Pope Leo XIV’s first foreign trip evidenced profound echoes of his predecessor, Pope Francis. Still, we are also starting to see points of difference emerge as well. As Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich said at the press conference the U.S. cardinal-electors held the day after Leo’s election: “I think it’s important to remember that when we have the appointment of a bishop in the church, we don’t talk about a replacement, we talk about a successor. … That is what we [the cardinal electors] were looking for as well.” Leo is not Francis 2.0. Leo is Leo.
Like Francis, Leo went to a country, Turkey, with very few Catholics. Francis, remember, went to Mongolia, which has only a few thousand Catholics. There are not that many more in Turkey and it is wonderful to see the bishop of Rome confirm the faithful in lands where they are so few. Leo met with the elderly as well as the youth, as did his predecessors on their trips. And he met with civic leaders.
Like Francis, Leo championed the cause of Christian unity, looking forward to the great jubilee of 2033 when all Christians will celebrate the 2,000th anniversary of the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord. Like all of his recent predecessors, Leo emphasized the special closeness of the church of Rome with the Eastern churches. The scene at the site of the Council of Nicaea, where the pope was joined by almost all the patriarchs of the Eastern churches, was another step toward the restoration of full communion. His obvious and easy rapport with Patriarch Bartholomew brought to mind memories of Pope Paul VI meeting with Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem in 1964.
To be clear, Leo is continuing the path charted by Francis, and indeed by the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council. There was also more harmony between Francis and the other postconciliar popes than his critics allowed or his champions acknowledged. But Leo is a different person. He never had the experience of exile that Francis did. Leo, unlike Francis, was trained as a canonist. And, perhaps most importantly, Leo is an Augustinian not a Jesuit. After 11 years of Ignatian insights, which were a great blessing, Leo now brings Augustinian insights into almost every talk. The Catholic faith is the richer for being reminded of what these two great saints have to teach us!
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With thanks to National Catholic Reporter (NCR) and Michael Sean Winters, where this article originally appeared.
