Léon XIV imposed his style

This has not happened for ten years: for the first time since 2015, the Villa of Castel Gandolfo will host a Pope for summer rest. And again, at the time, it was Pope Emeritus Benoît XVI. François, he had never seemed particularly attached to this villa on the outskirts of Rome, even preferring to open it to the public.

Overlooking Lake Albano, the place is particularly pleasant to flee the summer torpor of the eternal city. Léon XIV therefore decided to register for his predecessor and has settled there since July 6. He must spend two weeks there, before returning a few days to the heart of August a few days.

Two months after his election, Léon XIV moved away from Roman activity. In addition to a question of places, it is already a distinction with his predecessor who was known not to take a vacation – even if he still alleviated his agenda in July.

If he has paid a tribute supported to François several times, the North American pope is not François and reveals the differences. François had refused to settle in the private apartments of the Apostolic Palace, Léon XIV should reside there after a work phase. François refused to wear the red mozette and the so-called evangelist stolen, his successor brought them as soon as he appeared at the Place Saint-Pierre square.

Prudence and discretion

The most striking difference between the two is perhaps elsewhere: while from the first weeks of his pontificate, François had multiplied the explosive gestures and words, Léon XIV marks rather by his restraint, not to say his discretion.

“We would almost come to be bored,” have several vatican observers in concert. They are not surprised, however: a more peaceful pontificate was largely part of the expectations of the conclave, after the years of François who did not go without a certain abruptness.

Those who knew Léon XIV when he was in Peru, they recognize the method of their former bishop. “Bishop Prévost was like that: he listened for a long time, received both and took the time,” recalls one of his close collaborators of the time. Then he decided. »»

Should we expect strong gestures at the start of the school year? Léon XIV will not be able to constantly repel important decisions. One of the first should be to choose his successor as a prefect of the dicastery for the bishops. If it is a position in the shadow of the mysteries of the Roman Curia, it is no less important since it organizes the appointment of half of the bishops of the world and plays an ever more important role in controlling their ministry, if necessary.

On the merits, continuity with François

While waiting to decide, Léon XIV already distills elements in his public speeches. “The heritage that (François) has left us seems to be above all this one: synodality is an style, an attitude that helps us to be a church, by promoting authentic experiences of participation and communion,” he recently declared. While the most conservative detractors of the Argentinian Pope hoped that the subject would not survive him, now the new pope takes him in his arms and is part of his predecessor.

On the subject of ecumenism also, Leon has already had particularly significant words. “I assure you of my intention to persevere in the effort to restore the full communion visible between our churches,” he said on June 28 to a delegation of the ecumenical patriarchy in Constantinople. Will the Pontificate of Leon XIV be the one who will see the end of the quasi-millennial split between Catholics and Orthodox? It is of course too early to say it and the path is still long.

By then, symbolic gestures could however intervene. First of all on the establishment of a common date for Easter, a subject on which an ad seeed close, before everything was suspended by the death of François. A possible trip to Türkiye – November is evoked insistently – to commemorate the Ecumenical Council of Nicea could be an opportunity.

Continue the reforms

Not without a certain finesse, Léon XIV seems to benefit from his more classic style than his predecessor on the liturgy and the symbols to better share his fight for the reform of the governance of the Church. And if the method led by François’s beating drum was able to shake a sclerotic machine, it did not create only allies.

Will the Leon XIV method prove to be the most adjusted for the new phase that opens? For the time being, the first North American pope seems to satisfy both. To see if these signals launched will be enough to maintain membership when the time of more noisy media decisions will come.