Earlier this month, Pope Leo XIV was asked about the terrible situation facing migrants in the United States, inviting him once again to weigh in on the fraught political realities in his native country. Responding to a reporter’s question, Leo lamented their current plight and called for a “deep reflection.”
Six months into his papacy, some U.S. Catholics are still trying to figure out Leo, with those on the left and the right examining every move to determine which side Leo is on. But if we take seriously his call for deep reflection, and spend some time looking at the pope’s words over the last month, it’s evident that Leo—like his predecessor—isn’t interested in U.S. culture wars as much as he is trying to reorient the U.S. church toward the Gospel.
Heading back to Rome from the papal villa of Castel Gandolfo on the evening of September 30—after spending a day of rest before beginning the busiest month of his pontificate to date—Pope Leo set a tone for the month that would follow.
Back in his homeland, a manufactured controversy had been brewing.
Chicago’s Cardinal Cupich was set to bestow a lifetime achievement award to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin for his longstanding support of immigrants. Durbin, a Catholic, has been barred from receiving communion over his support of abortion rights by Springfield, Illinois’ Bishop Thomas Paprocki, who took to the pages of First Things to protest the award.
In an act of political theater, a handful of bishops—orchestrated by a former official at the U.S. bishop’ conference—joined the chorus calling on Cupich to rescind the award. The Chicago cardinal stood his ground, but Durbin withdrew just hours before a reporter asked the Chicago-born pontiff what he thought of the matter.
“It’s important to look at many issues that are related to what is the teaching of the church,” he replied.
He continued, “Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion but I’m in favor of the death penalty,’ is not really pro-life. Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion, but I’m in favor of the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
Leo’s words echoed those of Pope Francis, who explicitly rejected the U.S. bishops’ conference idea that abortion is to be considered the church’s “preeminent priority.” All lives, Francis taught, are “equally sacred.”
The backlash to Leo was equally swift and predictable.
“He’s not following the teaching of the church on this,” responded Robert Royal, a member of EWTN’s papal posse, a trio of Francis’ critics who apparently have decided to reprise their roles for this pontificate, as well.
Another member of the posse, Raymond Arroyo, went on Fox News to declare the pope “has a clean-up act to do here.”
But upon his return to Rome, it was evident that the reserved and cautious pope—or as some of his more progressive defenders have termed him, “boring”—had no intentions of backing down. In his own way, Leone had begun to roar.
When border-Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso visited the Vatican a week later, Leo said he expected the U.S. bishops to do more in defense of migrants and declared that “the church cannot remain silent.” Twenty-four hours later, he met with labor leaders from Chicago to praise their work on behalf of migrants and refugees.
On that same day, October 9, he released the first teaching document of his pontificate, Dilexi te, an apostolic exhortation on poverty begun by Francis and completed by Leo. In it, he makes clear that, for Christians, concern for the poor and marginalized should be a—what’s the description for it?—preeminent priority.
“Why complicate something so simple?” the pope asked. Unapologetic Catholic libertarians and free-market champions thought otherwise.
Those hoping that the conclave might also bring about course correction on the papal push for the church to become more synodal—more welcoming, more participatory and less clericalist—were also disappointed when Leo doubled down on his predecessor’s commitment to the project.
In an October 24 address to Jesuit superiors, a religious order long-known for their missionary work to the peripheries, Leo said that “a major frontier today is the path of synodality within the church.”
“The synodal journey calls all of us to listen more deeply to the Holy Spirit and to one another, so that our structures and ministries may be more agile, more transparent and more responsive to the Gospel,” he said.
And then in his October 26 homily for synod participants gathered in Rome for a special Jubilee Year weekend, the pope made clear that this wasn’t a challenge just to the Jesuits but to the whole church.
“We must dream of and build a more humble church; a church that … becomes a welcoming place for all; a church that does not close in on itself, but remains attentive to God so that it can similarly listen to everyone,” he continued. “Let us commit ourselves to building a church that is entirely synodal, ministerial and attracted to Christ and therefore committed to serving the world.”
Earlier that week, in a barn-burner address to participants in the World Meeting of Popular Movements, Leo again had pointed words to offer.
“With the abuse of vulnerable migrants, we are witnessing, not the legitimate exercise of national sovereignty, but rather grave crimes committed or tolerated by the state,” he lamented. “Ever more inhumane measures are being adopted—even celebrated politically—that treat these ‘undesirables’ as if they were garbage and not human beings. Christianity, on the other hand, refers to the God who is love, who creates us and calls us to live as brothers and sisters.”
Leo’s style might be noticeably different from that of Francis, but as the substance of his remarks over the last month has made clear, the direction of travel remains the same.
Christopher White is associate director and senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life and the author of Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy.
With thanks to Go, Rebuild My House, a publication of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States. Reproduced in full with permission from the author.
