Before diving into my thoughts on Pope Leo XIV and the transition from Francis’s papacy, I think I owe readers a brief explanation — and maybe a small mea culpa.

I’ve spent most of the past week working on a dense, reference-heavy article — which, as of today, has unexpectedly split into two. Both will (hopefully) explore different aspects of Pope Leo’s leadership style. Buckle up! (Assuming that’s your kind of thing.) I’ll have them finished soon, hopefully.

Unfortunately, when I’m doing my own writing, that means the editorial queue becomes backed up. Which inevitably means the flow of content on this site slows down.

It also means that several writers have asked for updates on the articles they submitted. In many cases, I will have told them I would get back to them “next week” or “tomorrow” — only to realize eventually that “next week” was last week and “tomorrow” was eight months ago. I’ve had people grow frustrated with me and do things such as angrily withdraw their submissions or accuse me of not caring about a particular issue, when the truth is I never saw their article or I totally forgot about it. I constantly carry guilt about this, as well as the ever-present anxiety that I’ve forgotten something important. I live in constant fear that someone else will soon be disappointed in me for something I’m not expecting.

I am happy that two excellent recent articles — one by Carlos Colorado and the other by Claudio Remeseira — were not lost to time because their authors gently reminded me about them. (Thanks!)

Honestly, I find it hilarious when we are accused of deliberately advancing a globalist agenda or people say we are funded by the Vatican, the Jesuits, or George Soros, because they clearly have no idea how the “sausage” is made. It’s a tremendous compliment because it affirms the talent and intelligence of our contributors and says our work comes across as professional and polished.

(That said, if any Vatican officials, Jesuits, or members of the Soros family are reading this and would like to help fund this website, please reach out to me at articles @ wherepeteris . com.)  

It’s hard to believe that despite my shortcomings, we’re still at it, after all these years — and I’m as disorganized as ever. A papal biographer once told me that if Where Peter Is is truly the work of the Holy Spirit, then it will keep going. And here we are. We are driven by love for our Catholic faith and fidelity to the Successor of Peter (the pope).

(I didn’t intend to turn this into a reflection, but as I suggested above I’m not very good at planning things.)

From the beginning of his papacy, I felt a kinship with Pope Francis due to his spontaneity, irreverence, empathy, and tendency to blurt out whatever happened to pop into his head. Fortunately, in his case, he appeared to have some of the chaos under control and was secure in his skin. (It probably also didn’t hurt that as an archbishop and pope, he had teams of assistants to help him keep track of things.) Francis, who was 76 when he was elected pope, was comfortable with who he was and with his limitations.

One of the qualities I most admired — and aspire to — in Pope Francis was his radical self-acceptance: his deep embrace of his own humanity and his unwavering faith that he was beloved of God. He recognized both his gifts and his limitations without shame or pretense. He couldn’t sing, so he didn’t sing. He admitted his English was poor, saying that he was “tone deaf,” so he rarely spoke it. His knees were bad, so he didn’t kneel. When his mobility declined to the point that celebrating public Masses became physically taxing, he quietly adapted to the presider’s chair to lead the prayers and preach, while a cardinal performed the more physically demanding parts of the liturgy.

Critics occasionally criticized Francis for those decisions, but such voices didn’t bother him. Francis knew it was none of their business. He didn’t wear a mask. His humanity, even his occasional gaffes and outbursts of anger, was there for all to see.

Francis’s leadership style was consultative (or synodal, if you prefer), and followed a process of discernment, but as pope he understood that all decisions ultimately rested on his shoulders. When he made a decision, therefore, he owned it. This is why Pope Francis had no problem with bringing those with unconventional or even heterodox views to the table. Francis believed there was nothing to fear with and under Peter, so the more the merrier. The amount of trust Pope Francis had in the Holy Spirit’s guidance and protection is impossible to underestimate. The critics who argued that Francis was “trying to turn the Church into a democracy” really didn’t understand him (or faith in the Holy Spirit, for that matter) at all.

I admired Francis’s capacity to improvise and launch creative and bold initiatives that I never would have thought of myself. His vision for evangelization — of a Church that doesn’t look inward or adopt a defensive posture but goes out to the periphery and accompanies the poor, wounded, and suffering — transformed my heart.

I was privileged to write about and defend Pope Francis for the final eight years of his papacy. In the beginning, the founders of this website thought of our task in fairly simple terms. Catholics (even bishops, cardinals, and theologians) claimed to be “confused” by Pope Francis’s teachings and were making false claims about Catholic doctrine on papal primacy and authority. Tackling that would be simple enough.

Soon, however, it was clear that the opposition to Pope Francis was not a matter of confusion, but a matter of rejection of his authority and teachings. It takes about five minutes to explain the orthodoxy of Amoris Laetitia or the 2018 revision to the Church’s teaching on the death penalty to a confused but well-intentioned Catholic. Unfortunately for many Catholics, especially in the US, “orthodoxy” came to be defined as “opposition to Pope Francis.” It was as if they thought the only thing infallible about him was his infallible wrongness.

Just as Pope Francis spoke of the God of Surprises, he was a pope of surprises — not only because we never knew what he was going to say next, but because at least once a week his critics would attempt to throw a new accusation at him. Occasionally, such as in October 2019 with the racist moral panic over “idolatry in the Vatican,” one of these false manufactured scandals would go viral. And then, sometimes it would seem as if the entire Catholic internet (supporters and detractors) was waiting to see how WPI would respond. Typically, when the dust settled, our response would be proven true.

In the first years of Francis’s pontificate — when many of my role models, peers, and friends in the conservative Catholic world began to step away from Francis and turn against him — I decided to follow my Catholic instincts and hang on to my Catholic roots. It was a leap of faith. I chose to follow the Successor of Peter. I have never regretted that. My experience with Francis’s pontificate was like riding a dragon — exhilarating, inspiring, jarring, terrifying, life-changing.

We have been told many times that Pope Francis began every morning with prayer. And it seems that afterwards he just took on rest of the day boldly confident that God would sustain and guide him. The effect of this approach was anxiety in his critics and inspiration for everyone else. I don’t think we discuss Francis’s unrelenting boldness nearly enough. Francis was bold. I miss that. I miss him.

Today we are still learning about Pope Leo XIV, who is off to a promising start. Of course his style is much different than that of Pope Francis. Unlike the roller coaster of Francis’s papacy, Leo seems much more steady, methodical, and careful — perhaps a bit like the mules he would ride in rural Peru. Many of Pope Francis’s old critics are attempting to once again control the image of the pope (as they did during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XIV) and paint him as a supporter of their cause. They are predicting that he will roll back Francis’s reforms, reverse his teachings, and even relax the 2021 restrictions on the Tridentine Mass.

Two months into his papacy, Leo XIV has not yet promulgated a doctrine or discipline that has had significant global impact on the faithful. There are rumors that he is working on his first encyclical and is preparing to make significant changes in the Roman Curia (where he was a very significant figure for the two years prior to his election), but we won’t know what he will write or whom he will appoint until his decisions are made public.

We do have some clues about his theological views and his approach to doctrine, but we should not forget the old wisdom that the office of the papacy can change a man. It is impossible to forecast with any confidence what he will do about any specific issue.

But I think it’s fair to express an impression about his character and his nature based on the information we have at hand. And my impression is that Pope Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost, is a kind and holy man.

To me, this is especially evident in the video below, which was published by Vatican Media in Spanish with English subtitles. It presents Pope Leo through the eyes of the people with whom he lived and ministered in Peru, both as an Augustinian priest and Bishop of Chiclayo. Their love for him radiates in their eyes and from their voices. He loves them and they love him.

On the day of his election, I texted a friend who knows Pope Leo personally about his thoughts on Leo’s election.

He responded, “He is a true missionary.”

---

Image: The future Pope Leo XIV rides a mule in Peru.