Introduction

The first words of a new pope are always read for signals. Pope Leo XIV told the cardinals plainly in his first address to the College, “I would like us to renew together today our complete commitment to the path that the universal Church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Pope Francis masterfully and concretely set it forth in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.”

Pope Leo praised his predecessor for being “a humble servant of God and of his brothers and sisters,” and called on the Cardinals to “take up this precious legacy and continue on the journey,” expanding on several fundamental points from the late pope’s exhortation: “the return to the primacy of Christ in proclamation (cf. No. 11); the missionary conversion of the entire Christian community (cf. No. 9); growth in collegiality and synodality (cf. No. 33); attention to the sensus fidei (cf. Nos. 119-120), especially in its most authentic and inclusive forms, such as popular piety (cf. No. 123); loving care for the least and the rejected (cf. No. 53); courageous and trusting dialogue with the contemporary world in its various components and realities (cf. No. 84).”

By grounding his first words in Pope Francis’s program and the horizon of Vatican II, Pope Leo signaled a papacy defined by continuity that seeks to extend and embody the Council’s call to conversion, dialogue, and mission in today’s world. We have seen that continuity play out over the past months.

1.Integral Ecology: Laudato Si and Pope Leo

Pope Leo’s Message for the 10th World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation (September 1, 2025) leans heavily on Laudato Si’, marking the Jubilee Year as an ecological pilgrimage. Pope Leo called the faithful “pilgrims of hope,” quoting Isaiah: “a spirit from on high will be poured out on us, and the wilderness will become a fruitful field.”

In his message, Pope Leo criticized “Injustice, violations of international law and the rights of peoples, grave inequalities, and the greed that fuels them” as spawning “deforestation, pollution and the loss of biodiversity.” He argued that creation should never be “turned into a battleground” for the control of vital resources and warned that nature itself is sometimes treated as a mere commodity.

On July 9, 2025, he held the Church’s historic inaugural Mass for the Care of Creation using a new liturgy inspired by Laudato Si’. Standing in the gardens of Castel Gandolfo, he recognized that increasing natural disasters stem from “human excess and lifestyle choices.” He then called the world to conversion, stating: “We must pray for the conversion of many people, inside and outside of the church, who still do not recognize the urgency of caring for our common home,”

Then came the unveiling of Borgo Laudato Si’, the Vatican’s sustainable farming and education center. Standing in a greenhouse modeled on St. Peter’s colonnade, Pope Leo reflected on the Gospel’s invitation to “observe the lilies of the field,” noting how every creature, in its goodness, has a place in God’s plan.

Pope Leo has insisted that our work in caring for creation cannot be politicized. As he said in his inauguration homily, “The mission of safeguarding creation, of bringing peace and reconciliation, is the mission which the Lord has entrusted to us…We listen to the cry of the earth, we listen to the cry of the poor, because this cry has reached the heart of God.” He continued: “Our indignation is His indignation; our work is His work.”

2. Integral Human Development: The Human Face in the Age of AI

In 2020, the Pontifical Academy for Life hosted “The ‘Good’ Algorithm? Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Law, and Health.” This workshop was attended by IBM, Microsoft, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and the Italian government—all of whom co-signed the Rome Call for AI Ethics document.

As summarized in a special 2022 issue of the Journal of Moral Theology, this document offered six principles for ‘good’ AI innovation: transparency, inclusion, responsibility, impartiality, reliability of the AI systems, security of the AI systems and respect for the privacy of users.

In January 2025, Pope Francis approved Antiqua et Nova (“On Things New and Old”). That document, produced by the Dicasteries for Doctrine of the Faith and for Culture, offered a theological contribution to the rapidly accelerating conversation about Artificial Intelligence and the technological arms race, and set out seven lenses—rationality, embodiment, truth, stewardship, relationality, integral intelligence, and human limits—to ensure technology advances human dignity and to promote what the document calls an “integral human development” that resists both technophobia and uncritical embrace of all things AI.

Pope Francis often warned about the dehumanizing logic of algorithms and systems that obscure human dignity. Leo XIV, has taken up this trajectory from his predecessor, and in his first Address to the College of Cardinals said:

Today, the Church offers its trove of social teaching to respond to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose challenges to human dignity, justice and labor.

He has therefore moved quickly to translate Antiqua et Nova’s seven-lens ethic into concrete policy guidance.

In a July 8-11, 2025 United Nations’ “AI for Good” summit in Geneva, Switzerland, Pope Leo urged governments to create “regulatory frameworks centered on the human person.” He encouraged those present to pair innovation with necessary safeguards against surveillance capitalism, militarization, and exclusion, so that technological developments serve “the interests of humanity as a whole.” This means “fostering a more humane order of social relations, and peaceful and just societies in the service of integral human development and the good of the human family.”

3. The Seamless Garment: Abortion, The Death Penalty, and a Consistent Life Ethic

Long before his election, Pope Leo was known as a supporter of Cardinal Bernardin’s “consistent ethic of life.” This approach challenges the easy rhetoric of culture wars, requiring Catholics to hold tensions together and to care about issues that do not naturally cluster in our politics. The consistent life ethic is rooted in the recognition of the sanctity of every human life and calls for the defense of human dignity wherever it is threatened.

 Pope Francis revised the Catechism in 2018 to declare that capital punishment is inadmissible, since, among other reasons, it “attacks the inviolability and dignity of the person.” He noted that “there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes” and that capital punishment is no longer necessary as a “means of safeguarding the common good” since “more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.” For these and other reasons, the Church now works “with determination for its abolition worldwide.” Pope Francis insisted in Fratelli Tutti, “there can be no stepping back from this position,” invoking the recognition that “not even a murderer loses his personal dignity, and God pledges himself to guarantee this.”

In a 2023 address in Peru, then Cardinal Prevost echoed Pope Francis’ position, stating:

A Catholic cannot truly claim to be ‘pro-life’ by maintaining a stance against abortion while simultaneously advocating in favor of the death penalty. Such a position would lack coherence with Catholic social teaching.” he declared. “Our thinking and teaching must manifest coherence, consistently defending the value of human life from its beginning to its natural end.

Citing Bernadin, Prevost pointed out that issues from “genetic research, abortion, capital punishment, [and] modern warfare, to the care of the terminally ill” are “fundamentally rooted in one essential Catholic principle: the loss of even a single human life is a profoundly significant event.” Prevost added, “Seen in this context, abortion, war, poverty, euthanasia, and capital punishment share a common identity: each one is rooted in a denial of the right to life. We could add other contemporary issues to this list, such as the implications of artificial intelligence, human trafficking, and the rights of immigrants, among many others.”

In March of 2015, prior to being made a Cardinal, Bishop Prevost offered early support for abolishing capital punishment, tweeting: “It’s time to end the death penalty.” Additionally, in 2011, then-Father Prevost wrote a message to former Illinois Governor, Pat Quinn, thanking him for his “courageous decision” to sign a ban on the death penalty into law.

4. Migration and the Peripheries: Solidarity with Migrants as Missionaries of Hope

Early in 2025, Pope Francis explicitly rebuked U.S. migration policies, writing to American bishops that “what is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.” He insisted that “the rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.” Additionally, during a visit to Mexico in 2016, Pope Francis criticized Trump’s plan for a southern border wall, stating: “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian,” he said. “This is not the gospel.”

Pope Leo XIV’s brother, John Prevost, told reporters that Pope Leo is “not happy with what’s going on with immigration” in the United States and “will not stay silent” in the face of injustice.

In Pope Leo’s Pentecost homily on June 8, 2025, he gave an indication of his concerns, praying that the Spirit would “open borders, break down walls” and “dispel hatred,” adding: “Where there is love, there is no room for prejudice, for ‘security’ zones separating us from our neighbors, for the exclusionary mindset that, tragically, we now see emerging also in political nationalisms.”

In his July 25, 2025 Message for the 111th World Day of Migrants and Refugees (which occurred on Oct 4-5, 2025), Pope Leo XIV drew the connection between displacement and despair, and repositioned migrants as bearers of hope. “Migrants and refugees can become missionaries of hope,” he wrote, explaining that “with their spiritual enthusiasm and vitality, they can help revitalize ecclesial communities that have become rigid and weighed down, where spiritual desertification is advancing at an alarming rate.”

In the same message, he sounded a sharper warning: “The widespread tendency to look after the interests of limited communities poses a serious threat to the sharing of responsibility, multilateral cooperation, the pursuit of the common good and global solidarity for the benefit of our entire human family.” Migrants remind the Church of her pilgrim nature, “Each time the church gives in to the temptation of ‘sedentarization’ and ceases to be a civitas peregrine, God’s people journeying towards the heavenly homeland (cf. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, Books XIV-XVI), she ceases to be “in the world” and becomes “of the world” (cf. Jn 15:19).” Pope Leo reflected.

During the Jubilee Year of Hope, Leo XIV further developed this emphasis by framing migration not only as a humanitarian challenge but as a theological sign. In his October 2025 apostolic exhortation Dilexi te (Late have I loved you), Pope Leo exhorted the faithful to remain focused on the centrality of the poor to the Gospel. He situated care for migrants within a broader call to love the poor as bearers of hope, warning against the reduction of migration to a problem of security or control rather than dignity and encounter.

And on November, 18 2025, Pope Leo addressed immigration in explicitly moral terms. Speaking to reporters, he said, “When people are living good lives—and many of them (in the United States) for 10, 15, 20 years—to treat them in a way that is extremely disrespectful, to say the least,” is not acceptable. He stated that “no one has said that the United States should have open borders,” However, he has urged Catholics and “people of good will” to “seek ways of treating people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have.”

5. LGBT Ministry: Welcome Without Doctrinal Change

Few early decisions have drawn as much attention as Pope Leo’s posture toward LGBT Catholics. He received Fr. James Martin in a private audience, he permitted a Mass celebrated for LGBT pilgrims in the Vatican, and he has allowed Fiducia Supplicans to stand. At the same time, he has given no indication of changing the Church’s doctrines on marriage or sexuality.

Earlier in the Summer, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, directly addressed speculation that Pope Leo XIV might reverse Pope Francis’s 2023 declaration Fiducia Supplicans. Speaking to reporters outside the Vatican press room on July 3, 2025, the Cardinal was asked whether the new Pope would discard Fiducia Supplicans, one of Pope Francis’s most controversial documents. He responded, “the Declaration will remain” and emphasized that there would be “no modifications or cancellations.”

On September 1, 2025, Pope Leo XIV welcomed Fr. James Martin, S.J., for a private audience at the Apostolic Palace. Afterward, Martin released a statement: “I was honored and grateful to meet with the Holy Father this morning in an audience in the Apostolic Palace and heard the same message I heard from Pope Francis on LGBTQ people, which is one of openness and welcome: ‘Todos, todos, todos.’ I found the Pope serene, joyful, and encouraging.”

At the same time, Pope Leo has reaffirmed the foundations of Catholic teaching on marriage. In his first address to the Diplomatic Corps on May 16, 2025, he stressed that harmonious and peaceful societies are built by “investing in the family, founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman.” He linked this defense of the family with the broader protection of unborn children, the elderly, migrants, and the vulnerable.

In September 2025 more than 1,400 pilgrims from across the world gathered in Rome to take part in the Jubilee Pilgrimage for LGBT Catholics. Their pilgrimage included a solemn procession through the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica and a Mass celebrated for them at the Church of the Gesù. During the Mass, Bishop Savino, vice president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, shared that Pope Leo personally encouraged him, saying, “Go and celebrate the mass organized by La Tenda di Gionata and the other organizations that care for your brothers and sisters.” In his homily, he noted how the Acts of the Apostles reminds us, “We all have to convert, that is, we turn, we look in the opposite direction than before.” Savino also spoke of “restoring dignity to those who had been denied it” and celebrated the Jubilee as a time of liberation and hope.

Reflecting on his experience, Fr. Martin stated: “Before the vigil, dozens of priests heard confessions…At the end of the service, we sang a beloved World Youth Day hymn, ‘Jesus Christ, you are my life.’”

In a 2013 interview, then-Cardinal Prevost spoke about the Church’s posture of openness under Pope Francis:

There has been a development in the sense of the need for the church to open and to be welcoming, and on that level, Pope Francis has made it very clear that he doesn’t want people to be excluded simply on the basis of choices that they make, whether it be lifestyle, work, way they dress or whatever. Doctrine hasn’t changed and people haven’t said yet, you know, we’re looking for that kind of change. But we are looking to be more welcoming and more open, and to say all people are welcome in the church.

6. Interreligious Dialogue: Peace as a Precondition

On the night of his election, Pope Leo pledged “to continue and strengthen the Church’s dialogue and cooperation with the Jewish people in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate.” That was a clear signal that he was carrying Pope Francis and Vatican II’s interreligious program forward. Again, days after his inauguration, he told religious leaders gathered in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall, “Now is the time for dialogue and building bridges.” He spoke of a “common path” in a “spirit of human fraternity” shared by Jews and Muslims.

Pope Leo has been insistent in his calls for peace as well. After an Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic parish, he offered intercessory prayers, decried the “barbarism” of the attack, and named the victims in his prayers. In July, following a repeated pattern of prayer during conflict, he called for a ceasefire and urged dialogue over violence: “We need to dialogue and abandon weapons. The world no longer tolerates war.” He quoted Pope Francis in denouncing the conflicts seen around the world, calling them a “third World War in pieces.”

In August he called for fasting and prayer for the Middle East and Ukraine: “May Mary, Queen of Peace, intercede so that peoples may find the path to peace.” Then, in a September message to an interfaith conference in Bangladesh, Pope Leo framed peace-building as everyday invocation: “Every group discussion, every joint service project… every courtesy shown to a neighbor of another religion, these are bricks of what Saint John Paul II called ‘a civilization of love.’”

The continuity between the two popes (and all the post-conciliar popes) in fostering the mission of interreligious dialogue was further underscored by Leo XIV’s first major apostolic journey in late 2025 to Turkey and Lebanon. During his visit, he engaged Orthodox, Muslim, and Jewish leaders in the context of regional conflict, reaffirming dialogue and peacebuilding as constitutive dimensions of the Church’s mission.

7. Church Unity and Ecumenism: Walking Together Despite Differences

From the very start of his papacy, Pope Leo XIV has signaled that Christian unity is a constitutive mission of the Church. At his inaugural audience with ecumenical leaders, he outlined his vision: “As Bishop of Rome, I consider one of my priorities to be that of seeking the re-establishment of full and visible communion among all those who profess the same faith in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

Referring to Pope Francis as “the Pope of Fratelli tutti,” Pope Leo lauded his predecessor, who he said “promoted both the ecumenical path and inter-religious dialogue, above all by cultivating interpersonal relations, in such a way that, without taking anything away from ecclesial bonds, the human trait of the encounter was always valued. May God help us to treasure his witness!” He continued, “Indeed, unity has always been a constant concern of mine, as witnessed by the motto I chose for my episcopal ministry: In illo uno unum, an expression of Saint Augustine of Hippo that reminds us how we too, although we are many, ‘in the One—that is Christ—we are one’ (Enarr. in Ps., 127, 3).” The Pope added, “What is more, our communion is realized to the extent that we meet in the Lord Jesus. The more faithful and obedient we are to him, the more united we are among ourselves. We Christians, then, are all called to pray and work together to reach this goal, step by step, which is and remains the work of the Holy Spirit.”

Marking the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul in June, Pope Leo welcomed the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople’s delegation which was led by Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon. Pope Leo spoke of a “profound communion already existing between us,” acknowledging real bonds of faith that precede full sacramental unity. Then, in July 2025, he received an ecumenical pilgrimage led by Cardinal Joseph Tobin and Archbishop Elpidophoros and described their journey as “one of the abundant fruits of the ecumenical movement,” rooted in Christ’s prayer “that they may all be one” (John 17:21).

In late November, on his journey abroad to İznik, Turkey – the site of the Council of Nicaea – Pope Leo marked the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council (325). Ahead of the trip, he issued the apostolic letter In Unitate Fidei, urging Christians to return to the Nicene Creed as a shared confession of faith rather than allowing it to be a source of division. At İznik, Pope Leo joined Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and other Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran leaders for an ecumenical prayer service near the ancient basilica. Together they recited the Nicene Creed—without the filioque, respecting Eastern Orthodox usage. Pope Leo spoke of the “scandal of our divisions” and called Christians to renewed fidelity to the faith all four Christian groups once confessed together.

8. Synodality Continued: A Listening Church

In his first week Pope Leo told ecumenical and interreligious leaders that “synodality and ecumenism are closely linked,” and pledged to continue Pope Francis’s commitment to promoting the synodal character of the Church by developing “new and concrete forms” of it.

For many traditionalists, “synodality” has become shorthand for confusion or democratization of the Church. Bishop Athanasius Schneider called equal voting for non-bishops a “radical novelty” that “undermines the divine constitution of the Church,” making a synod resemble a “democratic or egalitarian parliament.” Some critics have tried to draw a wedge between Pope Francis and Pope Leo, suggesting that Pope Leo’s synodality is more authentic than Pope Francis’s. However, as Dr. Pedro Gabriel has pointed out, such critiques falter when measured against both popes’ words.

Speaking to the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops in June 2025, Pope Leo XIV described synodality as “a style, an attitude that helps us to be Church, promoting authentic experiences of participation and communion.” He also stressed that Pope Francis gave “new impetus” to the synodal process rooted in St. Paul VI’s reforms.

During his papacy, Pope Francis repeatedly stressed that “The Holy Spirit is the protagonist” of the Synod. He warned against treating the process as a “search for majority consensus,” stating, “We are not here to form a parliament but to walk together,” and insisting that listening and discernment are spirit-led acts. Pope Leo has echoed the same emphasis, tying synodality to communion and the Church’s mission.

The formal sessions of the Synod on Synodality concluded in 2024, and Pope Francis approved a three-year implementation and accompaniment process that will culminate in a major Ecclesial Assembly at the Vatican in October 2028. Pope Leo will oversee this milestone for the official Synod on Synodality.

9. Against Clericalism and Rigidity: A Church Reliant on Grace

Pope Francis never minced words when it came to clericalism. He called it “a disease” in the life of the Church and often linked it with rigidity. He has also criticized priests that “demand from others things … which they do not put into practice firsthand,” saying such priests “lead a double life.” His tone was prophetic and bracing, and for many seminarians it was also jarring. Some heard the pope’s rebukes as harsh, even wounding, as if their sincerity or zeal were being dismissed. The pope intended merely to temper it with a practicality necessary for pastoral work.

Pope Leo XIV has taken up the same battle against clericalism, but his way of speaking shifts the register. In June 2025, when more than 6,000 seminarians and young priests came to Rome for the Jubilee Year, the atmosphere in St. Peter’s Square was one of welcome. The pope told them: “Be brave, be joyful, be truthful, and do not hide behind masks or live hypocritical lives. Crises, limitations, fragilities aren’t to be hidden but are rather occasions for grace.”

That phrase, “occasions for grace,” is worth contemplating. While Pope Francis denounced clericalism as a sickness, Pope Leo speaks of fragility as the place where God’s power is revealed, echoing St. Paul’s words, “when I am weak, then I am strong.”

This gentler note does not mean that Pope Leo is turning a blind eye to clerical abuses of power. On the contrary, he has tied clericalism directly to the Church’s culture of abuse and taken a zero-tolerance approach to it. In a June 2025 message supporting an event in Lima that honored investigative journalist Paola Ugaz, he wrote: “It is urgent to root in the whole church a culture of prevention that does not tolerate any form of abuse—neither of power or authority, nor abuse of conscience, spiritual or sexual abuse.”

Speaking on the subject of authority, he told an audience of priests that: to “exercise a ministry of authority… is to move aside so that Christ may remain, to make oneself small so that he may be known and glorified, to spend oneself to the utmost so that all may have the opportunity to know and love him.” While this personal antidote to clericalism is important, it cannot work in isolation or without reform of the structures which determine the modes of being in the Church.

What emerges in Pope Leo’s words on clericalism is a continuation of Pope Francis, only in a different tone. While Pope Francis thundered that “Clericalism is a whip, it is a scourge . . . it enslaves God’s holy and faithful people,” Pope Leo gently counsels priests not to hide their fragility and not to confuse rigor with holiness.

10. Liturgical Discipline: Liturgy Post-Vatican II

If there is one area where expectations about rupture and continuity between the papacies are most acute, it is the liturgy. Here Pope Leo XIV has chosen a path of disciplined continuity with the late Pope Francis, rather than either rollback or escalation.

In the early days of his papacy he quoted Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation that opened up the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist for some divorced and remarried Catholics. Additionally, regarding the form of the Mass, Pope Leo has made it clear that he does not intend to overturn Traditionis Custodes (TC), Pope Francis’ document restricting the use of the 1962 Missal. As for it’s implementation, he has allowed diocesan restrictions in Detroit and Charlotte to stand, while granting limited exceptions—most notably to a Latin Mass community in Texas. The same report announcing Pope Leo’s decision regarding TC also indicated, however, that he will grant renewable two-year dispensations to anyone who requests them. Dispensations were also granted under Pope Francis, however, not in every case. It remains to be seen whether Pope Leo’s alleged agreement to grant dispensations is a more generous provision or a misunderstanding of his statement that he would continue Pope Francis’ policy of dispensations.

Pope Leo did, however, allow the celebration of a Latin Mass in October during a Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage at St. Peter’s Basilica. This which might be read in terms of his stated emphasis on respecting forms of popular piety, rather than as a concession to traditionalist agitation. Pope Leo has also embraced some customary ceremonial displays early in his papacy which have been widely welcomed. These stand in contrast to Pope Francis’ distinctive austerity of dress.

What is clear is that, when traditionalist critics sought to undermine Pope Francis by questioning his motives and the survey behind Traditionis Custodes, the Vatican dismissed the charge, stressing that the critics lacked the full picture. Pope Leo’s approach continues in that vein: steady and pragmatic, intent on ensuring the liturgy remains subject to pastoral governance rather than allowing it to become a battleground for ideological pursuits.

Conclusion

Pope Leo XIV is neither “Francis II” nor his opposite. His early moves show a papacy of substantial continuity: ecological urgency, social teaching on AI, a consistent life ethic, compassion for migrants and LGBT Catholics, commitment to synodality, ecumenism, and reform. Above all, Pope Leo has demonstrated his commitment to Vatican II. What distinguishes him, then, is not a change of direction, but a change of tone. Pope Leo embodies a quiet charisma, and confidence in Pope Francis’s reforms. He consolidates them institutionally but does so without the rhetorical flair that characterized the Francis pontificate.

Whether this approach ultimately succeeds will depend less on symbolic gestures than on Pope Leo’s ability to sustain communion amid polarization, thereby translating the vision of Vatican II and Evangelii Gaudium into a method of governance and mission for a Church that is still learning how to make communion a lived ecclesial reality.

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Image: “St Peter’s Basilica” (Public Domain) by thinkrorbot