‘To move aside so that Christ may remain’: Vatican spokesman reflects on new Pope
May 12, 2025
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CWN Editor's Note: Writing that “some words are destined to set the course,” the editorial director of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication offered his reflections on the beginning of Pope Leo’s pontificate.
“In the first homily of Pope Leo XIV, what stands out first is the opening, with Peter’s repeated profession of faith ... ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ wrote Andrea Tornielli.
“But there is also a vision of the Church, and of how any service within the Church should be exercised, which emerges in the final lines,” continued Tornielli, who quoted these words:
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.
“The witness of the Successor of Peter, which just days ago shone in the frailty of Francis and in his final Easter blessing to the people, has now passed to a gentle missionary bishop, a son of Saint Augustine,” Tornielli concluded. “The Church is alive because Jesus is alive and present, guiding it through fragile disciples willing to disappear so that He, and He alone, may remain.”
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