In the speeches and homilies delivered thus far by Pope Leo XIV, certain key words have begun to emerge—words that offer a glimpse into the heart of his pontificate. Chief among them is Resurrection.

In his homily on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica during the Mass inaugurating his ministry, the word unity echoed repeatedly. It was not the first time. Since his election, the words unity and peace have surfaced again and again—unity and peace for a Church often divided between conservatives and progressives; unity and peace for a world teetering on the brink of a third world war. From his very first words from the Loggia at St. Peter’s, his core intention was unmistakable.

Leo XIV began with this greeting:

“Peace be with you all!

Dear brothers and sisters, these are the first words spoken by the risen Christ, the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for God’s flock.  I would like this greeting of peace to resound in your hearts, in your families, among all people, wherever they may be, in every nation and throughout the world.  Peace be with you!

It is the peace of the risen Christ.  A peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering.  A peace that comes from God, the God who loves us all, unconditionally.”

This reference to the Risen Christ reappeared in his May 10 address to the College of Cardinals:

“It is the Risen Lord, present among us, who protects and guides the Church, and continues to fill her with hope through the love ‘poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us’  (Rom 5:5). It is up to us to be docile listeners to his voice and faithful ministers of his plan of salvation, mindful that God loves to communicate himself, not in the roar of thunder and earthquakes, but in the ‘whisper of a gentle breeze’ (1 Kings 19:12) or, as some translate it, in a ‘sound of sheer silence.’ It is this essential and important encounter to which we must guide and accompany all the holy People of God entrusted to our care.”

The theme arose again in his May 14 address to the participants in the Jubilee of the Eastern Churches:

“Christ is risen. He is truly risen! I greet you in these words that Eastern Christians in many lands never tire of repeating during the Easter season, as they profess the very heart of our faith and hope. It is very moving for me to see you here during the Jubilee of Hope, a hope unshakably grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

In less than two weeks, the central message of the Christian kerygma—Christ is risen—has sounded forth on multiple occasions. This is no coincidence. It is increasingly clear that the Resurrection of Christ lies at the very heart of Leo XIV’s pontificate.

The Jubilee of Hope finds its source in the Risen Christ—the gift that the Church can and must offer to a darkened world, gripped by ongoing conflicts and unable to open itself to the deeper meaning of life. Pope Leo draws on Pope Francis’s concept of the Primerear—“Christ goes before us”—and reinterprets it with a missionary emphasis:
“Christ goes before us.  The world needs his light.  Humanity needs him as the bridge that can lead us to God and his love.” (Leo XIV, First Greeting, May 8, 2025).

Here, the Church is called to prioritize proclamation—the communication of the Risen Christ as the source of unity, peace, and justice. This is precisely what Pope Leo asked of the cardinals in his audience with them:

“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, from which I would like to highlight several fundamental points: 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; Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 1-2).”

By quoting Evangelii Gaudium word for word—the manifesto of Francis’s pontificate—Pope Leo underscored before the cardinals a continuity that is more than merely formal. In a profound sense, Leo XIV is a spiritual son of Pope Francis. The roles entrusted to him by his predecessor paved the way, in many respects, for his ascent to the Petrine ministry.

This continuity, however, does not imply a papacy that simply echoes the previous one. On the contrary, Leo XIV has already displayed a distinctive originality, rooted not only in his personality but also in his formation—Augustinian rather than Ignatian. And yet, there is a model that reappears in Leo and forms part of Francis’s rich legacy: the vision of the Church as a coincidentia oppositorum—a reconciliation of opposites.

This was the model Francis drew from his study of Romano Guardini. As I explored in my book The Mind of Pope Francis: Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s Intellectual Journey (Liturgical Press, 2018), this idea of holding tensions in unity lies at the heart of a significant current of Catholic thought between the 19th and 20th centuries.

Vito Mancuso captured something essential in his May 11 column for La Stampa, when he reflected:

“Why did Pope Leo XIV immediately bring to mind the complexio oppositorum? The answer is simple: he is American, yet also European by virtue of his parents’ origins; he is North American, yet also South American because of his many years in Peru; he is trained in theology, but also in mathematics; he has the precision of a canon lawyer, having earned a doctorate in canon law, but he was also a proponent of Pope Francis’s Church of mercy; he served as a curial cardinal, but also lived as a missionary priest among the poor.”

Mancuso’s perceptive remarks, however, are somewhat offset by his criticism, which stems from a framework rooted in a kind of Arian or neo-Gnostic dualism—one that divides the world not between believers and non-believers, but between those who think and those who do not.

In reality, the appeal of Pope Leo XIV lies in his personal synthesis of contrasting poles—an appeal now embodied in his office. He is the first North American pope, yet one who can also claim a Latin American identity, having spent many years as a missionary in Peru. His unique background positions him as an ideal bridge-builder between the ecclesial and societal tensions of the two Americas—a fracture Pope Francis sought but ultimately struggled to heal.

At the same time, Leo XIV presents himself as a man of doctrinal firmness and progressive social vision—qualities that allow him to ease, or at least soften, the rift between conservatives and progressives that currently defines much of the Church’s internal life.

This is why he was elected so quickly in the conclave—and why he has been received with joy and high expectations by the Christian faithful. In troubled times, the serene face of the pope, his invitation not to be afraid, his call to peace and dialogue, and his appeal for “a Church ever open to welcoming, like this Square with its open arms, all those who are in need of our charity, our presence, our readiness to dialogue and our love” (Leo XIV, First Greeting), have shone like a ray of light.

In a polarized and often Manichean world, the Shepherd who gathers the scattered sheep is the Shepherd of peace. Echoing the plea of his predecessor Francis, Leo has made it abundantly clear that peace will be the central theme of his pontificate.

In his address to the participants in the Jubilee of the Eastern Churches, he stated:

“Christ’s peace is not the sepulchral silence that reigns after conflict; it is not the fruit of oppression, but rather a gift that is meant for all, a gift that brings new life. Let us pray for this peace, which is reconciliation, forgiveness, and the courage to turn the page and start anew.

For my part, I will make every effort so that this peace may prevail. The Holy See is always ready to help bring enemies together, face to face, to talk to one another, so that peoples everywhere may once more find hope and recover the dignity they deserve, the dignity of peace. The peoples of our world desire peace, and to their leaders I appeal with all my heart: Let us meet, let us talk, let us negotiate! War is never inevitable. Weapons can and must be silenced, for they do not resolve problems but only increase them. Those who make history are the peacemakers, not those who sow seeds of suffering. Our neighbours are not first our enemies, but our fellow human beings; not criminals to be hated, but other men and women with whom we can speak.”

With these words, Pope Leo XIV urges the world to reject the violent and dualistic logic of Manichean narratives that divide humanity into “good” and “evil.” His message is not merely moral exhortation—it is foundational to the vision he has laid out for the Church’s mission in the world.

In his address to the Diplomatic Corps, Leo identified peace, along with justice and truth, as the “three essential words”—the pillars of the Church’s missionary action. Together, they chart a path of engagement that recalls the dual focus laid out by Paul VI in his 1975 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi: the dynamic interplay between evangelization and human development. This foundational insight—linking the proclamation of the Gospel with a concrete commitment to justice and human dignity—was also dear to Pope Francis.

Indeed, Francis prized Evangelii Nuntiandi precisely for its ability to hold together two vital realities: the announcement of Christ and its historical fruitfulness—the peace of Christ and the peace of humankind. This same synthesis stands at the heart of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate. He is both a guardian of doctrinal truth and a bold, unflinching advocate for social justice—for the poor, the migrant, and the outcast.

His papal name, Leo, pays tribute to the great Pope Leo XIII, author of Rerum Novarum, the Church’s first major social encyclical. Pope Leo XIV himself recalled this connection in his address to the cardinals:

“Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.”

His invocation of Leo XIII, however, goes beyond the social question. In his address to the participants in the Jubilee of the Eastern Churches, Pope Leo XIV recalled that “Pope Leo XIII was the first to dedicate a specific document to the dignity of your Churches, based on the recognition that ‘the work of human redemption began in the East’ (cf. Orientalium Dignitas, November 30, 1894).”

Thus, the figure of Leo XIII surfaces repeatedly, not only as a historical inspiration but as a living thread of continuity—a symbol of the Church’s enduring commitment to proclaim Christ while responding prophetically to the changing conditions of the modern world.

Choosing the name Leo was far from a foregone conclusion. Cardinal Fernando Filoni revealed to Il Fatto Quotidiano that he had been sitting next to the newly elected pope when he heard him consider taking the name Augustine (May 14, 2025). Nevertheless, the name he ultimately chose was Leo. And with this choice, the symbolic tapestry of the complexio oppositorum—the reconciliation of opposites—expanded even further.

Pope Leo XIII, after all, was not only the author of Rerum Novarum, the landmark encyclical on the social question, but also of Aeterni Patris (1879), the encyclical that placed the study of philosophy and theology firmly under the guidance of St. Thomas Aquinas. Yet Pope Leo XIV—Robert Francis Prevost—is an Augustinian. “I am a son of Saint Augustine,” he declared from the Loggia of St. Peter’s.

He is an Augustinian who earned a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome in 1987—a striking fact, given the longstanding theological and philosophical distance between Augustinianism and Thomism in the modern era. Here again, Pope Leo embodies a truly Catholic synthesis of opposites: on the one hand, the Augustinian primacy of grace; on the other, the Thomistic and juridical sensibility that arises from the Church’s concrete engagement with history.

Grace and nature—these are the twin focal points of an ellipse, a fruitful tension that must remain open if it is to remain alive. In a time when Christianity, as Pope Francis warned in Gaudete et Exsultate, is at risk of drifting toward either a new Pelagianism or a latent Gnosticism, it is fitting that scholastic realism be guided by an Augustinian intuition of grace.

Pope Leo appears more reserved than his predecessor—less inclined toward spontaneous gestures and crowd interaction, traits that also defined Pope John Paul II. In this, he more closely resembles Paul VI or Benedict XVI: contemplative, measured, inwardly driven.

Yet the core of his pontificate responds urgently to what the Church needs today: a renewed and persuasive presentation of the beauty of the Gospel. Christ—the Risen Christ—not the media’s “superman” ideal, is the sun; the Church, like the moon, shines only by reflected light. Echoing Francis’s frequent Ignatian dialectic of the “great” and the “small,” Pope Leo affirmed in his May 9 homily, affirming “an indispensable commitment for all those in the Church who exercise a ministry of authority. It is to move aside so that Christ may remain, to make oneself small so that he may be known and glorified.”

This means we will not have a media-centered pope. But we will have a pope who does not shrink from serious decisions. He is ready to place the Church where it must be: at the heart of today’s conflicts, as a reconciler of opposing sides, a field hospital for the wounded of history.

This article was originally published in Italian at Il Sussidiario. We translated and published this English version of the article with the permission of the author. 

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Image: “Pope Leo XIV first Regina Caeli Prayer I” (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Catholic Church (England and Wales) © Mazur/cbcew.org.uk