ignorance about the goings on in the Holy See and regarding the pope is good for the soul and reminiscent of the “medieval piety” cultivated by illiterate peasants who faithfully attended Mass centuries ago but knew nothing of church governance or its leadership.
For more traditional- or conservative-minded Catholics, the papacy of the late Pope Francis provided many opportunities to embrace a tunnel vision focused more on the local church and individual devotion. After all, the alternative was to pay attention to Francis’s penchant for a more liberal and modern approach to church governance, much of which was at minimum a strong test of faith for more conservative or traditionally minded Catholics who pined for the more conservative leadership of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
But whether it was the freewheeling press conferences or the Vatican documents that used vague language on moral and social issues and thus were ripe for misinterpretation, there were plenty of headaches for those accustomed to steadier and more conservative leadership from Rome.
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For conservative clergy, “medieval piety” was not an option. A priest I spoke to said the Francis pontificate brought with it a daily sense of dread that the Vatican would find a way to create a new headache for the clergy, whether it be through an off-hand comment from the pope during an in-flight press conference, or an official document on blessings for same-sex couples that was seen as a significant break from historical practice but was subsequently further clarified on multiple occasions to say that nothing regarding the church’s guidelines for blessings had changed in any way.
That sense of dread has largely dissipated. And while it is easy to just say that this is just because there is a new pope, the reasons for it go far beyond that.
As a lifelong Catholic used to hearing the pope either speak in Italian or heavily accented English, it is still at times hard to wrap my head around the fact that the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV, grew up in Chicago, even seven months have passed since he first appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica following the conclave that elected him.
As mind-boggling as that biographical fact is, his American heritage (which, prior to the conclave, was universally seen as a liability for his chances of being elected pope) has, without a doubt, brought a distinct and new perspective to the Vatican that has become a completely different place with him at its head than it was under Francis.
In the immediate aftermath of Leo’s election, I wrote at the time that it was hard not to interpret his election as at least a subtle message to the Trump administration from the College of Cardinals. The only American who could be elected pope was one who had repudiated the administration’s immigration policies and who had spent much of his adult life outside of the United States and thus earnestly critiques it. Or at least, that was my initial snap reaction to the pope’s election.
But I no longer think that was the case. What was really at work with the election of Leo was that the conclave behaved much more in line with its historical trends, and the political situation in the most powerful country on Earth may as well have been an afterthought.
There’s an Italian adage, “a un papa magro, ne segue uno grasso,” that is, after a fat pope, there is a skinny pope and vice versa. And to be sure, Leo is certainly thinner than his more portly predecessor. But it also speaks to a much more human reaction, and that is that the cardinals, when electing a new pope, often look for a candidate who repudiates everything they didn’t like about the last pope. When there are things about your boss you don’t like, if you have the opportunity to pick a new boss, you focus on finding someone who doesn’t have those same negative traits.
So what were those negative traits? That depends on who you ask. But for the College of Cardinals, that largely meant a more diplomatic and less autocratic personality who was more collaborative in matters of church governance, as well as being a competent administrator. Less drama emanating from the Vatican also wouldn’t hurt.
And to that end, with each passing week, the pope, who was previously a bureaucrat in the Vatican with a missionary background, is largely living up to his unspoken mandate.
It should be noted that only seven months into a pontificate that will presumably last many years, Leo has only just begun to establish the tone and direction of his time as the successor of St. Peter. But even in that short period, he has already taken numerous steps that have either significantly deviated from or outright repudiated the path laid out by his predecessor.
To begin with, he is bringing back some of the traditional papal attire. When Leo first emerged on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica after the conclave, he was doing what his predecessor did not: wearing the red mozzetta (cape) over the white papal cassock with the traditional ornate red stole that popes prior to Francis had typically worn. And he’s continued to wear it. Whether it be at formal events or meetings with dignitaries and church officials, the use of the traditional papal attire discarded by his predecessor is a very obvious change in direction from Francis.
The pope has also begun using the papal summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, which was never used by Francis and was turned into a museum during his pontificate. Leo will also soon move into the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the pope, which was left vacant by Francis, who elected to live in the Vatican guest house.
While the revival of the papal attire and the use of a summer residence may seem like a more cosmetic change, Leo has taken several other steps that have either substantially or entirely reversed reforms to the church’s bureaucracy that were put in place by Francis.
Last month, Leo reversed his predecessor’s reorganization of the Diocese of Rome, which is led by the pope. It was the second major reversal of one of Francis’s bureaucratic reforms. In October, Leo reversed Francis’s changes to the Vatican bank, which were nearly universally viewed as problematic and failed to address the bank’s long history of corruption. And in January, Leo will hold a meeting of all of the cardinals of the church, reestablishing a regular practice of collaboration that had been largely discontinued during the Francis pontificate.
In one way or another, each little departure from his predecessor’s modus operandi has emphasized the fact that the election of Leo brought with him not only a change of occupant to the papacy, but also a dispositional change to Rome, the Vatican bureaucracy, and the leadership of the Catholic Church at large.
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While Leo has yet to reverse or revise some of the more controversial edicts of the Francis era, including the restrictions on the traditional Latin mass and the document on the blessing of people in same-sex relationships, he has shown a conciliatory approach to the more conservative factions within the church, just as he has with its liberal factions. Rather than inflame internal tensions in the church, Leo has visibly sought to tamp down on them.
If the last seven months have been any indication, the pontificate of Leo is one that will be fairly conventional. And for a church that just endured 12 years of unconventional leadership, a bit of conventional, and dare I say, American leadership, may be just what St. Peter ordered.