COMMENTARY: Early signs from Leo’s first consistory suggest continuity with Pope Francis’ original pastoral vision — more in what he said than in how he later governed.

The direction of the Leonine pontificate is still not yet clear, but the consistory of cardinals last week gave some further indications. 

Pope Leo XIV intends to continue in the direction of his immediate predecessor, but he prefers to do as Pope Francis said, rather than what Pope Francis did.

In announcing the topics for the consistory last month, Leo chose four that were central to the Francis pontificate — Evangelii Gaudium, the reform of the Roman Curia, liturgy and synodality. 

At the actual consistory, the cardinals chose to discuss the first and the last, about both of which Pope Leo has repeatedly expressed his commitment. Leo wants the missionary Church called for by Evangelii Gaudium, the charter document of Pope Francis, and agrees with Pope Francis that “synodality is what the Lord desires” for the Church in the 21st century.

Symbolically, Leo chose Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, one of the stalwarts of the aging Catholic left, to provide an opening meditation for the cardinals on Wednesday afternoon. Radcliffe has been given a similar role at the 2023 and 2024 synods on synodality for a synodal Church. Then Francis made him a cardinal at the age of 79. It was a typically provocative choice by Francis, choosing a man who had promoted a range of dissenting theological opinions. That Leo chose Radcliffe again indicates a desire to show continuity with Francis, even in his more questionable choices.

At the same time, in his address to open the consistory, Leo chose to treat Francis as an extension of his predecessors, not a break with them. Indeed, Leo quoted from John Paul and Benedict repeatedly this week — something that Francis himself was reluctant to do.

“We can understand the overall pontificates of St. Paul VI [and] St. John Paul II within this conciliar perspective,” Leo said, in reference to Vatican II. “The mystery of the Church [is] entirely held within the mystery of Christ, and thus understands the evangelizing mission as a radiation of the inexhaustible energy released by the central event of salvation history. Popes Benedict XVI and Francis, in turn, summarized this vision in one word: ‘attraction.’”

It has already become standard for Leo to emphasize continuity by situating Francis within the framework of John Paul and Benedict. In that same address, Leo traced the arc of continuity even across millennia, arguing that the first paragraph of Lumen Gentium, Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution on the Church — Jesus Christ is “the light of the nations” — with the prophecy of Isaiah proclaimed at Mass for the solemn feast of Epiphany: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. … Nations shall come to your light” (Isaiah 60:1-3).

“While centuries apart, we can say that the Holy Spirit inspired the same vision in the prophet and in the Council Fathers, namely the vision of the light of the Lord illuminating the holy city — first Jerusalem, then the Church,” the Holy Father said. “What Isaiah announced figuratively, the Council recognizes in the fully revealed reality of Christ, the light of the nations.”

If Leo can draw a line from Isaiah to Lumen Gentium via the Epiphany, certainly a line can be drawn from Francis back through Benedict — and all the way back to Leo the Great and Augustine, both of whom Leo quoted too.

The consistory was not only a rhetorical attempt to demonstrate continuity with Pope Francis and his priorities, and to argue that those priorities had deeper roots. It was an embrace of the Francis rhetoric — which often appeared to be at odds in important ways with what Francis actually did. In that, it may be that Leo is attempting a rather subtle strategy, namely to demonstrate deeper continuity by doing what Francis proposed but failed himself to do. 

The consistory was not the first time Leo returned to Evangelii Gaudium. It should be remembered how enthusiastically welcomed the charge to be “joyful” (“gaudium”) missionaries was when Francis published it in 2013. 

For example, at the time George Weigel celebrated Evangelii Gaudium as precisely the “Evangelical Catholicism” (he wrote a book with that title) that had first been proposed by Pope Leo XIII and given definitive shape by Vatican II, authentically interpreted by John Paul and Benedict. 

Yet Francis himself often did not choose the path of joy; he preferred the harsh scold to the joyful missionary, chastising in aggressive language the Roman Curia and arms merchants, women who had had abortions and seminarians who wore lacy outfits. 

In going back to Evangelii Gaudium, Leo may be suggesting that the Church should follow what Pope Francis said at the beginning, not what he did later. In that regard, for example, many of the cardinals at the consistory resident in Rome would have recalled Pope Leo’s warm words in his Christmas greetings last month.

That distinction between words and deeds returned again in regard to synodality. Along with many others, Weigel considered the long synodal path a departure from the evangelical urgency of Evangelii Gaudium, criticizing it as a move from a “Church in mission to a Church in meetings.” 

Leo confirmed at the consistory that the meetings would continue — there will be an “ecclesial assembly” in October 2028, the (perhaps?) final step on the synodal process of Pope Francis. Notably, during the consistory, Pope Leo sat at a roundtable with Cardinal Mario Grech, who oversaw the synod under Pope Francis.

Yet Pope Francis did not govern in a synodal fashion. He kept a tight circle of advisers, deployed an unprecedented number of papal executive orders (motu proprio), authorized and canceled major financial reforms without telling his principal collaborators, interfered in sexual abuse proceedings to protect perpetrators he favored, and pursued international relations at odds with local bishops in Ukraine, Venezuela and China. Notably, after the cardinals in the consistory of 2014 rejected his proposal to consider admitting the divorced and civilly remarried to Holy Communion, Francis simply suspended their meetings for eight years.

In contrast, Leo announced that there would be annual meetings of the cardinals, with the next one coming this year in June. He intends them to last three or four days, and to be an occasion of genuine consultation. What will happen remains to be seen, but the message could not have been clearer: Pope Francis promised to consult but didn’t; I will.

In trying to understand the shape of Leo’s pontificate, it bears remembering that Robert Prevost managed to get 69 years old, holding responsible positions for decades, without making it obvious where he stood on matters of controversy — including a period of political tumult in his adopted homeland of Peru.

It may be that he will not declare himself clearly still. But it seems that he intends to do what he says. That is one break in continuity with his predecessor.

This article was originally published by NCRegister.