For many of us, the great gift of the grace-filled twelve-year pontificate of Pope Francis, was his striking emphasis, in action and words, on the Gospel imperative of Mercy to sinners. Deo Gratias!
However, I must confess, I sometimes wondered if the late Holy Father Pope Francis, might have been slightly overdoing his occasional rhetoric about the personal existence and reality of the ‘devil’.
But the last year has chastened me. I now believe Francis might have not been stressing nearly enough the powerful reality of a personal source of the evil and darkness which dominates, so glaringly, our globe today!
W.B. Yeats has been proven right yet again – for 2026 has shown us spectacularly:
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Just look at the staggering cruelty, fake ‘charisma’ and havoc being wrought by (for example only): dictators like Xi Jinping, evil theocrats like the Mullahs of Iran and Hamas and greedy Mafioso mobster ‘politicians’ like Vladamir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. They are literally, in unison, wrecking our planet for future generations, before our very eyes.
A prophetic choice
Thank God then that the Cardinals, in conclave in May 2025, discerned the precise prophetic leadership that the followers of Jesus of Nazareth need today in such a violent, rapacious and selfish world.
The Holy Spirit has given us through them, exactly what we need today:” a Pope of Peace-making.
The election of Robert Prevost OSA on May 8, 2025, has been so providential for our church and our wider society. This prayerful, gentle and thoughtful Augustinian, with his message of peace, from the very first moment of his pontificate, has brought healing and balm to our souls.
I stand by my assessment delivered a few days after Leo’s election.
And I heartily concur with Christopher Lamb’s recent overall assessment of Leo’s first year Petrine ministry, conveyed so eloquently in the recent interview/podcast with Gerald Doogue.
And I recommend you read Christopher White and Michael Sean Winters’s cogent views on Leo.
And so marvellously, in the last few weeks, we have seen the truly global missionary leadership of Pope Leo, in his stunning pastoral visit to many nations in Africa. The significance of this, the first major international visit of Pope Leo, is beautifully unfolded in ‘Speaking fearlessly’: Pope Leo’s Africa Trip by Inside the Vatican Podcast.
Synodal leadership continues
Central to his mission in the years ahead, Pope Leo has also made clear that he will continue the reform of the church along the path of synodality. Namely, accompanying people in their daily struggles to be people of the Gospel, rather than simply ‘denouncing’ others continues to be our way forward as church.
Such a path takes seriously the ongoing reform of the Church as envisioned by the Second Vatican Council. Hence the great significance of Pope Leo’s current weekly catechesis on Vatican 11.
Beginning in January 2026, Pope Leo XIV’s catechesis series on Vatican II has brilliantly highlighted the council as the “polar star” of the modern Church, focusing on Lumen Gentium and Dei Verbum to combat theological apathy. He emphasizes the Church as a “living body on pilgrimage,” stressing that true renewal requires focusing on unity, liturgical reform, and dialogue with the modern world.
And what are the key aspects of Pope Leo’s Catechesis?
- A “Church on the Move”: Defining the Church not as a static institution, but a pilgrim people focused on an eschatological journey to Heaven while serving on earth.
- Revisiting Lumen Gentium: The pope emphasized the Church as the “mystery made perceptible” (sacrament of union with God) and a “People of God” rather than a mere bureaucracy.
- Eschatological Focus: Leo emphasized that expecting the Kingdom of God urges believers to act on justice, peace, and charity in the present.
- Rediscovering Dei Verbum: The catechesis stresses the dynamic, living nature of the Word of God and its inseparable connection to Tradition.
- Unity and Mission:The Pope emphasizes that the council documents are still highly relevant and guide the Church to engage with the modern world’s challenges.
Pope Leo’s teaching encourages us then to view the Vatican II documents as an interconnected, living tradition—a “new ecclesial season”—rather than an historical event, aiming to overcome internal polarization in the Church
Such dialogue with the contemporary culture moves beyond a ’culture war’ strategy still favoured by some in the church. Of course, the Gospel is ‘counter-cultural’ but it is much more than that.
Both Leo and Francis realise that synodality is more than just discussions about internal church reform but a journey along the path suggested in Pope Francis’s great encyclical ‘Fratelli Tutti’. Otherwise, we can easily fail to address the dangers of clericalism and its corrosive effect on our credibility as Catholics.
For you cannot have real synodal reform of the church, unless the poison of ‘clericalism’ within the church also continues to be seriously addressed. Pope Francis was crystal clear on this point and so is Pope Leo – albeit in a different tone of voice.
The ‘Americanist’ problem
Sadly, this opposition to synodality and wallowing in a smug clericalism, continues to be a feature of some powerful forces inside the influential USA Catholic community. This ‘intra’ Catholic question continues to raise questions for me on this the first anniversary of the election of Pope Leo.
For example, we are now almost used to Donald Trump attacking Pope Leo with outright lies. As if, any Pope, is in favour of any nation possessing or using nuclear weapons.
In these days, Leo has undoubtedly proven his Christian soul and his leadership strength and courage, by firmly answering these slanders. His latest answer is inspiring.
I suppose one just expects that the ‘masters’ of this world, drunk on power and greed, to be opposed to the followers of the Prince of Peace, Jesus of Nazareth.
And at least, the USA Catholic Bishops have supported Pope Leo this time around.
But what does the stunning silence of neo conservative USA Catholics and their house journals in recent days about Trump’s attack on Pope Leo portend?
Fordham’s David Gibson provides one answer.
As Gibson points out, Pope Leo is merely repeating exactly what Saint Pope John Paul 11 said in his day about the Iraq war. The hypocrisy is stunning…
Rave on, as they will, it’s not the so-called ‘woke’ forces today attacking Pope Leo. It’s the very groups who claim that they are the true believers, the most loyally self-proclaimed ‘Catholic’ – that are damaging the unity of the church and its credible witness to a world desperately in need of the Gospel.
So, what then is the way forward. It must be to continue to pray and preach the Gospel of peace, as Pope Leo is doing day in and out.
Conclusion
In the poetic words of the Amazonian Bishop Pedro Casaldáliga CMF, today, May 8, we celebrate the grace of Pope Leo’s first year of peace-making Petrine ministry, surrounded as we are today by: A legion of mercenaries who besieges the frontier of the rising dawn and Caesar blesses them in his arrogance.
We prayerfully thank the Lord Jesus, that Pope Leo, his Vicar on earth, is instead offering us an alternative Gospel vision – the way of peace and non-violence.
Pope Leo is prophetically urging us to return – in Casaldáliga’s poetic words – to the Gospel simplicity of the grotto of Bethlehem and the Beatitudes.
With Pedro Casaldáliga, we pray with and for Pope Leo, on this the first anniversary of his Petrine ministry to:
Give us, with your smiles, your new tears, the fish of joy,
the bread of the word… the clarity of the untrammelled horizon, the Sea of Galilee, ecumenically open to the world.
Br Mark O’Connor FMS is the Vicar for Communications in the Diocese of Parramatta and the Pope Francis Fellow, Newman College, University of Melbourne.
