By Junno Arocho Esteves, OSV News
(OSV News) — Since his election to the chair of St. Peter one month ago, Pope Leo XIV has made efforts to learn the lay of the land in the world’s smallest state.
Those who have had the chance to know and observe the new pope see both a continuity with his predecessor, Pope Francis, while tracing a different path that is his own.
Although no major curial appointments or announcements have been made, one person who had a chance to know then-Cardinal Robert F. Prevost during the Synod on Synodality said the new pope takes his time and listens before speaking or taking concrete action.
“He’s reaching out and basically listening right now, and taking notes. And, well, that’s what he did, not only in the synod,” but also in the diocese he led in Chiclayo, Peru, said José Manuel De Urquidi, founder of the Juan Diego Network.
Urquidi, who was among the lay delegates attending the Synod of Bishops, was in the same group as the future pope and saw firsthand Pope Leo’s modus operandi.
“He doesn’t just want to listen, and that’s it, but to listen to everyone as a first step. And to also see how to react in a good way, and work with everyone,” he told OSV News June 5.
For Msgr. Roger Landry, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies USA, the pope’s missionary experience “and his 12 years traveling the globe as Augustinian prior general, have really prepared him well to steer the barque of Peter in the church’s worldwide fishing expedition.”
“The most striking thing about him is how poised he has been in everything he has been doing,” Msgr. Landry said in an email to OSV News June 6. “While his election may have been a shock to almost everyone else, he has seemed, from the moment he walked out on the balcony, to be ready and perfectly comfortable in his new and greatly expanded mission.”
Urquidi echoed those sentiments, noting that the pope’s “missionary heart” gave him a unique perspective on leading by listening first and then acting.
“He has a very universal approach — American but also Latin American — but also this very unique experience of being a superior for many years with the Augustinians,” Urquidi told OSV News.
“A lot of people in the media, or even pundits, (try to) classify American bishops or cardinals on a spectrum, and he doesn’t fit any of those at all. And we’re seeing that in how he’s approaching things during this first month.”
In the first month of his pontificate, Msgr. Landry noted that Pope Leo repeatedly mentioned various themes “that seem to be the initial lines of his papal magisterium.”
Among those themes are “the peace of the risen Christ that the world urgently needs; the summons of everyone in the church to proclaim and give witness to Jesus as the Son of the Living God and the answer to man’s restless heart; the call for the church to serve as the sacrament of communion for the human race in the one Christ who seeks to make us one,” he told OSV News.
Msgr. Landry noted that Pope Leo also emphasized “the importance of Catholic teaching to respond to the social, anthropological, economic and intellectual revolution underway because of artificial intelligence; and a humble reaffirmation that the pope is indeed still Catholic with regard to gender ideology, marriage, family, human sexuality, and the dignity of every human life.”
During the lead-up to the conclave, countless media outlets divided cardinals into ideological camps.
The Catholic Church is no stranger to the ideological divisions in the world, and it made the election of Pope Leo XIV, who was labeled as a dark horse candidate with little chance due to his American heritage, all the more surprising.
Urquidi told OSV News that “it’s no secret” that Catholics around the world, including the United States, are “clearly polarized.”
However, “it’s still very cool and a good sign that a month in, Catholics on … the theological, doctrinal, and even liturgical spectrums are still claiming him” as one of their own, he said.
“I think it has been very clear that in a very concrete way, we could say that he’s reflecting both a continuity with Francis, but also has his own unique priorities,” Urquidi added.
Msgr. Landry said the pope’s experience as an American can help “unite American Catholics” and inspire them to become “salt, light and leaven” both at home and abroad, while his Augustinian background can help reintroduce Catholics to St. Augustine’s writings which “respond to many of the most pressing questions that are devouring the psyches and souls of so many in secular cultures.”
However, he said, the pope’s motto — “In Illo Uno Unum” (“In the One, we are one”) — is a hopeful indication that the new pontificate will help heal divisions.
“I hope that he will help us to become one in the one Christ through helping the church overcome the theological, liturgical, and moral divisions that wound her and enfeeble her witness to Christ and his ongoing saving work,” Msgr. Landry told OSV News.
