Pope Leo XIV—Eight Months On

Mr Coulombe analyses the opening months of Leo's Pontificate. I'm still waiting for him to fire the heretic Prefect of the DDF, Tucho Fernández.

From Crisis

By Charles Coulombe, KCSS, STM

“Who do people say that he is,” remains an open question being asked about Pope Leo XIV, but we do have a list of what he has done, and not done, so far.

Full in the panting heart of Rome
Beneath the Apostle’s crowning dome.
From Pilgrims’ lips that kiss the ground,
Breathes in all tongues, one only sound.
“God bless our Pope, the great, the good.”
Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman

On May 8, 2025, Leo XIV was elected pope at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. With the death of his predecessor, a great many Catholics sighed a deep sigh of relief. I myself felt very bad that I did not feel very bad. As a friend said to me at that time, “It’s great now that the beatings have stopped.” It is a tragedy; the greatest tragedy of a tragic pontificate.

When Pope Leo stepped out on the balcony dressed, moving, acting, and speaking like a pontiff, the joy was palpable. Of course, he was the first American pope—more than that, a Franco-American pope (he and this writer are 12th cousins, in company with three quarters of the province of Quebec and half of southern Louisiana). Since then, he has shown himself adept at fitting in—something those of our ethnicity are perforce very good at.

In the months since then, His Holiness has done several things to raise eyebrows. Of course, he has not restrained maniacal bishops out to destroy the Latin Mass. But the Rorate Caeli website—no great bastion of Liberal Modernism—has outlined 17 things he has done:

Pope Leo, in just 8 months of pontificate, has recovered 17 small traditions that had been abandoned by Francis:

1. Leo XIV celebrates Mass, and he does so devoutly, making it clear that he believes in what he celebrates.

2. He not only celebrates it, but he sings it, and in Latin.

3. He uses beautiful vestments, far removed from the costly pauperism of the Franciscan style.

4. He wears a dalmatic under the chasuble, as the ritual prescribes.

5. The cross and the seven historic candelabra have returned to the Altar of the Confessio. For now, placed obliquely, but I presume they will soon occupy the center of the altar.

6. The “midnight Mass” has returned to being celebrated at 10 p.m., as in recent decades, and no longer at 7 p.m., the absurd Bergoglian hour that stripped all meaning from the celebration.

7. The tradition of publicly celebrating the Mass of the day (of Christmas) has been resumed, which had been lost in 1993 (Did he also celebrate the Mass of Dawn privately?).

8. The four assisting deacons of the pontiff have returned.

9. The Pope uses a cassock made of a dignified fabric—not transparent like Bergoglio’s—and with sleeves.

10. He has returned to using the sash with the pontifical coat of arms embroidered on it.

11. He uses the choir habit when required: surplice, red mozzetta, and red stole embroidered with his coat of arms.

12. This week, the red velvet and gilded wood throne, with the pontifical coats of arms, reappeared, both in the Clementine Hall and in the loggia of St. Peter’s.

13. He uses Castel Gandolfo weekly to rest and do sports.

14. He attends the musical concerts given in his honor.

15. At the beginning of next year, he will move to live in the Apostolic Palace.

16. He parked Francis’s white Fiat 500 on some pontifical block and uses a car befitting his rank.

17. Ignoring the provisions of his predecessor, he graciously grants the title of “Chaplain of His Holiness” to priests whom he wishes to particularly distinguish.

Some will stupidly say that it is an “assault on intelligence” to focus on those changes. Others will say that these are merely cosmetic changes, and they are right. But the fact is that traditions (with a lowercase “t”) are always cosmetic, but that does not mean they lack importance. In fact, it is they that reveal truths and mysteries, just as accidents reveal the substance. If we remove many of an elephant’s accidents (trunk, tusks, ears), it will no longer be recognized as the pachyderm it is. It would not be serious to omit some of the “superficial” details we have listed; the problem is that if they are all removed, the Catholic truth of the Roman pontificate is obscured.

All of these being true, I eagerly waited for his Christmas message to the Curia. Traditionally, the first such of a new pope tells one a great deal. Pope Benedict’s introduced his concepts of the two hermeneutics with which to evaluate Vatican II; Francis’ was a diatribe of a sort that became only too familiar. The Holy Father began his main points by painting a rosy picture of his predecessor: 

His prophetic voice, pastoral style and rich magisterium have marked the Church’s journey in recent years, encouraging us above all to place God’s mercy at the center, to give renewed impetus to evangelization, and to be a joyful Church, welcoming to all and attentive to the poorest. 

Well, one can hardly blame him for being grateful to the man who put him in the red hat. Those of us who heard shriller tones emerge from the departed pontiff might equally not be blamed.

Leo then gets on to his two main points: mission and communion. Of the first, he declared: 

By her very nature, the Church is outward-looking, turned toward the world, missionary. She has received from Christ the gift of the Spirit in order to bring to all people the good news of God’s love. As a living sign of this divine love for humanity, the Church exists to invite and gather all people to the festive banquet that the Lord prepares for us. In this gathering, every person can discover their identity as a beloved child, a brother or sister to their neighbor, and a new creation in Christ. Transformed by this discovery, they become witnesses to truth, justice and peace.

He went on to say:        

In this way, the mission of Jesus on earth, which continues in the Holy Spirit through the Church, becomes a criterion for discernment in our lives, in our journey of faith, in ecclesial practices, and also in the service we carry out in the Roman Curia. Structures must not weigh down or slow the progress of the Gospel or hinder the dynamism of evangelization; instead, we must “make them more mission-oriented” (Evangelii Gaudium, 27).

He then went on to tackle communion: 

At the same time, in the life of the Church, mission is closely linked to communion. While the mystery of Christmas celebrates the mission of the Son of God among us, it also contemplates its purpose, namely that God has reconciled the world to himself through Christ (cf. 2 Cor 5:19) and in him made us his children. Christmas reminds us that Jesus came to reveal the true face of God as Father, so that we might all become his children and therefore brothers and sisters to one another. The Father’s love, embodied and revealed by Jesus in his liberating actions and preaching, enables us, in the Holy Spirit, to be a sign of a new humanity—no longer founded on selfishness and individualism, but on mutual love and solidarity.

Now, all of this sounds lovely. But one might wonder precisely what it means. One can vaguely discern the notion of salvation; but the word is never used. Still further away is any idea of damnation if one does not go to “the festive banquet that the Lord prepares for us.” One could not help but remember Pope Benedict’s 2016 interview with Fr. Jacques Servais, during which he commented on what he saw as the great crisis in the Church’s modern missionary effort: 

If it is true that the great missionaries of the 16th century were still convinced that those who are not baptized are forever lost—and this explains their missionary commitment—in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council that conviction was finally abandoned.

From this came a deep double crisis. On the one hand this seems to remove any motivation for a future missionary commitment. Why should one try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it? But also for Christians an issue emerged: the obligatory nature of the faith and its way of life began to seem uncertain and problematic. If there are those who can save themselves in other ways, it is not clear, in the final analysis, why the Christian himself is bound by the requirements of the Christian faith and its morals. If faith and salvation are no longer interdependent, faith itself becomes unmotivated.

Of course, this gives rise to a great many other questions—not least being upon what authority that “conviction was finally abandoned,” when this conviction was echoed in Scripture, Tradition, the Creeds, most Ecumenical Councils, the Fathers, Doctors, and on and on. But what matters is that this issue was not addressed, and it remains the elephant in the theological room.

But it must be remembered that the Holy Father is a product of the American seminaries of the 1970s, a period when those institutions were at their moral and theological nadir. In those days of Christ Among Us, theology was taught very sloppily, with language taking the place of truth. Moreover, it was the “orthodoxy” of the time, unchallenged and unchallengeable. A whole generation of priests was raised with this, and it has no real answer to the question Benedict posed.

But if he shares the theology of his era, Pope Leo XIV is a keen observer of the contemporary scene. In his first annual address to the Diplomatic Corps, he noted that 

A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force, by either individuals or groups of allies. War is back in vogue and a zeal for war is spreading. The principle established after the Second World War, which prohibited nations from using force to violate the borders of others, has been completely undermined. Peace is no longer sought as a gift and a desirable good in itself, or in the pursuit of “the establishment of the ordered universe willed by God, with a more perfect form of justice among men and women.” 

He then went on to call for a strengthening of the United Nations, which in itself was very much the same tack taken by the Holy See since John XXIII in Pacem in Terris. This should not be too much of a surprise; it is a more or less unconscious yearning for a modern-day equivalent of the Holy Empire—in effect, a temporal partner with whom the Holy See can cooperate toward a better and more just world political order.

But the surprising part of the speech was the most spot-on. After attacking the cheapening of language in the modern world, Leo declares: 

We should also note the paradox that this weakening of language is often invoked in the name of freedom of expression itself. However, on closer inspection, the opposite is true, for freedom of speech and expression is guaranteed precisely by the certainty of language and the fact that every term is anchored in the truth. It is painful to see how, especially in the West, the space for genuine freedom of expression is rapidly shrinking. At the same time, a new Orwellian-style language is developing which, in an attempt to be increasingly inclusive, ends up excluding those who do not conform to the ideologies that are fueling it.

As the speech went on, it became increasingly robust. Leo pointed out a great many of the evils in today’s world, not sparing outright persecution of the Church. But he was never shrill nor insulting—and at the same time, he wove in a great many apropos quotations from St. Augustine. All in all, it was a tour de force.

The pope is hardly going to be praised by either Right or Left for this rather powerful speech. Certainly, it does not reflect whatever his theological bent may be, although it certainly shows his Augustinian philosophy. Perhaps because of that, it shows him to be a canny judge of the current scene and a keen intellect. Whether he brings that canniness and intellect to bear on the various internal issues facing the Church shall be the great drama of the remainder of the pontificate.