Pope Leo insists: Christ comes first, not human strategies

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Aug 22, 2025

In a Church that has been preoccupied for several years now with listening to everyone’s opinions and toying with mechanisms to engage an ever-larger group of often nominal Catholics in a chaotic exercise of self-direction, it is enormously refreshing to listen to Pope Leo’s repeated efforts to put the emphasis back where it really belongs—that is, on Jesus Christ and on doing not our will but His. Pope Leo seems to understand that we cannot proclaim the Gospel (or even raise our own children properly) without insisting that Jesus Christ alone is our Lord and Savior.

This is a far more positive and productive approach than constantly warning Catholics—bishops, priests, religious and lay people—to stop being “rigid”. For Pope Leo, the whole key to Christian renewal is a courageous and counter-cultural embrace of Jesus Christ. In last Tuesday’s Insights message, I highlighted several news stories which showcased Pope Leo’s characteristic insistence that we put Our Lord first in our own lives and in our relationships with and service to others. Perhaps most noteworthy was last Sunday’s (August 17, 2025) Angelus message, which is so striking and fresh in today’s world that I will break all the rules here and simply present the complete English text:

Today’s Gospel presents us with a demanding text (cf. Lk 12:49-53), in which Jesus uses strong images and great frankness to teach his disciples that his mission, and even that of his followers, is not a “bed of roses”, but a “sign of contradiction” (cf. Lk 2:34).

In this way, the Lord anticipates what he will have to face in Jerusalem when he will be opposed, arrested, insulted, beaten, crucified; when his message of love and justice will be rejected; when the leaders of the people will react with viciousness at his preaching. Moreover, many of the communities to which the evangelist Luke was writing were also experiencing the same thing. As the Acts of the Apostles tells us, they were peaceful communities that, despite their own limitations, sought to live the best they could the Master’s message of love (cf. Acts 4:32-33). Yet they were suffering persecutions.

All of this reminds us that being or doing good does not always receive a positive response. On the contrary, because its beauty at times annoys those who do not welcome it, one can end up encountering harsh opposition, even insolence and oppression. Acting in truth has its cost, because there are those in the world who choose lies, and the devil, who takes advantage of the situation, often seeks to block the actions of good people.

Jesus, however, invites us with his help not to give in and conform ourselves to this mentality, but to continue to act for our good and the good of all, even those who make us suffer. He invites us not to respond to insolence with vengeance, but to remain faithful to the truth in love. The martyrs witnessed to this by shedding their blood for their faith. We, too, can imitate their example even in different circumstances and ways.

Let us think, for example, of the price that good parents must pay if they want to educate their children according to sound principles. Eventually they will have to say “no” and correct their children; this will cause them pain. The same is true for a teacher who desires to form students properly, or for a professional, religious, or politician, who desires to carry out their mission honestly. It is true for anyone who strives to exercise his or her responsibilities consistently according to the teachings of the Gospel.

In this regard, Saint Ignatius of Antioch, while travelling toward Rome to undergo martyrdom, wrote to the Christians of that city: “I do not want you to please men, but to please God” (Letter to the Romans 2:1). He added, “It is better for me to die in Jesus Christ than reign over the ends of the earth” (ibid., 6:1).

Brothers and sisters, let us together ask Mary, Queen of Martyrs, to help us be faithful and courageous witnesses of her Son in every circumstance, and to sustain our brothers and sisters who suffer for the faith today.

Many Catholics cannot remember when they last heard this sort of call to heroic fidelity, this sort of challenge to re-orient their lives through ongoing service to Christ.

Other instances

On the same day, in his homily at Mass before dining with 110 poor and homeless persons, Pope Leo warned: “Let us not leave the Lord outside of our churches, our homes or our lives.” The next day, in a telegram to the bishops of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon, Cardinal Parolin sent the following message from Pope Leo:

[The Pope] invites you to keep in mind three dimensions that are interconnected in the pastoral work of that region: The mission of the Church to proclaim the Gospel to all, the just treatment of the peoples who dwell there, and the care of the common home.

It is necessary that Jesus Christ, in whom all things are recapitulated, be announced with clarity and immense charity among the inhabitants of the Amazon, so that we may strive to give them fresh and pure the bread of the good news and the heavenly food of the Eucharist, the only means to truly be the people of God and the Body of Christ.

In this mission, we are moved by the certainty, confirmed by the history of the Church, that wherever the name of Christ is preached, injustice recedes proportionally…so that no one irresponsibly destroys the natural goods that speak of the goodness and beauty of the creator…since things have been given to us in order to attain our end of praising God and thus obtaining the salvation of our souls.

Then on August 20th, the Pope offered a catechesis on John 13:2, “He loved them to the end”, in which Leo considered what it meant when, at the Last Supper, Our Lord shared his bread with Judas, His betrayer: “Jesus, with the simple gesture of offering bread, shows that every betrayal can become an opportunity for salvation, if it is chosen as a space for greater love. It does not give in to evil, but conquers it with good, preventing it from extinguishing what is truest in us: the capacity to love.”

What is already evident in this new pontificate is that Pope Leo does not trust in human strategies but in the person of Jesus Christ—and in a Church united to Christ, that is, the very Mystical Body of Christ. He is not interested in imposing specific operational methodologies. He is not drawn to artificial implementations of comprehensive human plans. He wants us to unite ourselves with Jesus Christ—intellectually, morally, sacramentally and sacrificially. Thus far, at least, this appears to be Pope Leo’s first principle for both our salvation and the renewal of the Catholic Church.