Pope Leo XIV faces a daunting challenge

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | May 09, 2025

At morning Mass yesterday (Thursday, that is), the priest mentioned that we are (were) a Church without a Pope, and we felt a certain something missing, something different.

Yes and No. For sure I was conscious that we were “missing” a Pope, and anxiously awaiting the result of the conclave that had just begun. But different? We were at Mass, as we had been the morning before, and the morning before that, and for months stretching back through years. The church was still open for business, the sacraments available, the lives of the faithful going on in their similar patterns. What was different, really?

Several generations ago, our Catholic forbears probably wouldn’t even have heard about a Pope’s death until after the new Pontiff was in place. Were their spiritual lives damaged by their ignorance? Of course not. No more than the lives of countless saints and martyrs over the centuries were less glorious because they never knew the name of the Roman Pontiff. The Church goes about its business—celebrating the Holy Sacrifice, offering prayers, preaching the Gospel, baptizing and absolving and ordaining and burying—even during the sede vacante period.

Do not misunderstand; I am not suggesting that the role of the Pope is unnecessary to the life of the Church. I understand the theological arguments. We need a Sovereign Pontiff as the source of unity (and not of division) among the faithful and especially among the bishops. We need a Successor to Peter who can settle disputes and heal divisions (not precipitate them). In the long run we definitely need a Pope. But on that Thursday morning, there were no disputes or divisions within our little congregations; we could worship together—be in communion—without immediate help from Rome.

This morning, Friday morning, in the same little chapel, a different priest remarked that nothing much had changed, at least on the surface of things, with the election of Pope Leo XIV. The monks continued to chant the Divine Office at the appointed hours. The same congregation gathered for the morning Mass. From a distant perspective an observer might have agreed that nothing had changed.

Something had changed, of course: our attitudes, our expectations, our worries, the focus of our prayers. On Thursday the atmosphere had been electric with tension. On Friday morning some apprehension remained—we still don’t know what to expect—but was submerged beneath feelings of relief and of joy. The Catholic world rejoices at the election of a new Pope, even before getting to know him. The crowd in St. Peter’s Square applauds the announcement—Habemus papam!—without waiting to hear the new Pontiff’s name.

Imagine that a new Pope were to hunker down in the apostolic palace and lead the universal Church in silence. Imagine that he gave simple catechetical talks at weekly audiences, and met with dignitaries, and celebrated Mass and ordained bishops and gave blessings, but otherwise let the machinery of the Church run by itself. Imagine that he wrote no encyclicals, launched no major reforms, gave no interviews, made no major diplomatic initiatives, took no apostolic voyages. Would that Pope be derelict in his duties? Maybe not; maybe that quiet leadership would serve the cause of Christian unity better than activism.

Pope Leo XIV does not have that luxury, however. He takes the helm of Peter’s barque at a time when the worldwide Church is wracked by divisions and by scandals, when the Vatican is facing a mammoth financial crisis, when the world at large suffers from a far more deadly crisis of faith. The newly elected Pontiff showed his grasp of the situation in the first homily of his pontificate, on Friday morning, preaching to a congregation of the cardinals who had elected him:

A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.

Today, too, there are many settings in which Jesus, although appreciated as a man, is reduced to a kind of charismatic leader or superman. This is true not only among non-believers but also among many baptized Christians, who thus end up living, at this level, in a state of practical atheism.

Our new Holy Father has lived as a missionary, dedicating his life to the spread of the Gospel. He is not likely to disappear into a passive occupation of the apostolic palace. But he is, reportedly, planning to live in the apostolic palace, in the traditional papal apartment. Countless Catholics were relieved to see that when he appeared on the loggia of St. Peter’s basilica he was wearing the mozzetta, signaling that he was not anxious to discard the symbols of the papal office—that he recognized the importance of honoring the traditions, large and small, that hold the faithful in unity.

His task will not be easy. He faces serious challenges already, and they will only multiply as he settles in to his work. Unlike his predecessors of past centuries, he will labor under the spotlight of international scrutiny. He will be asked to cope with the restless expectations of one part of his flock and the nervous fears of others. Pope John XXIII once observed that he was expected to act as the Pope both for Catholics with their feet on the gas, and for Catholics with their feet on the brake, at the same time. Pope Leo faces the same challenge, at a time of even deeper divisions. His role is to unify the faithful: no easy task today. It is not the mozzetta that weighs heavy on his shoulders. Pray for him.