Neglected highlights of Pope Leo’s first voyage

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Dec 03, 2025

Three moments from the first voyage of Pope Leo XIV strike me as worthy of a second look.

First, the Pope’s choice not to join an Islamic cleric in prayer.

During a visit to the famous Blue Mosque, the Pope was unfailing respectful, and showed keen interest in the beauty of the mosque. But when his guide asked him whether he wanted to stop for a time of prayer, he replied—with his laconic Midwestern style—“That’s OK.”

It is not easy to interpret that polite demurral, and perhaps unwise to read too much into it. Quite likely the Pope had been praying quietly throughout his tour of the mosque. But it seems unlikely that the invitation to join in prayer caught him by surprise. Both Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI had joined with Islamic clerics in prayer when they visited the same mosque. In both cases there was no prayer spoken aloud; the Pontiffs stood in silence beside their hosts. But it was a public gesture, captured in photos. Pope Leo chose not to make that gesture. Interesting.

By the way—or perhaps it is not at all “by the way”—Pope Leo also did not visit the Hagia Sophia, as his three immediate predecessors had done. Since the last papal visit by Pope Francis in 2014, the Hagia Sophia, originally built at a Christian church, had been converted from a museum to an active mosque.

Second, the Pope’s gentle but unmistakable warning to the German hierarchy.

On the plane flight back to Rome, the Pope met with reporters covering the trip for a question-and-answer session. Unlike Pope Francis, he did not cause any headlines with his off-the-cuff replies to the journalists’ questions. But an attentive reader should recognize this importance of what he said in reply to a query about the German bishops’ plans for their own Synodal Path.

The Pontiff’s answer was couched in the verbiage of synodality and dialogue: not the sort of language that lends itself to headline treatment. But he made a very pointed statement when he said that “there’s need for further dialogue and listening within Germany itself, so that no one’s voice is excluded, so that the voice of those who are more powerful does not silence or stifle the voices of those who might also be very numerous but don’t have a place to speak up…”

Here the Pope seemed to suggest that the German bishops and the liberal lay activists with whom they have been cooperating are the “more powerful” voices in the German Church, while their critics may be “very numerous.” More pointedly, he suggested that the episcopal conference might be committing the cardinal sin against synodality: stifling and silencing discussion.

Yet Pope Leo was not finished with the subject. He reminded reporters that for months, delegations from the German episcopal conference have been meeting with top Vatican officials to discuss the German plans. It is no secret that the Vatican is uneasy with the German initiative; even Pope Francis expressed concern that the German bishops were straining the unity within the universal Church. Now Pope Leo, in reflecting on the German-Vatican negotiations, said that their purpose was “to try and make sure that the German Synodal Way does not, if you will, break away from what needs to be considered as the pathway of the universal Church.”

Third, the Pope’s affirmation of the Nicene Creed without the filioque clause.

The centerpiece of the Pope’s trip was an ecumenical service celebrating the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea. Appropriately, when the Pope joined with the leading patriarchs of the Orthodox world (the notable exception being the Patriarch of Moscow, who did not participate) in the interfaith service, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople said: “In remembrance of what was proclaimed by the fathers of the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople, let us profess our faith.” The prelates then recited the Nicene Creed, without the filioque clause.

That famous clause, professing that the Holy Spirit proceeds “from the Father and the Son,” was added by the Catholic Church after the councils in question. It became a point of heated controversy in theological debates leading up to the Great Schism of 1054. But those theological debates are now long in the past, and Rome and Constantinople have made their peace about the fundamental content of the Creed. While amateur theologians are best advised to avoid jumping into scholarly disputes about the nature of the Trinity, it seems clear that, whatever the merits of the filioque clause, it is not necessary in a profession of fundamental Christian beliefs.

Pope Leo made that point in his apostolic letter on the Nicene Creed, In Unitate Fidei, released last month. “We must leave behind theological disputes that have lost their raison d’etre in order to develop a common understanding,” he wrote. Moreover, “the Catholic Church recognizes the synodal, ecumenical, canonical and irrevocable value of the Creed confessed in Greek in Constantinople in 381 by the Second Ecumenical Council.”

In short the Pope was affirming that the Catholic Church can accept the Nicene Creed, without the filioque clause, as an accurate expression of our shared faith. (Indeed in Eastern Catholic churches today, the Creed is commonly recited without that clause.) That affirmation is a reminder that while serious obstacles to unity unfortunately remain, the Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches share a common basis of faith that should propel them toward that unity.

The same cannot be said, unfortunately, for the religious communities of the Reformation, whose theological tenets are, in various ways, inherently incompatible with Catholicism. (Can anyone seriously believe that in the past fifty years we have moved closer to a unity of faith with the Anglican communion?) Catholics who long for ecumenical progress should look East.